Counselling -

What Causes a Relationship Breakdown

and How to Avoid It

Most people who commit to marriage do it with the intention of the marriage lasting. They have high hopes and both desire a long and happy life together. They start out with the best intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions aren’t sufficient to build a happy home, a good solid marriage. Modern relationships are fraught with breakdown and most people are at a loss to explain the primary reasons why. Plenty of speculation exists regarding a lack of love or commitment as being the primary sources for what causes relationship breakdown. Although these can both be contributing factors, I don’t believe they constitute the foundational problems modern couples face.

So, what causes a relationship breakdown?

Relationship breakdown occurs most often because one or both of the partners don’t have the skills to make the relationship work harmoniously.

It’s normal to get training for all kinds of things throughout our lives. Whether it’s riding a bike, learning how to swim or taking courses to earn a diploma or degree, we consider education in these areas of our lives to be normal and healthy.

Imagine for a moment that you are in need of a job and I have agreed to help you find one. I call you up one day to tell you I know of a place that is hiring in the accounting department and you should go apply. I will put a good word in for you. You proceed to tell me that you don’t know much about accounting and have no training for it. I tell you not to worry, just go and apply. Now, let’s assume that due to some miracle you got the job, what’s the likelihood of you succeeding at it? What’s the probability of your employer being happy with your productivity?

Strangely enough though, when it comes to marriage, which is one of the most challenging and simultaneously rewarding of relationships, the majority of people have little or no training.

It’s also common for people to feel a sense of embarrassment and shame for their relationship troubles. This sense of embarrassment prevents countless numbers of people from getting the help they need, from learning new skills that could help them improve their situation dramatically. If people don’t feel embarrassed about asking for help with their car repairs, their taxes or the fixing of a leaky roof, why should they feel bad about seeking help for relationship problems?

What makes matters even worse, is that most people’s primary reference point for how marriage should be lived out comes from their parents, yet how many people really want a relationship like their parents?

Do want a relationship like your parent’s? If yes, you’re in the extreme minority and one of the very fortunate ones.

The skills necessary to have a good relationship are learnable, just like other skills you’ve learned up to this point in your life. The biggest challenge people face is the desire for a quick fix. “I want it now!”

If you can be patient with yourself and stick with the learning process, you can enjoy a quality of relationship far beyond anything you’ve experienced in the past. The question then is…how badly do you want it?

Secondly, the breakdowns go from temporary to permanent when one or both of the partners are unwilling to learn new ways of relating, ways they aren’t currently aware of, that may seem very uncomfortable at first, but could help the relationship to grow and thrive.

There’s an old saying that “it takes two.” I believe when it comes to a relationship breakdown it only takes one. It takes two to make a relationship work and only one to kill it. If one of the people in the dating or marriage relationship is unwilling to learn and expand their knowledge base, then they are in effect, holding the other person hostage.

The good news is these people are rarely acting this way in order to cause intentional harm to their partner. The primary reason for their stubborn refusal to learn is fear. They are fearful of looking weak or incompetent. They have bought into a lie. They feel that without training they should magically know how to make life with the opposite sex run smoothly.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s OK to ask for help with fixing a car, a roof or with one’s taxes, but many people see it as unacceptable to seek help with the most emotionally charged relationship they’ll ever have: marriage.

If cars that are broken don’t magically fix themselves, why should marriages?