3 Early Clues Your Relationship Is Ending

Most relationships end quietly, not suddenly. These early signals may mean yours is already fading.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | June 19, 2025

A 2025 preregistered study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology analyzed data from over 10,000 participants across four national longitudinal studies. It found a clear pattern: relationship satisfaction doesn't just drop suddenly at the end. Rather, it goes through a phase of "terminal decline." This decline begins years before the actual breakup, with a slow preterminal dip, followed by a sharper crash months before separation.

The study also discovered that relationship satisfaction declines more sharply than general life satisfaction. This pattern was more severe for partners who didn't initiate the breakup.

Although the research suggests a clear trajectory, most people don't see the signs that they're on it until it's too late. They say things like, "I'm just overthinking it," or "Maybe I'm just tired."

If you've been wondering whether you're still choosing your relationship or just maintaining it out of habit, here are three signs you may already be in the pre-breakup phase.

1. You Feel Relieved When You Imagine Life Without Them

Fantasies of freedom often show up before a breakup — not because you want to hurt them, but because you want to feel like yourself again.

You no longer imagine a future together, but instead find yourself daydreaming about a life you live on your own terms. You wonder how it would feel to wake up without the relationship weighing you down or managing the emotional strain that doesn't seem to cease.

After a while, when the exhaustion sets in, you rarely notice how your body feels. You stop fighting because you no longer have the energy to keep trying. You don't initiate conversations, try to repair what's broken or mend the bond that seems to be crumbling.

A 2024 study published in Behavioral Sciences analyzed responses from 401 married couples and found that those with lower self-compassion, relationship self-efficacy and happiness reported significantly higher levels of couple burnout.

Rapidly dwindling happiness emerged as the strongest predictor of burnout — even more than their income, how long they were married for or even the number of children they had together.

This indicator matters because burnout doesn't always show up as conflict. Often, it stems from a steady decline in emotional resources. When you are no longer happy in a relationship, you don't feel enough self-compassion; as a result, the relationship begins to feel too heavy to shoulder. It's not because your love is gone, but because your capacity to carry it is.

2. You're Exhausted All The Time And You Don't Know Why

When you're constantly making excuses, compensating or dwelling on all the times you could have said things but didn't, your body begins to grieve before your mind catches up.

It means the emotional labor has started to outweigh the connection you're trying so hard to maintain. Because at this point, you don't even want to try and fix the broken parts. The only thing you care about is waking up feeling rested enough to go about your day.

A 2023 study published in Family Relations found that, for dual-earner couples, emotional exhaustion didn't just stem from external stressors. It was often associated with how unevenly emotional labor was distributed within the relationship.

When one partner, usually the woman, consistently took on more coping and regulation, they reported significantly higher fatigue. The reverse wasn't true because men's strategies didn't buffer their partners in the same way.

This imbalance tends to grow gradually. Specifically, in the moments where you swallow what you want to say because peace matters to you more than being right does. You try to patch up the tension while putting on a calm face, while on the inside you feel anything but.

This emotional fatigue can also manifest as a physiological signature. A 2018 study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology tracked couples' real-time stress and fatigue levels across five days. It found that after emotionally strained interactions, especially ones rated as negative, both partners reported feeling more tired — even when no arguments made it to the surface.

Fatigue, it turns out, doesn't need a crisis to knock on the door. It shows up through repetition, and the body keeping score of every unresolved feeling you never had the chance to voice.

If you're tired of pretending everything is fine, especially when your body already knows it isn't, it could be a sign that the relationship may be coming to an end.

3. You Keep Wondering If You Should Leave

In the pre-breakup phase, you might find yourself ruminating on why you chose to stay with them in the first place. You start stacking good moments against the growing bad ones, and the future plans against their past mistakes.

You start feeling like you're the only one in the relationship who keeps trying, feeling a little lonelier each day. There might not even be a glaring reason to leave; there simply aren't enough good reasons to stay. And that absence will start to weigh on you.

Some days you may feel anchored, while, on others, you're bombarded with a feeling that something fundamental isn't working between you and your partner. And the tug-of-war in your head doesn't stop.

A 2024 study published in Emotion found that people who felt conflicted about their partner often experienced mental whiplash, where they went from wanting closeness to pulling away, from imagining a future together to feeling frustrated or numb.

For the participants in the study, this ambivalence gave rise to far more than just confusion. It shaped their daily behaviors in subtle but significant ways, from overthinking to emotional withdrawal.

So, if the question keeps returning to you, "Should I just leave?" it's no longer a question. It's likely an answer you might be trying to ignore.

Sometimes, one of the clearest signs that a relationship is ending isn't what's happening between you. Rather, it's what's no longer happening within you. And that's the part individuals often notice last.

Take this 2-minute test to find out how satisfied you really are in your relationship: Relationship Satisfaction Scale

A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.