Can Sims fall out of love in The Sims 4?

Hello again, and happy almost-Christmas to you all.

Yes we’re back with another of our guides to the very basics of The Sims 4. And this time around it’s something that many of you who like to matchmake will be wondering about.

Can Sims fall out of love in The Sims 4?

Short-term affair

Short answer: yes. Long answer; yes but…

That’s because the way romance works in The Sims 4 is the same as virtually any character relationship, be that friends or enemies. Essentially, between each Sim is a relationship score, which swings between positive and negative.

Hopefully, I don’t need to explain a positive score equals a positive relationship, and a negative score equals a negative one.

But while there are a number of factors that can affect this score, it also degrades over time. Meaning you can progress from being the best of friends or mortal enemies to just nobody to one another. There are additional wrinkles depending on if you have expansions like Lovestruck or Growing Together, but the core remains the same.

It’s worth noting what prompted this guide was that more than a few people seem to have recently taken up Lovestruck, only to find its new features cause relationships to decay much faster in certain circumstances.

So, buyer beware in case you’re not that attentive to keeping your chosen couple super happy with one another.

Enemies with benefits

What’s interesting is that The Sims 4 introduces two separate scores for both regular relationships and romantic relationships. Depending on the differing levels between the two this can have some interesting effects.

For example if you’re very friendly and very romantic with one another you’re considered to be soulmates. But having a low relationship score won’t break them up, instead applying the ‘enemies with benefits’ effect. So as long as they have some level of relationship they can stay together.

Of course, Sims can just break up out of nowhere (as some people have found happening much faster due to the aforementioned Lovestruck). But this can be toggled off in the settings to prevent it from happening without your input. Otherwise if the relationship gets really badly you’ll quickly find your chosen beaus bidding each other adieu.

However, there are mods out there if you like the drama of a sudden ending to a relationship. You’ll need to know how to mod The Sims 4 for that of course.