Worth a read.

I was in the office doing some research for work when I came across this passage in Wiki:

"Passion Paradox is a theory about romantic relationships created by Dean Delis in his book "Passion Paradox". According to Delis, one partner is more in love – or emotionally invested in the relationship – than the other. The more love the loving partner wants from the other, the less the other feels like giving. The more in love partner is in the one-down position, whilst the less in love partner occupies the one-up position. Men and women can occupy both positions at various times."

Intrigued, I read on and found the explanation to why seemingly perfect relationships fail; couples don't fall out of love. They fall out of balance.

"The author affirms that virtually everyone experiences love’s two sides in the same way (pleasure and pain). It does not matter whether your past experiences moulded you to be a particular person – no one, even the emotionally healthy person, is exempted from the pain of love when it tips out of balance.

In this context, love relationships would produce a paradox: ‘one-downs’ try harder as they feel insecure and want to get back in control. They attempt to enhance their attraction power. The goal of such effort is to gain emotional control over the relationship as to avoid the nightmare of rejection (that means winning his or her love). But the catch is: if you prove too appealing to the one you want – to the point where the other person is clearly more in love with you – the relationship will fall out of balance.

When such an event occurs, you have become the ‘one-up’ or, if you are frightened by your partner’s distance, you have become the ‘one-down’. It would seem that the very urge to attract someone, to bring another person under emotional control, contains the potential for upsetting the balance of the relationship. This is due to the fact that the feeling of being in love is biochemically linked to the feeling of being out of control. Once you feel completely in control or sure of another person’s love, your feelings of passion begin to fade: vanishing the challenge or excitement of the relationship."