A situation is real—and it’s one of the more emotionally messy outcomes of how expensive life has gotten.
What you’re describing usually looks like this: two people who used to have a genuine relationship, the emotional connection fades (or turns into resentment), but they’re still economically “locked in” because splitting up would make both of them worse off financially.

It tends to happen most often with:

High rent / housing markets (where one person can’t realistically afford to live alone)
Shared leases or mortgages
One-income gaps (one partner earns enough to support both; the other can’t easily replace that support)
Kids or shared debts, which make separation even harder
So what you get is basically a cohabitation arrangement that used to be a relationship, but now functions more like financial interdependence with emotional distance.
People in that situation often fall into a few patterns:

Roommate mode: They stop behaving like partners and start living like polite co-tenants. Separate lives, shared bills, minimal conflict.
Emotional shutdown: One or both people detach emotionally but stay physically present because leaving isn’t feasible.
Cycle of attempts and collapse: They try to “fix things,” temporarily reconnect, then drift back into resentment or indifference.
Quiet exit planning: One person slowly saves money, builds credit, or lines up housing so they can eventually leave.
It can feel stuck, but it’s not always permanent. A few things usually decide what happens next:
Whether either person can realistically increase income or reduce costs
Whether the living situation is legally/financially flexible (lease terms, roommates, subletting)
Whether there’s any willingness to renegotiate the arrangement honestly
And how tolerable the emotional distance becomes over time
The hard truth is: in expensive economies, money can become the glue that replaces emotional compatibility for a while, but it doesn’t restore the relationship itself. It just delays the separation or forces a different kind of relationship structure.