4 stages of a relationship without which there will be no love and intimacy

“I remember our first six months, he looked after me like no one before him! recalls 32-year-old Eleanor. – We spent all the time together. And then suddenly it became more interesting for us apart. We spent a lot of time each in our own company, in the evenings we might not even have time to talk. And at some point I thought: am I sure we should be together?

But then my partner raised his voice and insisted that we go to a psychologist. He said that this does not happen: everything was fine and suddenly everything deteriorated irrevocably, and he believes that it is possible to return the former closeness. Now we have a renaissance. It seems to me that I love him even more than at the beginning of our journey. And I’m scared to imagine how much we could then break firewood.

This story is a vivid example of how a couple has approached a certain stage in a relationship that can scare partners if they are not aware of its existence and even its obligatory nature.

“Like any living system, relationships in a couple go through a certain process of development,” says psychotherapist Vann Joynes. – And often, when partners move from one stage to another, they think that something is wrong with them, that they are no longer loved. They just don’t understand that their relationship just moved to another stage of development. This is when couples often turn to psychotherapy. The task of the psychologist is to help them go through this stage and resolve the conflict that creates the complexity.

What kind of relationship do all couples want – in the norm – to come?

“In relationships, autonomy and healthy interdependence become the desired goal. When each person is able to think for himself and satisfy his own needs and at the same time satisfy the needs of another, Vann Joynes explains. – As John Bowlby (the author of the theory of attachment) believed, we never outgrow our need for a reliable base, a reliable support, for someone we will come to when we feel bad, when we are tired. To the one who would support us and restore our strength. And this is the leading motivation that makes people create and develop sustainable relationships.”

Often in adult relationships, we complete what we didn’t complete when we were children, in relationships with significant parental figures. There is a psychological birth of relationships and their development, the same as in any human baby.

Here is how Vann Joynes described its stages.

1st stage. Relationships are an idealized fantasy. Search for a partner

The image of a future partner is created based on fairy tales, it is born from those romantic, ideal stories that we hear in childhood. At this stage, we are looking for a knight and a princess who will fulfill our dreams. This is an idealized partner who, in our imagination, is able to satisfy all our needs (which is unrealistic).

However, it is this fantasy that helps us enter into relationships and marriage. We ourselves behave in an ideal way and show the other the best version of ourselves. We really want to please and therefore carefully hide for the time being our not the most attractive side.

2nd stage. Symbiosis. Candy-bouquet period, the first months of life together

Here, romantic love and passion play the first violin in relationships. At this stage, the tale continues – our partner still wears, if not a halo, then the crown of a princess or the armor of a knight. We begin to establish and build relationships according to the model that existed in early childhood with the parental figure who took care of us in the first place.

This is the initial transition to establishing a connection and developing an attachment with another human being. According to the theory of attachment, this connection can be both reliable and anxious, avoidant and disorganizing.

We want to be close to a partner. And if we are not together, then all our thoughts are about him. We don’t notice the differences, we focus on the similarities. It seems to us that we cannot live without this person. But gradually we begin to show what was hidden behind the scenes. For example, the fact that we also have our own interests – without the participation of a partner in them.

3rd stage. Separation. Later relationship period

Conflicts and struggle for power begin. At this stage, partners understand that they do not always want to be together, that their interests and needs may not coincide. It is during this period that they ask questions: “Where were my eyes when I chose it? Where has our love gone? Did I marry the right person? Does the partner still love, who began to spend so much time separately?

Separation and individualization take place. Vann Joines identifies three sub-stages for this period when the “honeymoon is over”.

1. Differentiation. By analogy with the period when we first begin to separate from the mother. And now we are separating from a partner, and this is alarming.
2. Test in practice. We begin to practice this newfound individuality by separating from our partner. “This is the stage where we fall in love with the world around us, begin to interact with it. We do different things, communicate with other people.
3. Reunion, rapprochement. If we return to the “child and mother” analogy, then during this period the child, breaking away from the mother, loses the sense of her image and again needs her. He returns to her to “refuel”. In this reunion, he regains love, support, connection. The same thing happens in relationships with a partner. In a couple relationship, this means an opportunity for partners to discuss their needs and affairs. Both learn to simultaneously set the boundaries of their individual “I” and at the same time be a reliable support for the partner, help him realize and satisfy his needs.

“The more our need for this dependency and support is satisfied, the more autonomous we learn to feel,” says Vann Joines. — The more the partner is responsive, reliable, the more he helps us to satisfy our needs, the more freedom we feel. We have that same autonomy – as opposed to that mutual exclusivity in the “honey period”, where we are focused only on each other, forgetting about ourselves.

It is at this stage that the danger of rupture is great. Partners may decide to “get out of the game” and try to re-find the ideal partner, which we now understand does not exist. After all, relations with him will go through the same stages and will inevitably come to the stage of separation and individualization. Sometimes we will repeat the roles played by our parents.

“Partners need to endure this period and get therapy if they can’t cope on their own,” recommends Vann Joines. – Remember that relationships, marriage involve work. Relationships are a machine for growing people who can go through all the stages and grow, or they can get stuck at some stage and stagnate there. But if they manage to get the job done and go through all the stages together, then they move to the next level of mature relationships and real intimacy.”

4th stage. Proximity and belonging. mature relationship

At this stage, partners consistently create a support for secure attachment.

“Each partner needs to feel that the other is available and responsive enough to get their needs met in the relationship. At this stage, partners go beyond what they projected onto their partner – mom, dad, princess from a children’s fairy tale or knight from their favorite movie, and begin to rediscover him – who is he really? Vann Joines says. “Now they see a real living person outside of this image – completely the way he is. The one they fell in love with. They rediscover it and experience a deeper sense of intimacy and belonging that is more satisfying than the initial “honey” obsession with the other.”

So what about conflicts? Are there no more of them? Of course they will. But now partners have the opportunity and habit to talk to each other, no one leaves, no one hides in resentment and childish patterns, no one interrupts the relationship. And it creates a feeling of a stronger connection.

“Partners reach a level of mature relationship in which conflicts are possible, but the relationship persists. They develop deeper love, more trust, more secure attachment. At the stage of mutual dependence, the idea of ​​perfection is reconciled with the idea of ​​reality, and “1 + 1” turns out to be more than 2, the expert claims. “When people together find themselves better people than alone, outside of these relationships, which are based on the foundation of growth and development, instead of need and need, as before.”

Partners stop working out their childish difficulties in which they are stuck on each other. Healthy addiction now promotes autonomy. Whatever I am – hungry, tired, lonely, irritated – I can always come to a partner and satisfy my needs. And I have more confidence when I go to the outside world.

“These are the necessary stages that are inevitable. And if people want to come to a mature, true love, then they need to know about it, says Vann Joynes. – Not everyone makes it difficult to go through these stages. But if people understand that relationships are work, then they will be more likely to reach the final rewarding point.”

This article was prepared as part of a collaboration between Psychologies and project Tops TA.

Vann Joynes is an American clinical psychologist, president and director of the Southeastern Institute for Group and Family Therapy, international psychotherapy trainer, supervisor and consultant, TSTA-P at IATA, winner of the 1994 Eric Berne Award from the International Association for Transactional Analysis. Co-author of the books Modern Transactional Analysis, Personal Adjustments: A New Guide to Understanding the Person in Psychotherapy and Counseling.