The implications of emotional evolution on our relationships is crucial to our understanding of why they fail.
Relationsips do not crash without reasons, and often the invisible force of our individual development over time is the real death knell of many unions.
For example, the different stages of the age continuum means that if a person in his fifties or sixties is courting a twenty-year-old, their perspectives relating to personal evolution are going to be almost diametrically opposed.
The young person will be focusing on money, self-image and transience; forging an independence and personal growth that includes no one else.
Although that 50-year-old might try to align himself with this process and pretend he is emotionally parallel, his experience would affect the perception of the relationship.
He would expect his partner to behave like him; perhaps comparing himself to her, unfavourably, of course, feeling much more insecure, inadequate and more vulnerable, a process which would make him more critical of his spouse.
Thus relationships which have a very wide age gap between the two parties seldom survive for too long.
While the older person has already evolved into a confident one, brimming with experience, having sorted out priorities at the different staging posts of her life, the younger person will just be embarking on his own turmoil and anxieties.
It will then be difficult to share significant milestones in a meaningful way or to appreciate personal motives or objectives.
Hence there are likely to be constant feelings of anxiety and insecurity, particularly in the older person, that the younger party will move on to one of her own peers in due course - a most realistic expectation.
Trophy Partner Most of the time when people of vastly differing ages are drawn together this is due either to a desire for money, security, a mother/father figure, a trophy partner, or to prove one's self as still virile and appealing.
Rarely is such a union based on simple attraction and a sharing of mutual perspectives because the individual needs would not be entirely congruent.
In fact, they are bound to be different.
A successful celebrity of 62 years recently married someone 28 years old; a woman who friends felt complemented him absolutely as they got on 'so well'.
Others might say that his title, fortune and artistic status would also be highly significant factors linking them together! However, the age gap of 34 years (he'll be 80 when she is a mere 46) is not an insignificant one.
He is in Stage 5 of his evolution, at the prime of his life and accomplishments, a serene time of self-fulfilment and reflection, while his new wife has just reached Staging Post 2 with all her angst still waiting in the wings.
Quite a difference in experience and awareness which could unfold negatively down the years.
As formortality, if he lives to be the average age of 78, he can only look forward to about 16 more years of life, compared to her 56 years left as a woman! It will be fascinating to watch their progress.
There is a similar problem with people in their teens setting up home.
They have barely started Staging Post 1, untouched by the experience and knowledge necessary to balance their personalities or to make appropriate decisions.
As they have all their growing up ahead of them, it is almost impossible to remain anchored to another person when the turbulence of Staging Posts 2 and 3 begin to lash over them.
They are likely to be new people a few years down the line, which could dramatically change their perception, expectations and life choices.
That is the main reason why marriages go to the wall after a few years because people would have virtually evolved into brand new versions of themselves, especially if they have been welcoming the changes in their life and environment.
If they have been resisting those natural changes, then the pain of renewal becomes more intense and longer lasting.
Hence why many relationships drag on over time without being really fulfilling to either party.