Basic Trope: Two characters are in love with each other, but can never be together.
- Straight: Bob and Alice are in love with each other, but can't be together because their families hate each other.
- Exaggerated: Bob and Alice can't be together because the gods are conspiring against their relationship.
- Downplayed: Bob and Alice can't get together right now because Bob's 19 and Alice is 17 in a society that does not allow adults to marry minors.
- Justified:
- Neither Bob nor Alice will willingly be together for fear of harming the other in some way.
- Alice and Bob are both already married and have kids with somebody else and think of their kids' well-being before themselves.
- Alice and Bob live in different countries.
- Alex and Bob, a nickname for Roberta, both live at a time period where same-sex marriage was not possible, let alone a committed homosexual relationship.
- Captain Killian Noodledee Spence and his beloved SS Vindictus Maximus can't be together because they're a genetically engineered superhuman and an inanimate object, respectively.
- Inverted: Bob and Alice don't like each other but their families want them to be together.
- Subverted:
- Turns out that the external objections to their relationship are just an excuse, and either Alice or Bob doesn't really want to be with the other and/or are driven only by lust or money.
- Bob and Alice's families dislike the idea of them being together, but it turns out the reason is they thought it was a trap by the other family...
- Double Subverted: ...but they still don't want them together.
- Parodied:
- Bob and Alice are a cat and a dog.
- Bob and Alice's relationship is not really a secret, and it is blatantly obvious that their families aren't opposed to them being together, they might even outright approve of their relationship. But Bob and Alice still keep sneaking off to meet in "secret" and constantly have long melodramatic dialogues about how no one will ever understand their love.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob assume thier families will hate each other due to how different they are, and so meet in secret. But then thier families actually meet and hit it off rather well... until eventually an incident sparks an actual feud, driving them into hiding. But then one of the families suggests allowing Alice and Bob to marry as a way of uniting the two families together. Unfortunately the other family disapproves of the idea.
- Averted: The fact that external factors conspire to keep them apart doesn't stop Alice and Bob from being together.
- Enforced: "We need to drum up some drama... I know! Have the Official Couple be unable to get together because of a third party!"
- Lampshaded: "Hey, this is just like in Romeo and Juliet!"
- Invoked: The families fake the feud to deliberately drive Alice and Bob together.
- Exploited: A friend agrees to help hide their relationship in exchange for large amounts of money.
- Defied: "Look, the last thing I'd want is for my son to be with your daughter, but as long as they're happy, then let's let them be." (And Alice's family agrees)
- A fourth party helps Bob and Alice to run away and marry, or convinces their families that their love is more important than the families' feud.
- Discussed: "Alice, why can’t we just be together? Why does fate try to drive us apart?"
- Conversed: "Is it really that big a deal if Alice and Bob are together? I mean, I know their families have been fighting for years, but come on!"
- Deconstructed:
- Bob and Alice's families go to such lengths to keep them apart, Alice and Bob resort to suicide so they can at least be together peacefully in death.
- Bob and Alice somehow manage to finally be together without having their families obstruct them, and settle down for a happy life... upon which they discover how poorly matched they actually are for each other, and that the passion they had came from the forbidden nature of their relationship- now that it's gone, there's Dead Sparks.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice and Bob's families eventually realize that their children's happiness is worth much more than their rivalry and allow them to be together.
- Alice and Bob hook up in the afterlife.
- Alice and Bob decide to work on their relationship and learn to love each other as people instead of ideals.
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