Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Lecture Notes
Chapter 15: Ending Relationships: Disengagement and Termination
Chapter Outline
I. Why Relationships End
A. Infidelity and Interest in a Third Party
1. Also a primary reason why dating partners break up, sexual infidelity is one
of the most hurtful and unforgivable acts that can occur in a relationship,
often detrimental to it, and may lead to termination.
2. Unhappy relationships lead to people to seek out other partners and sexual
betrayal is common in all type of relationships but particularly during dating.
3. For every type of couple, gay or straight, the relationship is less likely to
survive when one partner is having sex outside the relationship.
B. Incompatibility
1. Birds of a feather flock together: Dozens of studies show that the more two
people have in common, the more likely they are to stay together.
2. Incompatibility in attitudes and values is one of the most important factors
leading to relational dissatisfaction and breakups.
3. Even among otherwise satisfied couples: Differences in health, emotional
involvement, and sexual preferences can pose problems for relationships and
greatly increase the chance of divorce.
C. Alcohol and Drugs
1. Problems with alcohol and drug abuse may lead to violence, addiction,
problems with the law, the squandering of money, and problems at work.
2. Codependency in relationships:
a. One partner becoming overly preoccupied with controlling their partner’s
negative behaviors and nurturing the partner, by sometimes trying to get
their partner to stop using drugs or alcohol through punishment.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. Other times, however, they reinforce the partner’s behavior by doing
things such as keeping the children out of the way and taking care of the
partner when the partner is ill.
3. Although codependency may keep people in relationships for a while, in the
long run, codependent behavioral patterns may put considerable strain on
relationships.
D. Growing Apart
1. Due to different interests, reduced quality and quantity of communication,
distance, reduced efforts to maintain the relationship, or competition from
hundreds of relationships in today’s fast-paced world.
2. In marriages, people often cannot pinpoint when they started growing apart
and many relationship breakups were characterized by atrophy.
E. Loss of Love or “Losing Feelings”
1. Love prevents breakups: A recent meta-analysis of psychological research
found lack of love is a strong predictor of relationship breakups.
2. Chronic dissatisfaction: Temporary dissatisfaction may cause couples to
repair and maintain their relationship, but couples with a history of
dissatisfaction are at risk for divorce.
F. Equity Issues Related to Family Obligations
1. Women cited having a partner who does not meet family obligations as a
reason for divorce about three and a half times more than men did.
2. Women do more household work: including childcare, than men do, even if
they are working outside the home just as much.
G. Additional Predictors of Breakups
1. Money or financial problems: Problems seem to stem from money
management—with the values surrounding spending and saving producing
considerable turmoil for couples.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
2. Social network disapproval:
a. Dating partners are more likely to break up if their social networks or
parents disapprove of their relationship.
b. Having separate friendship networks or problems getting along with in-
laws can also signal that a relationship is in trouble.
3. Stressful events: Relational stressors and traumas are associated with
relational breakups in both dating and marital relationships.
4. Boredom or lack of excitement: Boredom is associated with dissatisfaction in
relationships, which is why planning novel, exciting activities and being
spontaneous once in a while are keys to a happy relationship.
5. Need of independence:
a. People often complain that a relationship is “smothering” or
“suffocating” them and they need their space, freedom, or autonomy.
II. Communication as a Cause of Breakups
A. Withdrawal
1. Lack of intimacy and connection: Low levels of supportiveness—and
particularly a lack of listening—was a major factor in over one fourth of the
relational breakups she studied.
2. Stonewalling occurs: individuals fail to discuss important issues with their
partners.
B. Negative Communication
1. All couples conflict and disagree: As dating partners become more loving and
committed, conflict increases, presumably because of increased
interdependence.
2. It is not the presence or absence of conflict that determines whether a couple
will be satisfied and stay together; it is how partners deal with conflict that is
more important.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
C. Lack of Openness and Affection
1. Open disclosure is imperative: Partners who stay together, rather than break
up, report much higher levels of self-disclosure early in their relationships.
2. Thirty-one percent of the women, compared to only 8% of the men,
mentioned lack of openness as a major factor in relational termination.
3. Many people remembered decreases in verbal and nonverbal intimacy as the
starting point for relational decline.
D. Abusive Communication
1. Physical abuse is violent behavior such as grabbing, pushing, kicking, biting,
slapping, and punching whereas psychological abuse is hurtful
communication, such as insults, name calling, and personal criticism.
2. Physically battered women are more likely to intend to leave their violent
partners, if also psychologically abused and if their children are abused.
3. People stay in abusive relationships:
a. Battered women stay with their husbands for three reasons: financial
dependency, family history of violence, and psychological factors such as
low self-esteem or blaming oneself for their partner’s violence.
