Why Does a Good Relationship Fail?

There's not just one reason ...

The other day, I came across an online poll for ‘Human Behavior.’  One of the questions on the poll was,

“What is the top reason a good relationship stops working?”

Long after I finished the poll, the question stuck with me, like a crystal splinter I couldn’t dig out.  It was mainly because I don’t feel there IS only one top reason a relationship fails. A deal-breaker for me may not carry the same weight as it would for someone else.

I thought it might be interesting to tackle this question in a different way. To do that, I’m going to use an old New England witticism my grandmother needlepointed, framed, and hung in her kitchen above the sink:

I have no idea who wrote it, but I feel safe in saying it must have been written a long time ago by someone very wise. I would love to sit and chat with them.

Common sense tells me the witticism means pretty much what it says; however, if we take it line by line, it will go a long way to explain a bad relationship, too.

** Line One: “Use It Up”

When it was written, I’m sure it had to do with homemade lye soap, food, the deer dad shot, gutted, hung over his saddle and brought home, and maybe even maple syrup from the tap in the maple tree. Everything else I can think of would be perishable.

On first glance, you might think it has nothing to do with a relationship, but look closer. Use It Up can easily apply to a very bad relationship.

Let’s look at it like oil and water.  If we keep shaking the oil and water, like for a salad dressing, it’s okay, but it will only stay mixed as long as we‘re shaking it. Who the hell wants that kind of instability in a loving relationship? Emotionally, one would feel … used up.

** Line Two: “Wear it Out”

This line seems pretty clear. When it was written, it applied to clothes, shoes, pack mules, maybe even the Sears Roebuck catalog that only came once a year that everyone drooled over.

Can we compare this line with a relationship? Sure we can — it’s only too obvious. In a bad one, if you’re the only one working at it, you would feel totally, completely … worn out.

** Line Three: “Make it do”

When it was written, this line probably referred to mending old curtains, patching children's clothing and shoes, repairing an old handmade rag rug handed down from Great Aunt Gertie, maybe even the old mare they rode and sometimes hitched to the wagon to go into town.

“Hell, Mary, she's still a damn good mare and she gets us around.  'Course she's grown awful swayback, but hell’s afire, we can make ‘er do.”

Now, if we apply that same line and its logic to a relationship, it makes me mad. I don’t see a place in any relationship for make it do. Ever.

To my way of thinking, a relationship is like a bank account. Maybe that’s a poor analogy, but please bear with me ...

For a bank account to work, we have to put more into it than we take out. That way, we’ll always have a positive cash flow.

When we only withdraw money, over time the account dwindles and it will bottom out when there’s nothing left.

For a relationship to work, both parties have to be putting more into it than they take out. I realize there are times when only one party is able to contribute —I’ve allowed for that.

In a good relationship, the other party is still contributing their share and often even more, so in the long haul, the relationship works, because there is always more going into it than is being taken out —but you never, ever … make it do.

Of course, if you have an always-giver paired with an always-taker and the giver doesn’t mind, they could possibly feed each other’s needs. In a sad way, those relationships could work.

I had a similar relationship, once.  As the always-giver, I DID mind.  That just didn’t work for me. The make it do … wore me out and to stop feeling all used up, I chose to … 

** Line Four:  “Do Without.”

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
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