come apart at the seams

So far, Vladimir Putin has played a clever hand, sitting back and doubtless enjoying watching the transatlantic alliance come apart at the seams.

The same team leaders driving stressed employees onward—perhaps promising a light at the end of the tunnel or, more likely, setting wildly high metrics to meet—are themselves starting to come apart at the seams.

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings, Donald Trump may try to escape such foreign entanglements and their political cost by reverting to the Republican Party’s historic isolationism, even as he ensures that the former lone superpower of Planet Earth could come apart at the seams in the wake of election 2024.

If you needed a long-term formula for disaster in a country threatening to come apart at the seams, it would be hard to imagine a more striking one.

The defense had come apart at the seams, losing its way over the final weeks of last season.