You are viewing a free preview of this lesson.
Subscribe to unlock all 10 lessons in this course and every other course on LearningBro.
Romantic relationships do not always endure, and their ending is rarely a single, instantaneous event. The AQA specification requires an understanding of both the reasons relationships break down and the process through which dissolution unfolds. The central model here is Duck's phase model, which conceives of breakdown as a sequence of psychological and social stages, each with a characteristic set of processes and a "threshold" that propels the relationship into the next phase. This lesson sets out the reasons for breakdown, presents Duck's phase model (in its updated Rollie and Duck, 2006, form) in detail, and shows how the economic theories of the previous lesson and Gottman's research on predicting failure can be integrated with it.
Key Definition: Relationship dissolution is the process by which a romantic relationship ends. It is best understood not as a single event but as a series of psychological, communicative, and social stages, sometimes culminating in legal separation.
This lesson addresses the following point from the AQA A-Level Psychology (7182) specification, Paper 3, Section B: Relationships:
| Specification point | Coverage in this lesson |
|---|---|
| Theories of romantic relationships: Duck's phase model of relationship breakdown, including reasons for relationship breakdown | Reasons for breakdown (lack of skills, lack of stimulation, maintenance difficulty, rule violation); Duck's four phases plus the resurrection phase (Rollie & Duck, 2006); thresholds |
Although Gottman's research and the economic theories are not separately named on this specification line, they provide legitimate and effective AO3 evaluation and synoptic material for breakdown essays, and are used here in that capacity. The topic is assessed through short-answer AO1 items, AO2 application where a scenario is given, and extended-writing essays up to 16 marks.
Duck (2007) distinguished several broad categories of factor that can precipitate breakdown. It is useful to group them into predisposing and precipitating influences, but the specification's headline reasons are as follows.
Some individuals lack the interpersonal skills needed to sustain a satisfying relationship: they may be poor at communicating, struggle to express affection or interest, or be unable to manage conflict constructively. Because they cannot signal that the relationship is rewarding, their partners may feel unfulfilled, and the relationship may stagnate. This category overlaps with the literature on social skills deficits and is sometimes linked to a lack of relationship "maintenance" behaviours. A person with weak social skills may, for instance, be unable to convey interest in their partner's day, fail to read emotional cues, or respond to bids for connection with indifference. Over time the partner concludes that the relationship is unrewarding — not necessarily because of any dramatic conflict, but because the ordinary signals of care and engagement are absent. This is why "lack of skills" is treated as a genuine cause of breakdown rather than merely a symptom: the deficit actively prevents the relationship from generating the rewards that sustain satisfaction.
People expect relationships to develop, grow, and remain stimulating. When a relationship becomes routine, predictable, or boring, partners may perceive that it is "going nowhere" and that the rewards no longer justify the costs — a direct link to social exchange theory.
Practical obstacles can make a relationship hard to sustain. The classic case is the long-distance relationship, in which physical separation (through university, employment, or migration) reduces the frequency and quality of interaction. Demanding careers and conflicting schedules have similar effects: the costs of maintaining the relationship rise while the rewards available from it fall. Maintenance difficulty does not inevitably end a relationship, but it raises the probability of dissatisfaction.
Argyle and Henderson (1984) proposed that relationships are governed by implicit rules — shared, often unspoken, expectations about how partners should behave (showing emotional support, respecting privacy, keeping confidences, remaining faithful, not being jealous). When these rules are violated, dissatisfaction rises sharply. Their research suggested that key rule violations leading to breakdown included jealousy, lack of emotional support, disclosing confidences, and public criticism of the partner. Rule violation links neatly to equity theory, since a betrayed partner experiences the relationship as profoundly unfair.
It is helpful to distinguish between factors that make a relationship vulnerable to breakdown and factors that trigger it. Predisposing factors are longer-standing characteristics — for example, a chronic lack of interpersonal skills, or a fundamental dissimilarity of values that survived the early filtering process — that leave a relationship fragile. Precipitating factors are the more immediate events that tip a vulnerable relationship into dissolution — a specific act of infidelity, a geographical separation, or an escalating conflict. The same precipitating event may end a vulnerable relationship while leaving a robust one intact, which is one reason the reasons-for-breakdown literature cannot fully predict outcomes on its own.
An interesting complication comes from research on attraction-turned-liability. Felmlee's (1995) work on "fatal attractions" suggested that the very qualities that initially attracted a partner can later become reasons for breakup — for example, someone first drawn to a partner's spontaneity may later experience that same spontaneity as unreliability. This shows that "reasons for breakdown" are not always new problems; they can be re-evaluations of existing characteristics whose perceived costs have come to outweigh their rewards.
