Basic Trope: A character forgets their lover, and perhaps becomes radically different due to amnesia. This affects the relationship.
- Straight: Bob is a wholesome family man and is happily married to Alice. After an accident wipes twenty years of his memory, he returns to his commitment-phobic Troubled, but Cute Jerk with a Heart of Gold younger self, has no memory of Alice and doesn't wish to remain married. He begins divorce proceedings and starts flirting with his Amoral Attorney Caroline, while Alice pines for him, hoping that his occasional flashbacks and her efforts will get him to remember her and turn back into his old self.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob's memory is entirely wiped. He regresses to an Empty Shell or child-like state.
- Bob's memory gets erased every other weekend. His new personality is always a Hate Sink Casanova Wannabe Evil Overlord and Love Martyr Alice, a masked vigilante, has to capture him, patch things up between him and his boss at the DA's office and make him remember her every. single. time.
- Downplayed: Newlywed Bob's memory only faded until right before his Relationship Upgrade with Alice, nine months ago. He's still essentially the person Alice loves (only slightly less organised and emotionally open because of the Character Development he underwent to be a better boyfriend). He is overjoyed to find out that they're married because he already carried a torch for her years before they dated. There are just some awkward situations to navigate as they rekindle their romance.
- Justified: Bob has dementia.
- Inverted:
- Bob suddenly remembers his Reincarnation Romance with Alice.
- Alice and Bob have been close to each other for year and various friends and family members and are waiting till when they officially tie the knot. Once the two of them lose their memories they see their relation from a more objective angle and mistake themselves for a couple.
- Subverted:
- A shot from a security camera reveals Bob kept a Tragic Keepsake, related to his relationship with Alice. It seems that as part of his job at the DA's office, he was acting as a Honey Trap to seduce Caroline into revealing her embezzlement.
- Caroline threatened him into acting "amnesiac".
- Double Subverted: Bob was only planting this clue because of Caroline's instructions, to make Alice look like a jealous stalker when she tries to pull a Big Damn Heroes to rescue him from Caroline, who has threatened to kill him. This will allow him to ask for more alimony in divorce court.
- Parodied: Bob eventually remembers Alice, but by this time, she has become the vessel of a Great Old One and goes by Gfdbzgguzzt.Gfdbzgguzzt: WHO DARES DISTURB SHE-WHO-DEVOURS? SAY YOUR PURPOSE, STRANGER, OR FACE MY WRATH!
Bob: (straight to the camera) Seriously?
(cue laugh track) - Zig Zagged: It looks like "Bob" is actually a double in disguise using amnesia as a cover, but then he remembers something only Bob could have known, only to realise he has been brainwashed into believing he is Bob. After hypnosis therapy, he realises that he is actually Caroline, who brainwashed herself to think she was Bob so she could torture Alice whom Bob remembered and tried to get back to... only to get murdered by Caroline. But the implanted personality of Bob she used for her revenge plan is threatening to resurface and Caroline feels increasingly attracted to Alice as she gets flashbacks from "their" life together. Alice learns of this and will stop at nothing to get "Bob" back.
- Averted: Bob doesn't get amnesia or does so before he gets into a relationship.
- Enforced: The executives are bored of the stable, healthy Beta Couple and want to make it more exciting, while exploiting Caroline's Ms. Fanservice abilities.
- Lampshaded: "So what's new about the whole Bob/Alice amnesia thing? I know it's wrong because they're real people and all, but they're my favorite soap opera right now, this is so dramatic!"
- Invoked: Caroline is The Baroness and knows of The Cape Alice and DA's assistant Bob's relationship. She plans to wipe Bob's memory so she can make him suggestible and use his proximity to Alice and newfound lack of concern for her well-being to get a new ally against the heroine who threatens her plans.
- Exploited:
- At her day job, Alice's tyrannical boss Daniel overhears Caroline's plan. He rushes to the office... and starts scheduling overtime for Alice. He knows that when she feels hurt, she focuses on work, and feels ecstatic at the thought of the upcoming increase in productivity.
- After learning of Bob's situation, her friend Emilia tries to comfort Alice. After a while, she senses that the relationship is still not on the mend and wonders how ethical it would be for her to ask Alice to move on… with her.
- Defied: As Caroline is about to wipe an apparently unconscious Bob's memory, she feels cold hard metal on the back of her neck. Alice whispers, "You really thought you'd get away with this?" Cue Bob smirking and opening his eyes.
- Discussed: "I could never stand to live in a world where people can just forget all you did for them and all you were for each other and just drift apart like that." "But you do! People become senile, or they change, grow apart and rewrite history. It's a powerful cautionary tale, if a bit dramatic." "A BIT?!"
- Conversed: Frank and Gina, the Official Couple of the real show, religiously watch Alice and Bob's story as a Show Within a Show. Frank makes Gina promise to never forget him, and asks for her written consent to spend a certain amount of time trying to remember him if that happens.
- Implied: Alice blissfully says that nothing can bring her and Bob apart after everything they've gone through. Smash cut to a hospital room. After his accident, Bob wakes up acting different and stares blankly when the nurse asks him who is his emergency contact.
- Deconstructed: Bob's amnesia is the best thing to happen to Bob and Alice's tepid relationship, which has been marred by attempts at Relationship Sabotage from a variety of actors. With her husband now vulnerable due to his amnesia, Alice focuses on the relationship. She stands up to her abusive boss when he tries to keep her working overtime while her husband needs her, her relationship with Stoic Woobie Only Friend Emilia, that threatened to blossom into an affair, becomes less codependent and Alice's vigilantism, which Bob always disapproved, stops being a problem. Bob doesn't remember his Control Freak tendencies or his loyalty to the DA. When he accidentally finds out about Alice's activities, Bob wonders what he did for such a beautiful, kind and badass woman to be so devoted to him, falls passionately in love and decides to woo Alice, hoping to make her fall in love with the "new" him — who turns out to be much more laid-back, funny and charming without Toxic Friend Influence. Indeed, without being blinded by his Unlucky Childhood Friend Caroline's Freudian Excuse (that he doesn't remember) or their long history together, he finally sees through her constant "joke" attempts to flirt with him and drops her. He also calls out his friends at the DA's office who were acting as Shipper on Deck for him and Caroline and hated Alice for her vocal support of vigilantism and mysterious tendancy to inexplicably disappear. Alice decides she rather prefers the new Bob...
- Reconstructed: ... but it doesn't last, because she misses "old Bob" and feels like she's betraying him with an inferior product. While "old Bob" was grumpy, he had Undying Loyalty and remained a Sour Supporter. Their relationship grew from mutual respect as Worthy Opponent into something more. Here, the opposite happens. "New Bob" looks for excitement, has no moral qualms and is fundamentally flaky and ready to dump people who bore or disappoint him. His attraction to Alice is purely based on a Loony Fan obsession with her superhero persona and he has none of the interest — or patience — that "old Bob" had for her everyday quirks. As he keeps trying to make Alice into her superhero character, Alice pressures him to remember who he was and he rebels in a Pygmalion Snapback, becoming increasingly thrill-seeking and irresponsible. To Alice's heartbreak, he eventually begins an affair with a supervilainess who looks suspiciously like Caroline, out of boredom and spite.
Amnesiac Lover... I'm your spouse. Don't you remember?
