Quotes & Sayings About Why Relationships Fail

It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some instances, trauma, in the shape of early separation or bereavement, has steered the potentially creative person toward developing aspects of his personality which can find fulfillment in comparative isolation. But this does not mean that solitary, creative pursuits are themselves pathological ...
[A]voidance behavior is a response designed to protect the infant from behavioural disorganization. If we transfer this concept to adult life, we can see that an avoidant infant might very well develop into a person whose principal need was to find some kind of meaning and order in life which was not entirely, or even chiefly, dependent upon interpersonal relationships. — Anthony Storr

The true test of relationships is not only how loyal someone is when we fail, but how thrilled they are when we succeed. — John C. Maxwell

But if I lack respect for and enjoyment of who I am, I have very little to give - except my unfilled needs. In my emotional impoverishment, I tend to see other people essentially as sources of approval or disapproval. I do not appreciate them for who they are in their own right. I see only what they can or cannot do for me. I am not looking for people whom I can admire and with whom I can share the excitement and adventure of life. I am looking for people who will not condemn me - and perhaps will be impressed by my persona, the face I present to the world. My ability to love remains undeveloped. This is one of the reasons why attempts at relationships so often fail - not because the vision of passionate or romantic love is intrinsically irrational, but because the self-esteem needed to support it is absent. — Nathaniel Branden

Love is an afternoon of fishing when I'd sooner be at the ballet.
Love is eating burnt toast and lumpy graving with a big smile.
Love is hearing the words 'You're beautiful' as I fail to squeeze into my fat jeans.
Love is refusing to bring up the past, even if doing so would be a slam dunk to prove your point.
Love is your hand wiping away my tears, trying to erase streaks of mascara.
Love is the warm hug that extinguishes an argument.
Love is a humbly-uttered apology, even if not at fault.
Love is easy to recognize but so hard to define; however, I think it boils down to this ...
Love is caring so much about the feelings of someone else, you sacrifice whatever it takes to help him or her feel better.
In other words, love is my heart being sensitive to yours. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance? — Simon Pegg

Exemplar, n.
It's always something we have to negotiate- the face that my parents are happy, and yours have never been. I have something to live up to, and if I fail, I still have a family to welcome me home. You have a storyline to rewrite, and a lack of faith that it can ever be done.
You love my parents, I know. But you never get too close. You never truly believe there aren't bad secrets underneath. — David Levithan

Distance matters only when you fail to cover it through your mind — Munia Khan

If you can't build relationships from nothing, you will fail. You must have that drive. — Ben Parr

Love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining. — James Hillman

Why didn't my father get to give Mom the fairy tale? Why do most people fail to give each other the fairy tale? — Matthew Quick

Many people, observing religious conflict in the contemporary world, have become hostile to religion as such and regard it as a source of violence and intolerance.5 In a world of overlapping and plural religious environments, this can clearly be the case. But they fail to put religion in its broader historical context, where it was a critical factor in permitting broad social cooperation that transcended kin and friends as a source of social relationships. Moreover, secular ideologies like Marxism-Leninism or nationalism that have displaced religious beliefs in many contemporary societies can be and have been no less destructive due to the passionate beliefs that they engender. — Francis Fukuyama

When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice. — Brene Brown

When relationships fail it is usually because someone chooses not to show up for the battle. — Shannon L. Alder

Relationships based on dishonesty, lies,
Secrets and cheats R not only predicted
to fail but also a waste of precious time
and energie! U can't fool yourself 4ever! — Lily Amis

The reason most relationships fail isn't because we haven't found the right person. It's because we haven't found ourselves and we're hoping someone can fill that void for us. They can't. No one can. Self-love is and always will be a prerequisite to every happy romance. — Vironika Tugaleva

The truth is that we won't receive the support we need until we ask for it. Just because we can do it all doesn't mean we should. And when we don't speak up about our needs, we're asking our loved ones to read our minds - and then we resent them when they fail our test. By not being open and honest about the support we need, we're selling ourselves short and setting our relationships up for failure. — Jessica Ortner

Do they wish us well?
Or hope to see us fail? — Jillian Dodd

Shut up and listen. Research shows that people who interrupt are three times more likely to die of a heart attack than those who don't and that marital relationships usually fail because of too much communication, not too little. Couples who spend a lot of time being quiet together stay together. — Paul Pearsall

Failure is becoming someone who needs others to fail. — Alain De Botton

We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did - and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the mighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see each other again; perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us. — Roland Barthes

Life is like a test. If you get love right, you get everything else right. If you get love wrong, you fail the test. — Dr. Milan LaBrey

The reason why human beings fail to create real connections with others, is due to the fact that they are not first real within themselves. If you want your connection with another to be real, then you must first make sure that you are real in yourself, thus giving the other person a genuine ground to anchor into. People colour themselves different shades that do not match their own, and then they are surprised why they fail to create lasting relationships with other people! You must be the shade that you are, because the shades that you paint on will all wash off eventually, anyway. Be the shade that you are, and attract the people that like the real hue of you. — C. JoyBell C.