4. People use abuse to control:
a. Intimate terrorism or the intentional use of violence as a means of
intimidating and controlling one’s partner tends to be more severe than
more common forms of violence that occur occasionally.
b. Intimate terrorism is asymmetrical—one partner is the perpetrator and the
other is the victim—whereas other forms of violence in relationships are
often reciprocal.
III. The Disengagement Process
A. A Process Model of Relational Dissolution
1. Leading model of relational breakups: Duck viewed relational dissolution as a
set of distinct but connected phases and recently, this model was revised to
focus more on the communication processes occurring during relationship
breakups.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
2. According to Duck, five processes are likely to occur as people disengage
from relationships: intrapsychic, dyadic, social, grave-dressing, and
resurrection.
3. Couples may not break up: Many couples recognize and resolve relational
problems during the intrapsychic and dyadic processes that help them
reevaluate their relationships.
4. Intrapsychic Processes
a. Relational dissatisfaction triggers the intrapsychic processes phase that
involves reflecting on the negative aspects of the relationship and
comparing these flaws with costs of leaving the relationship.
b. Beyond reflection, this involves preparing to talk to the partner about
5. Dyadic Processes
a. The dyadic processes phase occurs when dissatisfied partners
communicate negative thoughts and feelings, and attempt to negotiate
and reconcile the differences to avert a relationship breakup.
b. Transitions are initiated and facilitated by “state of the relationship” talk.
c. Partners may renegotiate rules, promise to change, improve behavior, or
in other cases may decide the relationship is not worth saving.
6. Social Processes
a. “Going public” about the distress and problems within one’s relationship
marks the social processes phase.
b. Even when couples do not have a need to “label” a relationship, the
social network may seek clarity through the use of a label.
c. Partners attempt to save face and receive support by telling their side of
the story to friends and family, to convince their network and themselves
that they are doing the right thing.
7. Grave-Dressing Processes
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. The communication that occurs during the grave-dressing processes
phase focuses on coping with a breakup in a socially acceptable manner.
8. Resurrection Processes
a. The end of a relationship often marks the beginning of something new
during the resurrection processes phase.
b. People often visualize what their future will be like without their old
relationship and prepare for that by constructing and communicating a
B. Catastrophe Theory
1. Relationships experience sudden death: Signs of an impending relational
catastrophe exist, but people often fail to see them or deny them.
2. Incidents range from discovering infidelity to big arguments or physical
violence, to finding differences in values, such as the realization that one
partner hates pets and the other person loves them.
3. Relationships sometimes dissolve rapidly:
a. Wilmot discussed the “point of no return” in every relationship, where
one or both of the partners know for sure it’s over.
4. Likened to an execution: Breakup often occurs without face-to-face
communication, but the initiator may enlist the help of a friend to tell the
partner the relationship is over or terminate the relationship.
IV. The Many Ways to Leave Your Partner
• Direct strategies: involve clear verbal messages that the relationship is over. Direct
strategies are more likely in serious relationships, especially when people are married
or cohabiting.
• Indirect strategies: employ more subtle, indirect, and sometimes ambiguous messages,
including nonverbal communication. Most dating and casual relationships are ended
using indirect strategies.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
A. Unilateral and Indirect Strategies
1. Ghosting
a. Avoidance is still common and is achieved more easily because of
technology, leading to the phenomenon of ghosting that has received
attention in the media and popular press.
b. Ghosting occurs when a person simply disappears from someone’s life as
if they were never a part of it and can take several forms.
c. People ghost for many different reasons, the most common reason people
ghost being that it is easier, takes less time, and is less emotionally
stressful.
d. If people fear an especially negative reaction from the person they are
breaking up with, ghosting is often considered an option, and can also
reflect the lost feelings in a relationship.
2. The One-Way Fade
a. Also referred to as the “slow fade,” its two main features are: (1) one
person is doing the fading out and the one person is responding to it; (2)
it involves a gradual rather than abrupt decrease in communication.
b. People believe fading out leaves the relationship open for reconnecting in
the future, can change their minds to resume more frequent
communication, or later say they regret losing touch.
c. However, the person on the receiving end of the one-way fade may be
confused and frustrated, feeling unsure about how to read the decrease in
communication, at least at first.
3. Cost Escalation
a. Cost escalation is an attempt to make the relationship unattractive to
one’s partner, sometimes works, and almost always often makes the
partner upset.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. People who have Machiavellian personalities—which means they tend to
have low emotional involvement in their relationships and are willing to
exploit others—are more likely to use cost escalation.
c. Cost escalation can be beneficial in some breakups if the person on the
receiving end of this strategy ends up being happy to break up.
