Have you noticed that when people are in somewhat dysfunctional relationships they tend to put the blame on gender differences?? "there is no making sense of women!" or "all men are the same"!! Have you picked up on that? I see it quite often, esp. after heated phone arguments... the minute the phone is down I would hear comments like "I simply do not understand women".. Of course women as a gender and a statistical sample would be quite difficult to assess so it is my guess that the colleague I have in mind simply cannot understand his girlfriend, with whom he has been together for donkey's years. I also think that he never did understand her and she probably feels the same. Because of course it works both ways...

People fall out of understanding and out of love more often than we think but it is simply too much effort to go through the technicalities and break up, so instead they spend a lifetime going through the motions, looking the other way, blaming men, women, stress, routine, etc etc. As I have said before, I am not one for advice on matters of the heart... but come on... confront it!!!!!