I think the reason why people's relationships fail, really, is due to the fact that people are always putting their best feet forward all the time and not letting others actually "meet" them. The "meeting" part tends to happen later on and it shocks and disappoints people who have already bought into the best that was put forward. Why not meet people first as who you really are, then help one another, build up one another, encourage and sculpt each other ... grow and become, together! Why can't people do that? Your best foot needs to be kept right beside you, right beside the other one. — C. JoyBell C.

Environmentalists believe that monolithic solutions - be they in the auto, nuclear, or genetics field - are doomed to fail and lead only along the path to dependence. They feel rather that it is far more sensible to approach the future by opening up more possibilities. Likewise, polyamorists believe that monogamy sterilizes love and fosters unhealthy codependence, whereas multiple relationships feed off of each other's differences and ultimately lead to an enriching fulfillment. — Francoise Simpere

Failed relationships do not mean failure. I didn't fail them and they didn't fail me. It's a loss, but not failure!' she — Kavita Kane

I was such a smart kid, I should have figured out that the only way to really get my parents' attention was to disappoint them or fail. But by the time I finally realized that, succeeding was already a habit too ingrained to break. — Sarah Dessen

The central assertion of this book is that the world of humankind constitutes a manifold, a totality of interconnected processes, and inquiries that disassemble this totality into bits and then fail to reassemble it falsify reality. Concepts like "nation," "society," and "culture" name bits and threaten to turn names into things. Only by understanding these names as bundles of relationships, and by placing them back into the field from which they were abstracted, can we hope to avoid misleading inferences and increase our share of understanding. — Eric R. Wolf

If, on the other hand, we read books entitled On Impulse not just out of idle curiosity, but in order to exercise impulse correctly; books entitled On Desire and On Aversion so as not to fail to get what we desire or fall victim to what we would rather avoid; and books entitled On Moral Obligation in order to honour our relationships and never do anything that clashes or conflicts with this principle; then we wouldn't get frustrated and grow impatient with our reading.
Instead we would be satisfied to act accordingly. And rather than reckon, as we are used to doing, 'How many lines I read, or wrote, today,' we would pass in review how 'I applied impulse today the way the philosophers recommend — Epictetus

Most unmarried people have no idea what it takes to make a marriage work; they grossly underestimate the price people have to pay to build long-term, mutually satisfying relationships. And they fail to understand that the only people with the strength to pay that price are those who have plumbed the depths of their relationship with God, and have dealt with their own brokenness. — Bill Hybels

The school of relationships is where you learn self-knowledge. I just don't know how you could learn it sitting alone in the desert on a rock by yourself. You have to see where you fail at it. And that confrontation with your own ability - "I was again not able to love" - those are the teachable moments. — Richard Rohr

In order to help children make the most of their education, parents must begin to relinquish control and focus on three goals: embracing opportunities to fail, finding ways to learn from that failure, and creating positive home-school relationships. — Jessica Lahey

Because he could not afford to fail, he could not afford to trust. — Joseph J. Ellis

Relationships become rocky when men and women fail to acknowledge they are biologically different and when each expects the other to live up to their expectations. Much of the stress we experience in relationships comes from the false belief that men and women are now the same and have the same priorities, drives and desires — Barbara Pease

If you live life so cautiously as to never fail, you end up failing at life itself. — J.S.B. Morse

If you look to anyone to satisfy your longing, you will think you need something more than him and what he has made you to be complete and at peace. The expectation of fulfillment in relationships will always fail you, and you will hold grievances that darken your world. You will become blind to the light that guides to the narrow path. You were taught this on the mountain alone, and yet among others you forget. — Ted Dekker

The religious way is the deep way, the way that sees what physical eyes alone fail to see, the intangibles of the heart of every phenomenon. The religious way is the way that touches universal relationships; that goes high, wide and deep, that expands the feelings of kinship. — Sophia Lyon Fahs

I think that we approach the problem of romantic love all wrong when we start with the questions: why do so many relationships fail? I think that the interesting question is why do some succeed? Because if you consider how most of us were raised, how most of us were brought up, how few of us had decent role models in terms of our fathers or mothers, how inadequately we were prepared or educated for love as adults; it seems to me that the great miracle is that some people through their own independence, or their own perseverance, or their own creativity, make it. — Nathaniel Branden

We're so marinated in the culture of speed that we almost fail to notice the toll it takes on every aspect of our lives - on our health, our diet, our work, our relationships, the environment and our community. — Carl Honore

Only humans can hurt one another, Ada thought; only humans falter and betray one another with a stunning, fearsome frequency. As David's family had done to him; as David had done to her. And Ada would do it too. She would fail other people throughout her life, inevitably, even those she loved best. — Liz Moore

If I am constantly working, my relationships fail. So at least now I can have enough time to write a happy record. And be in love and be happy. And then I don't know what I'll do. Get married. Have some kids. Plant a nice vegetable patch. — Adele

I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness. — Sharon Shinn

When we apply the lessons we've struggled for our whole lives to learn to the lives of people we love, our love becomes judgment - which is toxic. Our fear our daughters will fail leads us to fail them. — Aspen Matis