drift apart

drift apart

1. To move away from something slowly, especially while floating on water. I guess the innertubes drifted apart because they're now scattered across the pool.
2. To gradually become distant from someone after a period of closeness. Andrea and I never had a big fight or anything, we just drifted apart over the years, and now I hardly ever see her.
See also: apart, drift
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

drift apart

 (from each other )
1. . Lit. [for floating things] to separate as they drift. The boats drifted apart from one another. The boats drifted apart in the waves.
2. Fig. [for people] to lead their lives without contact with each other having been together or friendly. He drifted apart from his friends. As the years went by, they drifted apart.
See also: apart, drift
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • drift back
  • drift away
  • drift off
  • guess at
  • guess at (something)
  • put two and two together
  • put two and two together, to
  • float through
  • float through (something)
  • glide across
References in periodicals archive
Then, as if the clock had started up again, the men and women cautiously reconfigured themselves into increasingly passionate couple dancing, only to drift apart with three of the women left crumpled, detritus-like, on the floor.
INTELLECT AND KINETICS COLLIDE
And how do you make sure you don't drift apart again every time the going gets tough?
Why did partner have an affair?
If you don't, your lives may drift apart, which would be sad for you both..
Flirty mum shows me up; Your Sex Doctor
Richard Kane, founder and director of National Marriage Week, said: 'Couples who drift apart do so because time together is pressured and unrewarding.
Couples told: Get talking
Then they drift apart for two decades until bartender Suzette (Hawn) goes in search of Vinnie, only to find she has reinvented herself and buried her past.
Rock roles
The discovery suggests that dipterocarps have existed for much longer than previously thought--even before the split of ancient landmasses over 80 million years ago, when South America and Africa began to drift apart, the group asserts.
Old world tree has roots in new
It is as if they were buoyed by an invisible body of water in which they bob and dip, bump and abut, overlap and drift apart. Imagine looking down from a dock into a littered harbor in which natural and unnatural debris floats at slightly different levels amidst a thin film of spilled gasoline and motor oil.
Manny Farber
"People finish bands and drift apart. We definitely have drifted apart."
I'm Filan a lot better about my life; Singer Shane puts bankruptcy hell behind him with book and Asia tour
As people grow up, move away, have families or just drift apart, they lose friendships at the rate of 1.2 a year.
Friends don't last
Shapiro says that once recombination between the X and Y was suppressed, they were free to drift apart evolutionarily.
Common ground for X, Y chromosomes
Joking aside, I think you run the risk of living separate lives at the weekends, which in turn could make you drift apart and spell disaster for your relationship.
TEXT MESSAGE
"We just started to drift apart, probably from about the beginning of the year.
I'M SINGLE AGAIN; Byram focuses on love search after she dumps cameraman
Although this relationship is very important to both of us, I'm scared we'll drift apart.
Dear MIRIAM: Too tied up for uni love
If you want results, you both have to put some effort in because, until you do, as you rightly say, you will drift apart.
Your Life: Beauty: LOVE CLINIC: We've lost the romance
We used to live almost next door and had been seeing each other for nearly a year but I'm worried the distance may mean we'll drift apart. What are our chances of staying together?
Dr Miriam: I FEAR WE'LL DRIFT APART