ups and downs

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ups and downs pl (plural only)

1. (idiomatic) Periods of positive and negative events, moods, or interactions; highs and lows.

   Heidi and Mike had their ups and downs, but they stayed married for more than 60 years.

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Our Street, page 34:

     So it is the world wags: that honest men and knaves alike are always having ups and downs of fortune, and that we are perpetually changing tenants in Our Street.

2. Undulations.
   • 1960 August, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Trains Illustrated, page 463:

     [...] speed barely exceeded 30 m.p.h. until well beyond Kelty and from the front end the ups-and-downs of the track occasioned by pitfalls are very noticeable.

• vicissitudes (formal)