Most couples don’t fail because of incompatibility — they fail because the system quietly drains the voltage out of the relationship until only routine, obligation, and low-level survival remain. In practice this means two tired people coming home to each other with nothing left to give, performing “partnership” instead of actually touching each other’s souls, both secretly starving while pretending it’s normal adult life. A relationship that burns with eros, honesty, polarity, and emotional clarity becomes a sovereign unit — and sovereign units stop depending on the larger system for meaning, validation, distraction, or sedation. So the world subtly rewards couples who flatten out their desire, avoid conflict, numb their truth, and prioritize stability over aliveness. Quitely unhappy couples spend more money trying to soothe themselves.

In some cases one partner has some understanding of what is happening and does the emotional labor to keep the illusion going, the other one resigns and does the bare minimum required to stay together, being too depleted, too distrustful of coming alive, to offer more. The blade cuts deepest when you realize that many couples aren’t dying because they don’t love each other — they’re dying because neither partner has enough energy left to be fully alive.