While it may seem that the reasons behind starting and ending a relationship belong to different categories, in some cases, they turn out to be the same. The answer to this similarity phenomenon is determining in what circumstances it occurs more often. According to Umemura et al. (2017), people’s motives to start a relationship tend to change with age. Younger individuals value mainly physical attractiveness when looking for a couple, while the older population primarily seeks personal and emotional support. Moreover, Umemura et al.’s (2017) research indicate that a partner’s mutual romantic interest is more substantial in the earlier stages of a relationship and decreases over time. Based on these observations, it is possible to imply the similarity phenomenon’s occurrence is more frequent in younger couples. An idea to choose someone the most attractive can either start a relationship or end it when a current partner loses his attraction. In the meantime, when an original goal was to find support, the relationship would not start if no support was found.
Another feature that the younger couples might share is searching for joy and socialization. In her book, Seccombe (2018) mentions adolescents’ casual interactions, which do not imply any further commitments. Such interactions are rather short-termed; in a longer relationship, people must put more time and effort into it, which does not correlate with the simplicity and joy of its early stages. Consequently, an idea to socialize until it stops bringing joy already contains both a reason to start and end a relationship. After comparing this idea to the already mentioned one, it becomes possible to generalize the cases for the similarity phenomenon: it applies to relationships which start without long-term consideration. In other words, if there were no thoughts of the future in the first place, it is quite probable that a reason to start will eventually turn into an excuse to end.
References
Seccombe, K. (2018). Exploring marriages and families. Pearson Education.
Umemura, T., Lacinová, L., Macek, P., & Kunnen, E. S. (2017). Longitudinal changes in emerging adults’ attachment preferences for their mother, father, friends, and romantic partner: Focusing on the start and end of romantic relationships. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 41(1), 136–142. Web.