From the author: City Guide magazine, September 2012 It's no secret that relationships between people are of great value. We value our relationships, try for them and protect them. For an adult, the ability to find a mate and establish close, trusting relationships is one of the indicators of his psychological maturity. The need for close relationships is one of the main ones, along with physiological needs, the need for security. At the same time, close relationships are risky! The more trusting the relationship in a couple, the closer we are to each other, the more vulnerable we become in front of our partner. The paradox is that in order to form a couple, we need trust and openness with our partner, but in such relationships we become extremely defenseless, we can be offended more often and more strongly, and we experience quarrels and conflict longer. Even an accidental insult inflicted on loved ones is remembered and experienced more strongly than a conflict with a less significant person. We learn to establish emotionally close relationships from early childhood and we can determine how well we can do this only by whether we are satisfied with our relationships as a couple, with parents and other relatives, and whether we have close friends. In all of these situations, we develop close and especially meaningful relationships. It is quite natural that breakup and separation in close relationships is difficult to experience. The decision to break up and end a relationship is made at the level of feelings. Often this decision may seem strange, but our partner becomes unpleasant to us, we stop missing and needing this person when he is not around, we are not interested in what happens to him, what he thinks, there is no need for physical and sexual contact with him. When we break up, we stop relying on our partner, and therefore the breakup can be experienced as the loss of an illusion, a dream of an ideal relationship, a project for living together. In a pre-divorce situation, it often happens that after the next conflict is resolved, there is no reconciliation between the spouses. Then an understanding of what is really happening may come: there is no love, no desire to be together, no interest in sex with a partner. It turns out that even when we are in a couple, we can change quite a lot and then we realize that: “The person I am now would never have chosen her (him) as my partner.” From this moment on, the emotional breakdown of the couple occurs. Next comes the process of sexual and territorial separation, at the end of which a decision is made on divorce or termination of cohabitation. Breaking up is a choice; when we make a choice, we win what we choose and always lose something. In couples facing relationship difficulties, the attitude often manifests itself: “I want change, but I don’t want to lose anything.” Living together is a process of changing relationships and gaining life experience. Just as you cannot step into the same river twice, you cannot remain the same as when you fell in love and began a relationship. A couple breaks up when one or both partners do not see a future together and believe that it is better to endure the pain of separation than to continue living together. If we blame someone else for the breakup, then sooner or later we will come to the only possible conclusion: “I’m right! But I still lost." This means that you should abandon the position that the other is to blame and see all the complexities of the relationship, evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and also analyze your partner. Only in the situation of assessing the individual contribution to the breakdown of relationships can one assume that with a new partner, in a new relationship, old mistakes will not be repeated. Lev Starostin identifies the following characteristics of partners in successful marriages: - psychological and emotional maturity; - perseverance, tolerance, sense of humor; - interest in people, goodwill; - mutual attractiveness; - active joint recreation in free time; - voluntary distribution of roles and