Rough Patches: How To Know If It’s Temporary Or A Sign Of The End

Things between you and your guy have always been wonderful. You felt connected to him quickly – almost like you didn’t even have to try to feel close to him. He was always thoughtful and sweet and loving with you, making you feel like you won the boyfriend lottery when you compared your relationship to your friends’ romances that were fraught with toxicity and red flags. You’ve never had any doubt that, in the grand scheme of things, your relationship was one of the good ones.

That is, up until recently. Over the past few weeks, or even months, you’ve felt more distance between you and him than ever before. But it’s not just the distance that’s setting off alarm bells in your head – it’s also the kind of interactions you’ve been having. They’re less loving and more resentful, less sweet and more stony. They aren’t like you guys, and yet it seems like they’ve become the new norm. You’ve been fighting more than you cuddle, and it’s been a while since you’ve laughed or been on a real date.

You’ve tried to comfort yourself by telling yourself you guys are just in a rough patch, that every couple goes through a challenging period at some point, that you’re bound to get back to where you were in no time. But the question niggles at the back of your mind: What if this isn’t just a rough patch but a sign of the end to come? What if your relationship isn’t going to bounce back? What if this is just the start of a long, painful breakup?

The differences between a rough patch and the beginning of the end aren’t always easy to spot because a lot of the symptoms look the same – annoyance and frustration with one another, emotional distance, nonexistent physical contact. So, how can you tell if the changes you’re noticing in your relationship can be attributed to a tough time or the twilight of your relationship?

Normal: Getting Busy/Overwhelmed with Life

The beginning of most relationships have this in common: You always have time for each other. In fact, you bend over backwards to make time to be together, even sacrificing some of your other relationships or responsibilities. All you want to do is be together, and all you can think about when you leave him is when you get to see him next. Then, you start to remember that you had a life before this love. 

As a relationship becomes more and more a part of our lives, we begin to see it as something to fit into our lives rather than something we revolve our schedule around. This is actually a healthy thing, but it's possible to have a little too much of a good thing. Getting busy and overwhelmed with the demands of life, even though it's normal from time to time, can cause us to emotionally check out of our relationship and make it so that we have no idea what's going on in the other person's life. 

Passivity can cause more damage than we might think. Taking a back seat in a relationship naturally creates a rough patch because we aren't attuned to the other person's needs anymore and forget that the relationship is something we have to keep investing in in order to keep it alive.

Not Normal: Preferring Time Away from Each Other

It's understandable to get overwhelmed with a hectic schedule and feel distant from your boyfriend for a season, but it's not normal to secretly prefer having a schedule that doesn't allow you to see him as much as you used to. If you've noticed that you actually don't mind spending the majority of your time apart and don't find yourself missing him, randomly thinking of him throughout the day, or counting down the days until your schedule allows more time for him, this could be a sign that the end isn’t far off.

Normal: Kissing Less

In the early days of a romance, everything is brand new. You've never held hands before, never kissed, never cuddled. It's exhilarating to experience all of this for the first time with someone you're slowly falling for. But as anyone who's ever been in a relationship knows, the things that once held so much first-time magic become part of your norm. You lose count of how many times you've kissed. You don’t get sweaty palms like you used to. 

And sometimes, though not for all couples, this means having seasons during which physical touch is less frequent. Maybe you find yourself sitting further apart on the couch than you ever did before, or it's been a while since you've held hands or embraced. It's typical, as the excitement and novelty wear off, to taper down somewhat on physical touch – this doesn't have to mean that you can't ever recover some of that magic.

Not Normal: Never Kissing

But what if you can't even remember the last time you kissed – including small pecks? What if brushing hands results in both of you awkwardly shifting away from each other rather than giggling? What if, at this point, any kind of physical contact totally goes against the norm for you two? And what if, worst of all, this doesn't exactly bother you, if you’ve really noticed at all? Having no physicality with one another, nor any desire to change that, often acts as the death rattle of a relationship. As soon as you don't just have a decline in physical contact but don't even want physical contact, it's time to worry.

Normal: Getting On Each Other’s Nerves

There was a time when this person could do no wrong – when everything he did was either the cutest thing in the world or easy enough for you to excuse. But not everything can remain all butterflies and rainbows and sunshine. You're bound to get on each other's nerves eventually – sometimes more often than others. 

When your friends brag about how they "never" fight with their boyfriend, of course, you might feel self-conscious about the season you've found yourselves in, where it seems like you're at odds more often than you're not. Not only is it entirely natural for two imperfect people to have disagreements, but it's hardly a sign that the relationship is on the way out if you begin to have more arguments than usual. Sometimes, having fights can mean that both people are at least still invested in the connection, provided they don't turn abusive. Going through a time of heightened disagreements can mean that one or both of you aren't communicating or listening well.

Not Normal: Feeling Contempt

Maybe your disagreements have caused your attitude towards your boyfriend to go a step further than mere annoyance or frustration. Maybe you've begun to feel contempt – feelings of disgust, disdain, or disregard – for the other. According to the Gottman Institute, contempt is one of the "four horsemen" that symbolize the death of a relationship because it indicates the crumbling of a relationship's foundation of love, respect, and care. If these things are no longer present, there's nothing left for it to stand on.

Normal: Communicating Poorly

Most of us probably overestimate our ability to communicate eloquently and healthily. Despite the fact that we are constantly communicating through our body language, tone of voice, and choice of words, it's not uncommon to still communicate poorly with the people we love most. 

You might not always grasp how you're coming off to him, or may not know how to express that you're actually irritated because it's been a long day of mishaps and not because your boyfriend forgot to order an extra side of dressing. Often enough, a rough patch can be attributed to simple yet potent communication breakdowns that cause you both to feel like you're suddenly on different wavelengths.

Not Normal: Not Caring About Your Communication

Poor communication is (unfortunately) par for the course, but what isn't normal in a healthy relationship is a lack of concern for problems in your communication. That is, no drive to uncover and address the misalignment to get back on track. Knowing that these communication issues exist and having zero motivation to change that, no matter how difficult, is a sure sign that your devotion to the relationship has fizzled out.

However choppy a rough patch might get, if the desire to make it out on the other side is still present in both people, then there's a good chance that the relationship can and will survive. This requires motivation, commitment, and humility from both people, but for true love, it’s all worth it.