Getting into a love relationship comes with the cost of understanding each and every state of the relationship.
And this way, when a couple is able to know what to expect, they can sail through any oncoming storm
Here are the stages every couple should know
The Initiation Stage
This stage occurs when you first meet someone. It’s exchanging pleasantries and facts about yourselves.
It’s The Brand-New “getting to know you” stage. At this point, your focus is mostly on superficial attributes like appearance and how the person presents themselves.
The Experimentation Stage
If you make it past the initiation stage (and many people don’t), then you will enter the experimentation stage.
Some people don’t make it this far because they find something in the first stage that they don’t like so much. During experimentation, you dig deeper into the interests and values of the other.
Intensifying Stage
This stage is sometimes called the “bliss” stage. The reason for this is because things are starting to become more serious and intense.
You have found out enough about each other that you now want to share more deep and intimate information about yourself with the other person. Feelings start to develop and there is excitement about being in the relationship.
Integration Stage
Now that you are officially a couple and have feelings for each other, in the integration stage, you will start to blend your lives together.
You develop routines and habits as a couple. Your family and friends also start to recognize you as a unit. In other words, you have gone from “me and you” to “us.”
The Bonding Stage
Since you now view yourselves as a unit instead of two individuals, the bonding stage is when real commitment tends to happen.
Both of you are very sure of the bond you share, so you will either move in together or get married. Everyone has their own way of showing bonding, but regardless, this stage involves some formal commitment in the eyes of society.
The Coming Apart Phase
We all want to be happy and live happily ever after, but that’s simply not the case for many couples. Whether you are married, living together, or just dating, the coming apart phase happens to most of us at one time or another.
Here are the stages of the coming apart phase:
The Differentiating Stage
Being crazy in love and walking on Cloud 9 doesn’t last. Even in the happiest of relationships, life is not always perfect.
But if you have entered the differentiating stage, then you are probably headed toward a breakup. This is the time when you start seeing differences, incompatibilities, and start to see cracks in your unit.
The Circumscribing Stage
This stage is just a continuation of the differentiating stage.
You pull further away from each other, you set boundaries for yourself, communication falters, and you become less and less intimate (in all ways – emotionally, mentally, and physically).
You start to see yourself as an individual now more than you did before. The unit is unraveling even more. There will be a lot of blaming, defensiveness, and resentment.
The Stagnation Stage
In this phase, you are no longer going anywhere in the relationship.
You are at a standstill. Think about a pond with algae on it. It doesn’t move; the water just sits there and grows more gross stuff on it.
That’s pretty much what is happening during this stage. The coming apart is almost complete. Apathy may have even set in as well – on one or both people’s parts.
The Avoidance Stage
This stage involves avoidance – either physically, mentally, emotionally, or all of the above. One of you may move out of the house, leading to a true separation.
Or perhaps you are still living under the same roof, but you don’t really talk or interact anymore. You’re like two roommates who don’t really get along, so you try to avoid each other as much as possible.
The Termination Stage
In the termination stage, a relationship formally ends. If the couple is married, then the divorce is started or finalized.
If you are just living together, then one or both of your physically moves out and makes the separation final. In a nutshell, this is when the relationship is emotionally and/or legally over.
