Contents
What are the phases in a relationship?
Sexuality
Not all relationships go through the same phases nor do they all stay the same time in each of them
Do you already know the assumptions «crisis» who live in a love relationship? First would come the two-year-old, another at seven and the odd bump in between. But as you know, not all Couple relationships have the same times and that makes it just a false myth, just like thinking that there is a manual that explains the different stages that are lived in love. There are, but there is no set guideline.
The love that is felt in a relationship It is such an intense, intangible, subjective and personal emotion that it is difficult to divide it into stages. Each of us lives it in a different way, although it is true that, according to scientific studies, a couple relationship goes through different phases of this emotion that drags us to feel in a different way: passionate, romantic, passionate, toxic, affectionate …
The phases of love
Silvia Sanz, an expert psychologist in couple relationships, knows what are those stages that are lived throughout a loving union, but by no means is it something established that it is fulfilled to the letter, much less in agreed times. Each relationship is different and the phases are marked by its members.
To begin with, most of us have experienced a first phase of Honeymoon, and this is where the attraction and infatuation arise. In the expert’s words, “where the brain decides based on what it believes, not what it sees.” There is research that shows that the exact length of time it takes a person to fall in love at first sight is 8,2 seconds. “At this stage, the person we love does not really exist, we get an idea of the other, we ‘invent’ it,” he says.
When we have passed that phase, we would get to know the person we love with first dates, where time is so tight that we only imagine how we would like it to be. «There are certain traits that attract us: some physical aspect, qualities that we perceive related, all those details that are imperceptible or not very rational and make us feel differently and cause us a whirlwind of emotions that are a little ‘crazy’, product of the hormones, ones designer drugs that the brain provides us ”, explains Silvia Sanz.
This process is explained as follows, according to the expert: «Our body secretes substances through the skin called pheromones that are volatile but send unconscious signals that can be of sexual interest. Although people have a reduced sense of smell, pheromones produce pleasant chemical reactions and are perceived through it.
Therefore, the greater the amount of pheromones that a person secretes, the greater the interest that arouses in others. This smell is imperceptible, but they play a very important role in the game of seduction and regulate attraction. “Chemistry is often instantaneous,” warns the psychologist.
To this first impression we must add the past experience, good and bad, that each of us has, since it conditions and influences us when it comes to meet someone and it determines us when it comes to taking the initiative, to approach that person who is attractive to us.
The relationship specialist says that this, together with the “hot flashes”, nervousness or stuttering that this person produces in us, are added in the later phases of adaptation y expectations adjustment, “Where a deeper knowledge of the other is produced,” on many occasions through coexistence. At that moment, we really began to discover the other, his A and B faces, which until now we could not see because of intoxication due to hormonal chemistry.
When the couple breaks up
This is where deciding whether our expectations are met or we have to adjust them come into play: “We doubt if they are too high or if the other is not really compatible with our character,” says Silvia Sanz. It is time to start negotiating, communicate effectively and accept the other without demanding more changes than each one wants to make. «We tend to weigh the good and everything that is not so good. Here we are assaulted by conflicts, both external and internal. Each one seeks support, space, individuality and above all that the other covers the needs or deficiencies that each of us has, “he says. And it is in this moment many couples fall off the cliff and they break.
If, on the other hand, we manage to accept the other, discover our deficiencies to cover them in a healthy way and adjust the values of both, that they manage to be in tune, through communication, we will be able to overcome this and all the phases that may arise later, as the psychologist says, and we would go to another phase: power struggles, where the couple not only wants to satisfy the relationship needs, but also “seeks to satisfy their own” looking for their own space.
Each member becomes more independent and conflicts can arise: “These power struggles occur between people who love each other to find their freedom and responsibilities outside of the relationship. A more individual interest begins and finding balance in this phase is crucial to achieving the next stage.
If you’ve gotten this far in a relationship, only the mutual growth, where both accept each other, with their differences and understand their own individuality. «If you learn to live with each of these discrepancies, looking for common spaces and strengthening commitment, intimacy and emotional ties, it is the beginning of a mature love», Concludes Silvia Sanz, thus ending her summary regarding the different stages that can be experienced within a love relationship.