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feelings of guilt, and in the extreme, permanent psychological damage can be the inadvertent result of the ill-understood termination of any relationship.

The failure of social and personal relationships are common, from the heartbroken 14-year-old teen losing at the game of puppy love to the young, sophisticated, upwardly-mobile, married- "thirty-something" and highly-educated couple that is suddenly fighting, threatening immediate separation and alienation for reasons undeclared, or perhaps even unrecognized. Two sisters do not speak to one another for 30 years, and cannot even remember why they argued. Consider the complex weave and pattern in the relationship of older married couples, together for 40 years or more, each suddenly and inexplicably needing to go their own way, ending a life-long relationship with fear, confusion and silence, or just an indescribably painful, whispered apology, regardless of reason. In other relationships, a lifetime business associate may decide to go off on his own, leaving a bewildered partner feeling guilty, flailing at windmills, trying to determine why.

Examples of failures in relationships are endless, but what is the most common thread in the destruction of relationships? It has been suggested that failure to allow partners in life any room to express personal growth is a major cause. The concept that humans must be allowed personal growth is a given, yet ignored in many relationships. Perhaps the difficult issue of extreme idealism, a blatant lack of reality and the inevitable, eventual hurt and disillusionment that must follow may be a more significant cause of failure.

Failure of a relationship might be compared to the systematic deconstruction of an illusion stuck in time.
In any established relationship, if the participants willingly pluck away at the threads of the illusion often enough to destroy the perfection of the original image, any idealism, self- perceived benefits, joy, and happiness in the relationship will soon unravel to a changed state closer to reality, and possibly as far as a negative, failed outcome if the change is too traumatic and unacceptable.

A first love may be unrealistically perceived as the perfect love until other, different, seemingly more attractive potential mates or situations appear. The illusion of perfection becomes subject to comparison, intense scrutiny, reality , and if that trend within the relationship persists, failure is inevitable. A marriage and life-long commitment, if

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