There is this satisfying moment when you meet someone for the first time and there couldn’t be anything that could go wrong. It seems the universe and all the stars in the sky aligned in a straight line for you both to meet. The harsh reality clocks in much later and you realise you guys were just two ends of the like side of magnets. Then the inevitable happens: break-up. Why?

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Here are the ten most common reasons why most people are likely to call it quits in a relationship.

Unfaithfulness. This is the most common reason most end relationships. And rightly so as most times, a relationship cannot survive without mutual love and trust. In a monogamous society, those two elements are the foundation for a meaningful relationship. When a spouse is caught in infidelity, it takes a harsh blow on the relationship both emotionally and otherwise. One of the most common reasons for broken marriages is unfaithfulness, according to statistics. If there is so much infidelity in marriages, how much more non-marital, monogamous relationships. It is bound to be even larger where the legal and family ties of a marriage are absent.

 

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Sex and intimacy. No matter how we try to deny it, sex is a vital part of a relationship – maybe not the intercourse on its own but the physical intimacy. Physical intimacy is what binds two people together in a romantic sense, setting them apart from regular friends. For serious and long-term relationships like marriage, the quality of sexual satisfaction can be a reliable indicator as to the health of the relationship. Lack of sexual and physical intimacy in a relationship can, for a fact, lead to the end of it especially if both are already active. Because it not only involves the physical attributes but also other aspects such as emotions, senses, hormones, perceptions, etc. Sexual incompatibility most likely leads to a break-up.

Finance. Finance is ironically a deal breaker when it comes to relationships. While others have a degree in tolerance, most don’t and that is the majority. In addition to sex and infidelity, issues surrounding money make the list of relationship breakers. Money may either be used against the relationship as a dominating tool or satisfy a thirsty ego. Little of it can cause anxiety with the onset of bills and too much of it can lead to inflated egos and bond breaking. Money causes most of couple arguments depending on priorities. While he’s thinking of that new sports whip, she feels the money is better spent on a long vacation to an exotic location.

Another evil of finance in a relationship is that the partner who controls the purse strings assumes that he or she can control the relationship. Although there is a sense of independence on the women’s part in today’s time as opposed to how things were when the men were the ones handling any financial case, the old mindset can still spell trouble in a relationship and lead to imbalance of power. Worse, when money is used as a bartering counter. If one feels that any of his/her needs as a partner, like greater intimacy, are not being met within a relationship, he/she may be prone to using the lure of money or expensive gifts to get what he/she want. After the first few times, this will only make the other partner feel cheap about the relationship besides leaving the underlying issues unresolved, inevitably leading to a breakup.

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Monotony. When two people fall in love with each other and start a relationship, the expectation is that the honeymoon period will last forever. Reality sets in sooner than expected and before you know it, a routine is set and both parties get comfortable in it as the relationship grows and they get used to each other. Then little by little things start to disseminate, initial love sparks are gone and gradually the couple starts to drift apart. Common activities aren’t being done anymore and boredom sets in. Before you know it, break-up eventually happens because the couple grew apart. This can also result to one party seeing other people even while in the relationship.

Not smart enough. A lot of people claim these days to be sapiosexual. Truthfully that is the best thing that can happen to an averagely smart person in a relationship. But often times, this isn’t obtainable. Lack of intellectual compatibility could be to an extent the course of a breakup. I know this because I have had a personal experience. There is nothing as good as having someone who connects with you on an intellectual level; who you can come back to and have meaningful and intellectual conversations with. Not having such partner if you are sapiosexual taunts a relationship. Communication between both partners would be difficult to have thereby leading to a gap in the relationship and then later a breakup, because you both can’t connect.

Cultural differences. It is not unheard of that most families have cultural reservations for their children. It could be either tribalistic or zonal. Most people I know take the risk of dating someone not from their tribe or who doesn’t share the same cultural disposition with them and end up having to break up eventually after the long term relationship. You would recall the lady who had to elope and convert to her fiancé’s religion just to be with him but was eventually caught and made to end the relationship. Globalisation so far has done nothing to change this mindset. Instead it keeps bringing together different people and cultures closer than ever before. Some other cultural differences that can mar relationships are culinary habits, religious practices, child rearing and the role of women.

NFA. Also known as ‘No Future Ambition’, is another reason people break up and it comes from both angles of men and women. Most times, most people are in relationships with no purpose for life and the relationship itself. They just plunge because it seemed like the ideal thing to do or simply out of persuasion from a partner mostly due to reasons such as an active sexual relationship.

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