Feeling the Chill? How Indifference Can Signal the End of a Relationship

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Gray divorce is on the rise. How women and men in their midlife are deciding to call it quits has become the norm these days. But, the strain a relationship is experiencing shows its signs long before things start to show any external indications of something going terribly wrong.

Communication is a very important aspect of any relationship. Communication seizes when the attitude of indifference creeps in. Why do people become indifferent and how are men and women different in expressing their indifference towards each other?

Let’s understand how biology plays a role in this phenomenon.

When a relationship is evolving, one of the two things can happen. There can be a strong, deep bond being forged, or the obvious cracks in the lack of meaningful connection can start to show.

And to cope with the strain of managing a shaky relationship, people start indulging in blame, depression, anxiety, judgment, indecision, procrastination, perfectionism and resentment. In addition, they begin to develop a certain amount of indifference towards the other party.

Indifference leads to other emotions like self-pity, self-doubt, confusion and guilt. And here’s where biology plays a major role in how men and women become indifferent or react to indifference differently.

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Without passion, men have no power or direction. To avoid pain, a man can become indifferent and stops caring. He only performs duties and obligations.

And when women stop trusting, they become cold, and detached. This attitude from them often fuels more indifference in their relationships.

Serotonin is the hormone that drives motivation when it receives positive reinforcement. As men have twice as many serotonin receptors as women, women need twice more positive reinforcement to feel the way men do, given the same circumstance.

A lot will also depend on how the relationship is evolving and how early in their lives they both have gotten together. Of course, all this depends on how their path is and what their age is. If the woman has not had a chance to build a career, instead of going the traditional route of marriage and taking care of kids, she might not have an external feedback loop of how she’s doing in the society. So, that might lead to a lot of debilitating self-doubt in her abilities.

So she might tend to think of herself as undervalued and her confidence can suffer. For a man, who usually prefers to build their career in the 20s and 30s and so on, they have the advantage of a good feedback loop from society on how well they are doing. So, a man experiencing indifference in a relationship might not have the same problems as a woman who has given it all for the sake of family.

As they age, women and men both realize that their definitions of success don’t necessarily have to correlate with what society thinks and wants from them. As such, their priorities and personal goals might change and they might become distant from one another.

And also what they would want to do with the rest of their lives and how true they are being to themselves might also be evolving. Communication and an understanding how they are doing in the relationship in the current state is important, so, if they have to part ways, they can do it in a friendly manner.

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