Hello, Darkness My Old Friend

5 reasons a relationship can end after moving in together.

1. Misplaced Expectations and Unwelcome Surprises

"We may often invest in someone who later is less desirable then they originally appeared." (Dr. Lucas, 1/24 Class Notes) Many couples in this generation try to take the next step in their relationship before marriage and it doesn't work as people expected. CNN did an article explaining why moving in together can kill your relationship and they broke down the things that can cause it, "Red Flags, Assumptions, deciding who wears the pants, negotiating needs not positions, avoiding the tunnel vision of love." (CNN). These things all fall inside of having different expectations and being surprised. There are two ways we learn this information : 1. Undesired information 2. Unfortunate surprises.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2012/02/23/living/moving-in-hazardous-relationship/index.html

2. Threat of Exclusion

"When they try to keep others from falling out of love with them, people may behave less effectively than they do when they get those others to fall in love with them in the first place." (p.21) When living with your significant other, it can become difficult to see them do something without you. After going through the honeymoon stages of living with your SO, you start wanting to do things without them like hanging with friends, etc. That can cause the SO to become jealousy or paranoid that the relationship is going downhill.

3. Interdependency Ups the Ante

This happens when you spend more time on your romantic relationship than you do with your others. This can affect the living arraignment because after being around your significant other you eventually grow a little tired of each other and might want to see or hang with friends, but if you cut off your friends because of the relationship, you might find it hard to go back to them. i had a best friend when I was younger who would disappear or stop talking to friends when she was in a relationship. She would always find it hard to vent to people when she was having problems because she abandoned her friends and lost contact with them.

4. Reduced Effort

"The time we spend trying to please and impress our partner also has an expiration date. Relationship maintenance takes work." (Dr.Lucas, 1/24 Notes) If you or your significant other lose the energy to continue effort in the relationship it can cause major conflicts. According to Prevention.com, they say that reduced efforts that can cause problems in your relationship are: Lack of empathy, losing interest in one another, too much drama, no big emotions are expressed, there's not a lot of touching going on, conflicts including criticisms and contempt, and lacking trust.

Source: https://www.prevention.com/sex/how-to-diagnose-a-bad-relationship/slide/9

5. Erosion of Novelty

In every relationship eventually the honeymoon phase fades out. "We are infatuated with falling in love, but novelty has an expiration date." (Dr.Lucas, 1/24 Notes) After you move in and everything is going great, eventually the spark is gone and it's expected for you and your significant other to keep the magic going. My cousin was in a relationship for four years, they moved in together after two years. After the third year, they started losing chemistry and the spark and glow in their relationship was gone and eventually they had to decide how they were going to handle the lease that they both signed.