3 Signs Your Relationship Will End (and Helpful Solutions) Watching for signs can help prevent a relationships's demise.

3 Signs Your Relationship Will End (and Helpful Solutions)
Watching for signs can help prevent a relationships's demise.

Most relationships have expiration dates, just as every other ballad on the radio reminds us. A relationship unraveling is like a sinking ship, calling to mind the Annie Lennox lyric, "Why can't you see...this boat is sinking." The actual "end" of a relationship doesn't happen overnight but rather happens over time, a series of events in no perfect order, each leading to the same place: the sad and lonely end of another relationship. When relationships end, it brings one of the most difficult experiences that people have to deal with in their lives. If you are in a relationship that may be ending, I wish you clarity and insight above all else.

You stop asking about how your partner's day went.

Sure, there are exceptions to this rule. If you're married with a screaming baby, you are just surviving. But couples whose relationships are ending know what I'm talking about. Once you stop caring at all how that person's day was, you have lost all interest in each other and you simply don't care enough about that person anymore to make the relationship last over the long term. Not caring about your partner's day, keep in mind, is different from still caring about the person but not asking about his or her day because you're angry and you've shut yourself off to that person temporarily.

Solution: If you've been unhappy for a while, it's time to have a heart-to-heart with your partner in which you state the needs you have that are not getting met in the relationship. Ask your partner if he or she is happy, and you should share your feelings, too. Ask if he or she is willing to make some changes to improve the relationship, and use very specific examples. If both of you are not willing to make the changes the other asks for, you should have an honest discussion about whether it is time to start planning to end the relationship.

You or your partner keeps pushing for sex, but the other has no interest or simply won't do it.

Many marriages - a lot more than most married folks want to admit - survive without regular or frequent sex. Usually, though, the one who wants more sex reaches one of two points: the individual starts cheating, or the individual finds a way mentally to accept the sacrifice, thereby avoiding the need to start cheating. But if one of you keeps pressing for sex, the relationship is going to suffer via endless conflicts and tension, and it will often lead to the end of a relationship.

Solution: Sex is a tricky, high-voltage issue in relationships, one that taps into primitive and strong feelings, and which often creates arguments or resentments that are too big for a couple to handle. If the problem in your relationship is sexual and you really want to make the relationship work, seriously consider going to meet with a therapist who does couples therapy, at least for a session or two. I find that only outside counsel can help couples mediate this complex and sensitive issue.

The two of you have already experienced an impulsive breakup, only to get back together soon after.

In working with hundreds of couples over the years, I found anecdotally that someone who initiates an impulsive breakup, despite getting back together the next day or month or whatever, was responding to a gut-level, instinctive wish to break free from the relationship. In other words, that individual had a primitive sense that the relationship either wouldn't meet their needs or would be dangerous by subjecting them to unnecessary hurt. So, even when this couple gets back together, the original feelings that caused the impulsive breakup the first time are still there, bubbling under the surface. For many of these relationships, getting back together merely postpones the inevitable, but the clock continues to tick toward the relationship's inevitable expiration date.

Solution: Once you've gotten back together, ask yourself if you are happy and at peace overall