It is hard to know.

Anymore relationships start over a single reason and that is infatuation and sex.

Those two things are a shaky foundation to start with and typically doesn't last if actual love never blossoms.

I was married for years and i thought i loved her with everything i was but after she cheated and the marriage ended i realized i wasn't happy. In truth it took a friend to teach me what love actually feels like.

People also seem to not want long lasting relationships anymore. The nuclear family has been all but destroyed in recent decades. No one wants to get married anymore. This also means they don't really want to put the work in to make a relationship last.

The other problem is many people also suffer from "The grass is always greener" syndrome. They think they see another person as a better fit but when they jump from the one they have been with for a long time to the new person they end up unhappy as well due to issues the greener person has such as narcissism and selfishness.

This also causes damage to the previous persons mental state as they are left with feeling worthless. Over time this damage is cumulative if a positive relationship is also not found.

Love is hard work. Even if it is true and pure love it is hard work and many don't want to do the work required to stay in love.

They think that jumping to another person would be easier and they fool themselves that they would be in a better position. Most times they are wrong but it doesn't stop them from jumping person to person.

Sometimes requirements placed on the new person causes them to run from the new relationship. This happened to me as one woman i tried to date wanted me to dump my son on his mother who didn't want him after she found out he had mental issues that eventually was diagnosed as Aspergers. This can easily be reversed as many men unfortunately choose not to be fathers to their children which i don't understand at all.

In truth... There is no good reason that we can point to. For me the destruction of the nuclear marriage is a big reason but there are so many big reasons that relationships fail.

I wish i had the magic bullet to explain why but there isn't one. I hope you feel better Jenniferswe

The grass is always greener thing seems to be a reason. I think looking closer at our society holds the heart of the matter. We have become a disposable people. Don’t fix it or maintain it, throw it away and buy a new one.
One of my favorite books is Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He outlines this well with the discussion of what Quality means.
I also suspect that the speed that we seem to be living our lives in is a factor. Rushing around and having the feeling that we’re missing something. Which we are; peace. Kinda like a perpetual mid life crisis. You know where this leads….
I have memories of my great grandparents. Married till death…. Sunday he would be in the garden or pruning his fruit trees dressed in a pressed shirt and vest. She would be cooking lunch and we’d eat on the porch with fresh lemonade….. simple and enough.

Thank you for your wonderful replies. I think what I'm wanting is more stability.. I've become much more nostalgic for simpler. times. I have been missing the comforts of the traditional nuclear family.

What I have found in my own life is that being married to a difficult and self absorbed person killed my love. His abusive ways of treating me, the disrespect, his substance abuse, just eventually killed my love after 30 years of marriage. I stuck it out as long as I could, I lied to myself that we were best friends. As time went by, reality got more real and more real. I couldn't stomach the abuse he uses as his physical desires. Enough said. I was losing myself. That man still claims to be the victim of me. He did parental alienation because I divorced him. So sometimes we don't want to admit how ugly or mean we treated our partner or spouse. Sometimes we like being the victim and pretending she or he did us wrong. Lots of people stay married and miserable. Some people actively work on the marriage to keep it fresh and try to be other centered rather than self centered.

The traditional nuclear family has been shattered. There is a wave of family estrangements where the kids divorce their parents. Many have a good reason or we'd all say don't tolerate abuse. But many just don't like the parent's bossiness, or politics, or religion or whatever. We are seeing siblings estrange from each other. Just because we were born into the same nuclear family doesn't mean we like this person or want to be around them. The myth that just dump the toxic people in your life ignores the realities of cutting all ties. There is emotional pain in doing so even while one might feel a bit of relief and freedom. Those who get shunned feel despair. I miss the old style family myself but my parents estranged from their parents and then fought with their siblings so now I have one relative left. I never had the traditional nuclear family even though my parents stayed unhappily married for years, never divorced, til death. I saw their example and said to myself to be more mature and different!

Why? Because love is not enough.

There are so many factors that go into creating a lasting, healthy relationship.

I’ve been loved by people who were not healthy. I’ve loved people who were not emotionally available. The love was there in those situations but as the song goes, what’s love got to do with it?

I know the nuclear family no longer exists. I came from a very dysfunctional family. I was bullied all through school. I've been a very lonely person all my life. I know it's anyone's job to make me happy. I' m just tired of feeling like I'm floating around in space not connected to anything.