When certain circumstances interrupt the natural flow and growth of a relationship, it is like a flower that continues to be cut off just as it is beginning to bloom. The bloom is the desired result for both people, but the bush it grows on (the relationship) continues to take a beating because of the circumstances, and so it just isn't possible for the flower to reach it's fullest potential. Sometimes there is no access to the bloom for one person because the other has erected a fence around part of the bush and the flower itself with the thought that it can protect it, but what it actually does is make it impossible for the other to nurture it and keep it alive. Other times, the bush it grows on gets unnecessarily pruned to the ground which invites pests such as mistrust and disease such as frustration that would normally not be even a part of the bushes and subsequent flower's worlds. And the bush reacts to these pests and diseases by withering, and thereby not allowing the flower, with the most incedible potential to be the most beautiful flower ever, to even form into a bud. So it gets eaten by the pests, and the diseases add to the stunting of the growth of both the bush and the flower. And even though, under normal circumstances the bush would never have to worry about the pests and the diseases, no matter how much each person wants the bush to be the strongest and healthiest bush ever, with the most beautiful flowers to ever be seen on God's earth, it begins to die a slow death. Even though there is still hope for the bush and the flowers, as long as the suppression of that growth continues which directly contributes to the infestation, the hope grows dimmer and dimmer until one day, it is just best that the whole bush just be torn down altogether - no matter how much each party would love to see it thrive. And that is so sad.
God, I hope that is not a chainsaw I hear in the distance.
growedup