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Another way to prolong a relationship is with codependency. If one person is psychically riding on someone else then they'll never drift apart.

A neutral 3rd party synchronization artifact also works. Running a company together. Raising a child together. It's not that bad relationships tear these things apart but that they're often not powerful enough to bridge the psychic space.

Revelation events are felt as cold betrayals because someone you thought was there for you is suddenly gone. You reach to feel warmth and just stumble into empty coldness. It was just a bunch of pillows stuffed under the bed sheets.

What all this put together implies is that loneliness is the natural tendency of things. Red ink dropped into the ocean expands and eventually disappears. The individual molecules never come together again to recreate the experience of being red ink.

Every resynchronization event can be considered a game. Like playing a board game over weeks/months/years. Within the context of a game you have an identity or a mask. When you team up, you create a team identity that acts as a single unit.

Without a reason for that team to exist, the team falls apart. This can be seen in politics where reasons can be desperately grasped at to keep together a community. Even if it's something like a coal mining community in the middle of nowhere.

For intimate relationships the game is usually child rearing. "I want to play an at-least 2 decade long game with you." "Wow, you really like me that much huh?"

There are other games, but they can often be short term. E.g. marriage for "only have sex w/ me and I'll support your life style" only lasts as long as the sex appeal does.