Steve Duck (1982) proposed that relationship breakdown is a process that moves through a series of distinct phases. Each phase begins when a particular threshold of dissatisfaction is crossed, and each is characterised by its own concerns and behaviours. The original model had four phases; Rollie and Duck (2006) reformulated it, emphasising the processes within phases (rather than rigid linear movement) and adding a final resurrection phase.
graph TD
A["Breakdown<br/>Threshold: 'I can't stand this any more'"] --> B["Intrapsychic phase<br/>Threshold: 'I'd be justified in withdrawing'"]
B --> C["Dyadic phase<br/>Threshold: 'I mean it'"]
C --> D["Social phase<br/>Threshold: 'It's now inevitable'"]
D --> E["Grave-dressing phase<br/>Threshold: 'Time to get a new life'"]
E --> F["Resurrection phase<br/>preparing for future relationships"]
| Phase | Focus | Key processes |
|---|---|---|
| Breakdown | Dissatisfaction registers | One partner becomes dissatisfied with how the relationship is conducted. |
| Intrapsychic phase | Private, internal | The dissatisfied partner broods privately, focusing on the partner's faults and on the costs of the relationship; they weigh these against the perceived rewards of alternatives. Social withdrawal and resentment build, but the partner may not yet be aware. |
| Dyadic phase | Confrontation | The dissatisfaction is brought into the open; the couple confront each other, voice complaints, and either attempt repair or move towards ending. This phase is emotionally charged. |
| Social phase | Public | The breakup becomes known to the wider social network; friends and family take sides, offer support or judgement, and the breakup becomes harder to reverse as it gains social momentum. |
| Grave-dressing phase | Aftermath narrative | Each partner constructs a face-saving account of the relationship and why it ended, protecting their reputation and self-esteem ("I did all I could"; "we simply grew apart"). |
| Resurrection phase | Future orientation | Added by Rollie and Duck (2006): each partner re-engages with social life, redefines themselves as single, and applies lessons learned to future relationships. |
Intrapsychic phase. This is an internal, cognitive process. The dissatisfied partner privately keeps a mental ledger of grievances and engages in social comparison, contrasting their relationship unfavourably with others' or with the perceived rewards of being single (their comparison level for alternatives). Importantly, the other partner may have no idea anything is wrong, because the dissatisfaction has not yet been voiced.
Dyadic phase. Communication becomes central. The couple have difficult, often repeated, conversations in which dissatisfaction is expressed and the relationship's future is negotiated. Two outcomes are possible: a renewed commitment to repair, or a decision to dissolve. Where repair attempts are absent or fail, the relationship moves on. The phase typically involves intense emotion — argument, distress, and ultimatums.
Social phase. The dissolution now involves third parties. Friends and family may attempt to mediate and repair, or may accelerate the breakup by reinforcing grievances and offering alternatives. Social networks must be "divided", and there is a strong focus on blame and on managing one's social face. Duck noted that this phase often generates competing "accounts" of the relationship, with each partner seeking allies who will validate their version of events; mutual friends may feel pressured to choose sides, and shared social resources (friendship groups, joint activities) have to be reallocated. Once the breakup is public and the network has taken sides, the social momentum makes reversal considerably harder, because reconciling would require both partners to revise the accounts they have already broadcast.
Grave-dressing phase. This is essentially reputation management. Each partner constructs and broadcasts a version of events that casts them favourably and preserves their "social credit" for future relationships ("it wasn't my fault"). Tashiro and Frazier (2003), studying students who had recently broken up, found that participants frequently reported personal growth and insight, identifying lessons that would shape future relationships — an observation that anticipates the resurrection phase.
Resurrection phase. Rollie and Duck's addition recognises that breakup is not an endpoint: people move on, reframe the experience, and re-enter the relationship "market" with updated expectations and criteria. This phase reframes dissolution as potentially constructive — an opportunity for personal development rather than simply a loss. It is consistent with Tashiro and Frazier's finding that recently separated students reported emotional distress and personal growth, suggesting that the two coexist. The resurrection phase also has an important consequence for how the earlier phases are understood: because people emerge from a breakup having learned and re-calibrated, the "criteria" they bring to future relationships (their comparison level, the filters they apply) are themselves products of past dissolutions, linking breakdown forward to the formation of subsequent relationships.
The thresholds between phases are central to the model and worth emphasising. A threshold is a point at which accumulated dissatisfaction crosses a critical level and the relationship moves into a new phase. The breakdown-to-intrapsychic threshold is "I can't stand this any more"; the intrapsychic-to-dyadic threshold is "I would be justified in withdrawing"; the dyadic-to-social threshold is "I mean it"; and the social-to-grave-dressing threshold is "it's now inevitable". The thresholds are what give the model its dynamic, processual character: a relationship does not simply drift between phases but is propelled across each threshold by a build-up of dissatisfaction, and — in the updated version — can stall before a threshold or fall back if dissatisfaction subsides.
Key Definition: Grave-dressing is the process, late in dissolution, of constructing a favourable personal narrative about the relationship's end — protecting self-esteem and managing one's social reputation so as to remain a viable partner for the future.
A central feature of the updated model is that the phases are not strictly linear. Rollie and Duck stress that movement between phases is driven by processes that can stall, reverse, or recur; a couple may, for example, return from the dyadic phase to renewed commitment, or oscillate between phases over an extended period.
A key strength of Duck's model is its real-world application to relationship repair, which gives it practical value beyond mere description. Because the model specifies distinct phases with distinct concerns, it implies that interventions should be phase-matched: during the intrapsychic phase, the most useful intervention is one that helps the brooding partner re-focus on the relationship's positive aspects rather than rehearsing grievances; during the dyadic phase, communication-focused couples counselling is most apt. Duck himself suggested that people in the throes of breakup might be encouraged to re-establish liking by recalling earlier, more positive periods. This makes the model genuinely useful to relationship-support services and is a strength that purely descriptive accounts lack.
Subscribe to continue reading
Get full access to this lesson and all 10 lessons in this course.