Have you had a relationship that ended by “drifting apart”

[AllBiMyself]

In all my past relationships ended because of some definite factor or event. So I’m curious as what “drifting apart” looks like.

Has anyone been dumped after a slow starvation of a relationship - or even been the one to slowly withdraw? I keep hearing people say “we drifted apart” but what does that actually mean? Is there usually someone else involved?

My ex husband tells people we split because we drifted apart…he actually had an affair for over a year! I’m pretty sure that in his own mind “drifted apart” justifies his affair. Technically we did drift apart, but that was because he was treating me like shit, as people often do when they are cheating, and I didn’t know what was going on.

I’ve no doubt there are couples who genuinely drift apart but if a man told me this I’d be suspicious that there was something else at play.

It never actually got that far but I think DP and I got close a few years ago.

DD started comp just as COVID hit, so was in year 9 when all the restrictions properly lifted. Suddenly she was out all the time with her mates, making up for lost time. And we kind of did the same, as suddenly we had a lot more free time, and no restrictions.

We both started new hobbies, separately, and saw our friends separately. Even at home we tended to do our own stuff, I think we'd just got so sick of watching TV together through lockdown.

After about a year of this, we kind of lost the ability to talk to each other properly. Not about important stuff or logistics or DD, but just the usual chit chat of our days.

Luckily, we had a few days away booked in, for a gig that had been cancelled during COVID. We went, and both realised how much we enjoyed each others company, and how much we missed each other. We started making proper time together after that, and it fixed things.

But I do wonder if it wasn't for that gig, what would have happened. Would there have been something else to act as that jump-start, or would inertia just have kept dragging us in opposite directions until there was no relationship left.

I had a relationship where we drifted apart and sort of drifted in different directions. We were engaged, owned a house and had been together for about 4 years. I was mid 20s he was 5 years older. We had a very good relationship and i thought we'd be together for ever but we just sort of drifted in different directions.

We really tried to sort it out but nothing worked. I guess the relationship had maybe reached its natural end but at the time (30 years ago), I was heart broken and it's still up there with one of the very worst times of my life.

I've been married to my dh for almost 25 years now and in that time my ex has contacted me twice out of the blue so I think it really affected him too.

I've never met up with him because I love my dh and I think its better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Sort of. We just stopped making each other happy any more and probably more importantly, both lost the motivation to care about doing something about it. I suspect it would have ended with a definitive “event” had I not been unexpectedly offered and taken a job at the other end of the country and us then realising the relationship wasn’t going to survive distance and had come to a natural end - ultimately I suspect that’s why many relationships do end with a bang because the bang is the result of so many small cumulative things which lead to a couple drifting apart and eventually result in an enormous explosive argument or cheating or one person just reaching the end of their tether and calling it.