Living a full and busy life can keep couples from the realisation that their own goals have changed, and they might suddenly find they are drifting apart. It does not have to signify the end of the relationship, and many couples find new depths to their relationship as they work out their issues. These are the lucky ones because many partners have found that leaving is the easiest solution. Giving up on a relationship can hurt more than the struggle to keep it alive, and regret could follow both partners as they struggle to find someone new.
The pace of life may be hectic, but the drifting in a relationship is often a slow but steady movement away from each other. It can be due to changes at work, or it could be part of the comfort level a couple feels. Once person might believe their partner finds something unacceptable. It could have been true at the beginning of a relationship, but time has mellowed that person’s outlook. Without knowing it, the person making the assumption about their partner’s feelings is mistaken, and it can cause irritation or a sudden flare of anger.
Couples splitting up due to drifting apart might not be as far from each other as they think, but it is often a sudden flare of anger that precipitates their breakup. The daily building of resentments and misunderstandings could be eating away at one of them, but their partner fails to notice. When it builds enough to boil over, a full barrage is what hits the other person.
Repairing the damage from a split of this nature can be difficult for both people. If they did not try to repair the damage to their relationship, they might still be wondering where they went wrong. Any person with unresolved issues in a former relationship can find it difficult to muster the courage to find a new partner.