The Surprising Reason Long-Term Relationships Fall Apart (and How to Prevent It)
· Vice
Most relationships don’t end with a slamming door. Sometimes they end on a random night, with two people sitting ten feet apart and realizing they haven’t had a real conversation in weeks. That’s the one that gets far less attention.
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Midlife seems to be when many people start looking at their relationships a little differently. A 2026 Body+Soul Sex Census found that more than two-thirds of Australians think people regularly reassess their relationships during this stage of life. Seventy-seven percent of women and 69% of men also said personal growth can create distance between partners.
And when long-term relationships did end, the reasons were pretty ordinary: people felt less emotionally connected, communication got worse, or they simply grew apart. Cheating and major betrayals showed up further down the list.
There’s a fairly human reason for that. People change. The person you fell for at 28 isn’t going to be exactly the same at 48, and neither are you. New jobs happen. Parents get older. Kids leave home. Priorities change. Sometimes two people keep moving in the same general direction. Sometimes they look up years later and realize they’re not really talking anymore.
Sometimes nothing is obviously wrong. You still talk every day. You still make dinner plans, handle errands, deal with the kids, and remember who needs to call the plumber. But the conversation has changed. The jokes between you are fewer and far between, affection isn’t as automatic, and one day you have news and realize you called someone else first.
That last one can sneak up on you.
The Relationship Problem That Can Sneak Up on Couples After Years Together
Decades of research from John Gottman at the Gottman Institute found that connected couples keep responding to what he called “bids for connection,” those small attempts to get a partner’s attention or affection. In one well-known finding, couples who stayed happily together over six years responded positively to those bids 86% of the time. Couples who divorced did so only 33% of the time.
Most of those bids are incredibly mundane. “Come look at this.” “You’ll never believe what happened at work.” A hand on somebody’s shoulder while passing through the kitchen. The difference can come down to whether the other person looks up.
Staying connected usually comes down to small things that are easy to skip when life is busy. You talk about more than errands. You ask a question and actually care about the answer. You still know what your partner is obsessed with this week, what’s driving them crazy, and what they can’t stop thinking about.
Benjamin Watkins, director and principal therapist at Watkins Therapy Group, told Body+Soul, “Compatibility is not only something couples find at the beginning. It’s something they continue creating throughout the relationship.”
Which makes sense. You’re not dating the person you met 20 years ago forever. You’re dating every version of them that comes after.
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