Romantic relationships can end years after point of no return, study finds

In this file photo, an unidentified couple shelters against the rain with an umbrella at Galata bridge in Istanbul, Turkiye, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

It’s common wisdom that relationships can linger after the spark is lost, but a new study has found that the point of no return can come years before those relationships end.

Published Thursday in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the study examined decades of data on relationship satisfaction from the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, including thousands of people who had gone through a separation or breakup.

Co-authors Janina Bühler and Ulrich Orth focused their attention not just on relationships from their beginnings onward, but rather working backward from their endings, in order to better understand the decline.

By tracking reported satisfaction throughout the life and death of the relationships, the study found that while partnerships generally experienced a gradual decline in the first decade or so, those that ended typically saw an accelerating drop-off in happiness starting roughly one to two years before they collapsed, what the authors call the “terminal phase.”

“From this transition point onwards, there is a rapid deterioration in relationship satisfaction. Couples in question then move towards separation,” said Bühler, a couples therapist outside of her research work, in a press release.

Those who initiated the breakup were generally observed to show signs of dissatisfaction earlier, the release says, but those who we were broken up with saw a steeper decline that began later on, closer to separation.

The researchers note that this terminal phase can last anywhere from 7 to 28 months, and because the faster decline was apparent only among couples that did ultimately break up, it appears to signal a point of no return for the relationship.

“Once this terminal phase is reached,” Bühler says, “the relationship is doomed to come to an end.”

They also note that while some couples take steps to repair the relationship, it appears in many cases that those who do so after the terminal phase begins are too late to change the outcome.

“It is thus important to be aware of these relationship patterns,” said Bühler. “Initiating measures in the preterminal phase of a relationship … before it begins to go rapidly downhill, may thus be more effective and even contribute to preserving the relationship.”