Five stages of relationships.
Falling in love is something that just about everybody goes through in their lifetime even if it’s only once.
When you fall in love with somebody, you begin to realize that being in love, isn’t the hard part. The hard part is working to maintain the relationship. Every relationship is different which is why it’s difficult to navigate your way through them.
Techniques that have worked in the past may not always work in new relationships.
Most relationships lucky enough to last long go through five stages.
The way you handle these bumps In the world will predict how the relationship itself will turn out. It’s difficult for a lot of people to recognize these stages of relationships. However, the inability to recognize what is happening in your relationship can easily cause it to fall.
1. The romance stage: When we fall in love with somebody, it’s hard for us to recognize their bad qualities. We get so caught up in pure fascination that we fail to see anything wrong with them. While we are seeing our partners through a screen of perfection, They are also seeing us the same way but this seemingly endless dream doesn’t last forever.
Typically this stage doesn’t last more than two years. We fall in love with people because their personality traits are opposite to ours. This allows us to fit together like pieces of a puzzle. This person’s good traits compensate for our bad ones and vice versa. And when you fit these two puzzle pieces together, it creates a new piece. By natural design, our brains release the feel-good hormones namely oxytocin, phenylethylamine serotonin and dopamine when we are in love with someone. These hormones aid a biochemical process that rids us of stressors and fills us with infatuation which is why it becomes hard for us to recognize our partner’s flaws. Although this infatuation stage makes it seem like everything is fine and peachy, it Inevitably wears off at this point in time, you may look at your partner and realize out of nowhere, they’re the most incompatible person to yourself that you could ever think of.
This tends to happen when either of you begins to worry about a sort of permanence in the bond. This could include dating exclusively, moving in together, and getting engaged.
2. The next stage to kick in is the power struggle stage: When we think of relationships, we tend to think of the picture-perfect ones that we see in movies. This makes it easy for us to assume that our relationships can never be perfect unless they’re identical to the ones we’ve seen portrayed.
The power struggle stage causes a lot of tension and pain between partners due to the fact that the peachy-keen love you once had has disintegrated before your eyes. We sometimes replace these missing emotions with unhealthy toxic ones which leads to more problems in itself.
We stop focusing on what used to make partners seem so perfect and we begin to recognize only what makes them seem almost repulsive to us.
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When couples go through this stage in their relationship, one of them will usually become withdrawn. They feel betrayed because their partner has turned into a completely different person from the one they originally fell in love with. One party begins to demand attention while the other withdraws. This stage is usually very difficult for most couples. It also presents a chance to look into yourself and re-establish your Independence in the relationship.
Sometimes this stage takes a toll on people and they begin to think that all of their efforts were just a waste. No need to be too hard on yourself as it is just a stage. Restoring the relationship would take too much work to rebuild what they once had.
This is when couples tend to split apart in order to search for somebody who they think would be more suitable for them and also one reason why most divorces happen during this stage.
3. The stability stage: If you and your partner, learn to confront each other about your issues and recognize your own issues as well, you move onto this stage. It comes after getting through the bumps on the road. In the stability stage, you and your partner fall into a deeper and more thrilling love than ever before.
In this stage, you begin to accept that there are things that you cannot change about them therefore you see them for everything that they are. Whether good or bad, you’re willing to accept it.
A helpful way to make this stage of the relationship is to create shared experiences and maintain the feeling of adventure.
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4. The commitment stage: When it comes to relationships, people often associate commitment with marriage. Even though that’s not typically what the stage is supposed to represent. Many couples have made the mistake of marrying while still in the romance stage of their relationship, but ideally this is the stage in which you and your partner are actually ready for marriage. Also in the commitment stage, you recognized that you both have faults and neither of you are perfect. Even though you come to this realization, you make peace with your heart that you still want your partner regardless.
It is worth noting that many people trick themselves into believing that since they’ve gotten this far and it feels so good, their work as a team must be done. Often, they also tend to sacrifice their own goals in life to spend more time with their significant other instead, or they become lazy in maintaining their emotional connection.
The truth is both of you are growing and evolving so your work is never done, you will always have to rediscover each other.
5. The Bliss stage: Once you’ve reached this stage, you and your partner become consciously aware of your love for each other and you decide to move out into the world to show it. You try to give back to society by donating to charities, raising children, volunteering in your community or starting a family business.
Always remember that if you and your partner have been together for a long time, you must be sure to continue nurturing your connection so problems don’t arise.
Relationships can be tough sometimes. It’s important to learn how to handle things effectively.
Understanding each stage makes it easier to identify and solve problems in a relationship.
Remember that it’s natural to lose certain feelings for people at times and not everything lasts forever.
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