I'm going to agree with most of this. Until Voyager Kes and the rest of her species were sheltered and ignorant of the universe around them. Had they not found Voyager Neelix might have rescued her on his own and she would have lived on his ship with him for the rest of her life perfectly happy because she wouldn't have known anything else. Coming aboard Voyager showed her how things could be different. She grew, learned, evolved, and in doing so grew past her relationship. Many people go through that. It's like being with your high school sweetheart. It seems like the best thing while you are young but as you grow and learn often you realize that relationship is not the best for you anymore.I think that the Neelix-Kes relationship started to crumble the days after they came on board Voyager.
kes settled in very quickly. She came up with the idea of growing their own food in the Hydroponics Bay, finding new friends among the crew, becoming the nurse in sickbay and spending most of the time with what she wanted to do which was exploring and learning.
Heelix on the other hand had more problems with that. He obviously faeared that he couldn't contribute the way her really wanted to and was afraid that Janeway would dump him on some planet along the way. Therefore he constantly came up with a lot of whims, like becoming the cook, Morale Officer, journalist and whatever. he was constantly pestering Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok and even Torres with becoming part of the security team, engineering team or whatever.
What actually broke the relationship was Neelix's jealousy and possessive attitude towards Kes. She probably saw him as her Prince Charming who had saved him from the Kazon but gradually lost interest when Neelix became more and more manic about their relationship. Finally it had to break up.
However, Neelix was never mean or mistreating in any way, not intentional. He just became very difficult to have around. The same for all his whims which actually did annoy some senior officers from time to time, Tuvok the most.
I remember some comments in one of the books (I can't remember which one right now) when Tom Paris said about Neelix: "Why do his best never turn out to be what we expected from him" which may have some truth in it. In his eager to please, he over-did a lot of things which got the opposite effect. The tragic of his life.
I don't think he became much better in the 4-7 seasons when he was whimpering around Samantha and Naomi Wildman. It was another of his whims, they replaced Kes for him. I guess he had a thing for Samantha as well.
I guess that all of it was the result of his tragic background when he lost his beloved family during the war between Talaxia and Haakonia and therefore left Talaxia to travel among the stars.
But all of that makes Neelix a very interesting character. Really tragic and therefore likeable despite his flaws. The character actually has more depth and dimension that many viewers notice which makes him very interesting-and very likeable!
Neelix came aboard Voyager boasting about how useful he would be. And he was for the most part. I think because of his own dark past he was always afraid of not being useful and not having a place on Voyager so he was always trying to get involved with more things. Which is also why I think he became more interesting after they broke up and he was doing things other than being jealous of Kes all the time.
