What Kills Love? Factors Influencing the Ending of Love in Romantic Relationships

This thesis reports the results of an online survey study that examined dimensions of love, positive behaviors, negative behaviors, and relationship satisfaction in current romantic relationships where the individual currently had a feeling of being in love with their partner ( still in love or SIL group) versus in past romantic relationships where the individual once had a feeling of being in love with that person, but ceased loving - essentially, fell out of love with - that person over the course of the relationship ( fell out of love or FOL group). An MTurk sample of 202 individuals (Mean age = 35.25) completed an online survey assessing the variables of the study. The results supported the hypothesis that participants in the FOL group would report significantly lower levels of each of the dimensions of love than participants in the SIL group. The results also supported the hypothesis that participants in the FOL group would report experiencing significantly more of the problem behaviors from their partners than would participants in the SIL group. The third hypothesis, which stated that participants in the FOL group would support a statement regarding a negative change in the perception of their partner during the course of the relationship to a significantly greater degree than the SIL group, was also supported by the results. Additional analyses found which dimensions of love and behavioral violations of love were the strongest variables to distinguish between those in the SIL group and those in the FOL group and which factors were most important in the SIL group to predict relationship satisfaction