Every relationship has its ups and downs, but if the downs are starting to add up, you may be growing apart. Here are 20 signs that you’re drifting away.
When you meet someone for the first time and fall in love with them,
it’s difficult to envision anything coming between you. At this initial
stage, of course, you’re seeing each other through rose-colored
glasses—nothing can diminish your love. When the relationship then
becomes more serious and you move in together, however, those dreamy
glasses tend to come off, revealing sudden and sometimes surprising
flaws in your relationship.
Throw life’s mundane responsibilities into the mix, such as bills and
shared household duties, and what was once a bright and sparkling
romance can seem a very drab and lifeless alternative. It is almost
inevitable, then, that this will result in a feeling of drifting apart.
The signs might be fairly few, minor, and fixable, or you may have
reached a stage where the fight to get back to normality is a very
difficult one, indeed.
20 warning signs you’re growing apart
The following list varies in severity, and the more you can identify
in your own relationship, the more serious of a warning sign it might
be. Whether you use this information to try to work at making things
better or to simply cut your losses and walk away, well… that’s entirely
up to you.
#1 Snappy chat. Constant bickering can be a sign
that you’re starting to drift apart, although it is also common in the
initial period of living together, when you’re both trying to set
boundaries. Either way, it needs to be dealt with before it becomes
something more serious and can no longer be fixed.
#2 The silent treatment. If the bickering is
replaced by resentful silence, then this really is serious. What’s
usually going on behind that silence is that the partner in question has
resigned themselves to the idea that the relationship is coming to an
end, which can be a very difficult mindset to correct.
#3 Hands off. Has a once tactile and touchy-feely
relationship become hands-off? This is another sure sign of a
relationship where two people are growing apart.
#4 Worlds apart. Another sign that you’re both
growing apart is that you share very few interests, with your spare time
spent primarily in pursuit of activities that don’t include each other.
#5 A couple that laughs together. Laughter really is
the best medicine, and if you share a sense of humor, it’s much easier
to diffuse life’s worries and woes. If laughter is something you no
longer share with your partner, however, then how can the two of you
expect to get through the tough times together?
#6 It’s all in the timing. If you find that your sex
drives are out of sync, one wanting it when the other doesn’t and vice
versa, then this is because you are simply responding to your biological
rhythms and have stopped responding to each other. Not a very positive
sign, but one that can be corrected with a little effort.
#7 Getting your priorities straight. Are you
suddenly finding that staying in the relationship is no longer as
significant a priority as other goals you have? If so, you have already
grown quite far apart, and you really need to sit down with your partner
and work out whether or not there is still a point in carrying on.
#8 Family feuds. If one of you has stopped making an
effort to maintain a relationship with the other’s family, it’s because
that person is subconsciously indicating that they no longer see them
as a part of their future.
#9 Going for goal. When you first get together with
someone, you often find your future goals and aims to be in tandem. If
they have started to diverge, however, then it’s likely that your
relationship has, too.
#10 Hitting the board. Emotionally close partners
come home after a day’s work and springboard off each other with ideas,
grievances, emotions, and whatever else. No longer doing so is another
definite sign of growing apart.
#11 What’s on your mind? It’s natural to have
occasional sexual thoughts about others. If you have thoughts about
everyone except your other half, however, then the future doesn’t look
very bright for either of you.
#12 Selective hearing. Genuinely listening to
someone shows you have respect for and interest in what they have to
say. If not, well… it doesn’t take a genius to realize that things have
gone sadly awry.
#13 Bringing up the past. Another sign that you’re
growing apart is when one or both of you keep bringing up hurtful events
from the past. It shows that the negatives of the relationship are
being dwelled upon and that at least one of you is questioning the
relationship’s viability.
#14 Half a person. If one of you feels like you are
compromising too much to be in your relationship, then things are not
developing into a healthy relationship, and this tip in the scales isn’t
likely to change.
#15 Different strokes. Differences of opinion are
natural. What’s not natural is a complete inability to talk over
differences constructively and without fighting. Such a lack of
compromise shows that all is not well with your relationship.
#16 Anchor weight. Does the presence of your partner
often feel less like a weight off your shoulders and more like an
anchor around your neck? This shows that one of you is in need of more
contact than the other, and that is clearly a sign of a deteriorating
and unbalanced relationship.
#17 Itchy feet. If everything your partner says
irritates you beyond reason, then you may have already grown apart so
much that staying together is no longer an option. A break from each
other, at the least, would seem to be in order.
#18 Bleak house. When you think about the future in
general, does it seem bleak and uninspiring? This may be because on a
subconscious level, you have already identified the fact that you’re
growing apart, and therefore can’t find anything exciting or inspiring
about a joined future.
#19 Encouraging signs. Another sign of growing apart
is when a partner who used to encourage your ambitions and passions
suddenly goes quiet, leaving you feeling cut adrift. This is a
passive-aggressive way of telling you that they just don’t care anymore.
#20 The words don’t work. If you’ve already
identified that you no longer mean it when you say you love them, then
you don’t need anyone else to tell you that you have already grown
apart. All that’s left to do now is to sit down and decide whether
everything else you have with that person is worth sticking around for.
Even if there are multiple signs that you
are growing apart, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship is
over, but it does mean that you must do something about it *and fast* if
you are to salvage what’s left.