4. Third Party Manipulation
a. Manipulation of third parties can be done in two general ways.
i. First, sometimes people use third parties to communicate the
impending breakup to the partner.
ii. A second way of manipulating third parties is to engage in activity
that lets the partner know that either you are interested in dating
others, or that it is okay if they date others.
b. Third-party manipulation is less likely to be used as a disengagement
strategy in long-term committed relationships than casual or short-term
relationships.
5. Pseudo De-Escalation
a. This strategy is a false declaration to the other party that the relationship
would profit from some distance that masquerades as de-escalation with
the possibility of staying or getting back together.
b. Although this strategy may be more humane than third party
manipulation, which was previously described, pseudo de-escalation is
also manipulative and can be confusing.
c. Pseudo de-escalation is in many ways a selfish motive that benefits the
person doing the breaking up much more than the person who wants to
stay together.
B. Unilateral and Direct Strategies
1. The Direct Dump
a. Simple statement that the relationship is over, a strategy sometimes
called the open-and-honest approach, is where people forthrightly
communicate their desire to end the relationship.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. Communicating face-to-face shows more respect, gives both people more
closure, and keeps the door open for staying friends or even reconciling
in the future.
c. People sometimes use direct dump after other subtler strategies have
failed and can also in the context of a broader discussion about
relationship.
2. The Relationship Talk Trick
a. People intentionally structure the relationship talk to show that that they
are better off going their separate ways, a relationship talk trick used in
27% of direct breakups.
b. One positive aspect of this strategy is that it typically involves more
3. Positive Tone
a. Sometimes unilateral breakups are accomplished using a positive tone
strategy that is designed to lessen the “dumped” person’s hurt feelings
and make him or her feel better about the breakup.
b. One danger of using the positive tone strategy is that the person being
dumped may hold onto hope that the relationship might somehow survive
or at least rebound.
c. The positive tone strategy is evaluated as showing a high level of concern
4. Genuine De-Escalation
a. De-escalation strategies avoid a complete breakup, at least initially, by
scaling back a relationship or taking a break to figure things out.
b. Unlike pseudo de-escalation, these strategies are an honest attempt to
improve the relationship by de-escalating it.
C. Bilateral Strategies
1. The Mutual Fade-Out
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. Sometimes the fade-out is unintentional and jointly constructed, typically
the case for the mutual fade-out.
b. It is common in friendships as well as in casual relationships where two
people start to lose interest and do not put effort in to keep the
relationship going.
2. The Blame Game
a. The Blame Game is one of the two direct bilateral strategies, both of
which involve direct communication between two people who agree it is
time to break up.
b. Cycles of negativity become a prevalent pattern; both partners become
increasingly dissatisfied, and the relationship is charged with negative
emotion.
3. The Negotiated Farewell
a. The breakup strategy that is positive and direct is the negotiated
farewell, a common method of relational disengagement, especially for
long-term couples.
b. Some couples may need to divide up possessions, negotiate child custody
and financial issues, and determine how they can both live within a joint
social network.
V. The Bad and the Good of Relationship Endings
A. Negative Outcomes of Relational Breakups
1. Partners experience negative emotions: Women who are rejected experience
more sadness, confusion, and fear than men who are rejected, but men
experience more overall distress.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
2. People experience distress: Social support from friends and economic
resources can cushion the distress. But continued connection and attachment
to one’s ex-partner is associated with less emotional adjustment and more
distress.
4. Intense feelings of loneliness: Not only have the partners lost the most
significant person in their lives but they lost the person they would usually
turn to for comfort following such a loss.
5. Threaten people’s health:
a. Divorce has also been linked to a variety of emotional and physical
disorders, psychiatric illness, suicide, excessive drinking, weight gain,
and interpersonal violence.
B. Positive Outcomes of Relational Breakups
1. Increased happiness following breakup: In gay and lesbian relationships, it is
often a relief to be out of a toxic, dangerous, or boring relationship.
2. Relief from ambiguity or conflict: Relief from conflict was one of the most
common outcomes of separation in gay and lesbian relationship, with
personal growth mentioned most commonly.
a. Personal growth can occur:
i. Personal positives include increased self-confidence and being able
to handle life on one’s own.
ii. Relational positives include having learned how to communicate in a
relationship and the importance of not jumping into a relationship
too quickly.
iii. Environmental positives include concentrating more on school or
work or relying on friendship networks more.
iv. Future positives include knowing what one wants in their next long-
term relational partner.
3. People who rebounded into a new relationship after a romantic breakup had
greater personal adjustment, more confidence in their desirability, and more
resolution over their relationship with their ex-partner.