If you have ever been in a committed relationship, then you don’t need relationship experts to help you identify some crucial steps and stages that appear in it.
The stages of a relationship are pretty much the same in every lasting relationship, and all couples experience it similarly.
If you want to know what these Relationships Stages are and how you can make the most out of all of them, then you are in the right place!
Let’s delve into the following:
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| "Serious Relationships" | "Discreet Hookups" | "Best Course for Men" |
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| "Quick Flings" | "Normal Hookups" | "Our Quiz" |
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What Are The Stages Of A Romantic Relationship?
Relationship stages identify different times in a relationship and different ways of loving and caring for another person.
Whatever your love language is, no matter how much you are in love with someone and how good your relationship is, you will always experience different stages throughout it.
How many stages in a relationship exist is up for debate because while some claim there are only 4 of them, others say there are 10 and more.
There is not a sat relationship timeline, but there are a few phases of dating that can easily be identified even by people who have never been in a relationship.
Here we will present you with 7 phases of a relationship that seem to be the most frequent among couples:
1. Passionate love – Honeymoon stage
All relationships start with passionate love, the honeymoon stage where everything feels like you’re in a dream, and there is a deep infatuation with a partner.
You are constantly feeling happy, your partner looks like the most handsome person in the world, and oxytocin and dopamine are constantly released, making this honeymoon phase feel like all you have ever wanted in life.
This is the moment where you will not even question your partner, and everything they do will make you feel happy and invincible.
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| "Serious Relationships" | "Discreet Hookups" | "Best Course for Men" |
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| "Quick Flings" | "Normal Hookups" | "Our Quiz" |
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The honeymoon phase tends to start even on the first date, and it can last through all the early stages, depending on the couple.
Unfortunately, this is also why so many people don’t even move on to the next stage because once they start falling off cloud 9, they realize that not everything is hearts and flowers, and this person probably has some negative traits that you also need to think through before you enter a real, committed relationship.
After a period of stagnation, you will be able to move on to the next chapter of your relationship.
2. Discovery
The discovery stage is the moment of the real beginning of relationships, and this is one of the stages of love where you will break up or decide to spend the rest of your lives together.
In this stage, you will start examining and discovering your partner, the things they like and want to do, and the things they don’t, how they react in certain situations, how they take care of their friends and family members, and a lot more.
How does dating work is that you will first need to meet the person and recognize their behavior and different traits before you realize whether they are the right match for you or not.
Love phases can easily be won if two people know each other and know how the other one acts in different situations, which is why the discovery phase is so important.
However, not only will you discover your partner and how they act, but you will also see what the things you want to see in a partner are and what you expect from them.
The main outtake from this phase is to learn what you want to find in a partner and see what the things you are ready to settle with for a successful relationship are.
3. Commitment
The commitment stage is when you feel so confident and secure about being with this person that you are ready to settle down for a commitment and spend your time with them.
All good relationships stem from cherishing the commitment and valuing time spent with this person a lot more than with someone else.
However, this doesn’t mean that this phase doesn’t require some hard work, too, because if you want to maintain a healthy relationship, you will need to learn how to work things out with your partner and fight against the boredom that can ruin your relationship.
Even though the romance probably won’t be intensifying too much, you will still need to work to fight the monotony and continue being a loving couple.
It will also be the phase where you will need to learn to communicate efficiently; otherwise, no relationship advice would be able to help you out.
4. Power struggles
A power struggle can occur before and while trying to create a commitment, and it is a natural dynamic in the relationship of two people.
In this stage, you will be trying to make the things you like to do the main ones in your relationship, while your partner will be trying to push through his ideas.
This is the next level in a relationship where you will need to discuss the main problems between the two of you, and that will lead to you trying to save your individuality while still solving problems.
When a power struggle appears, there is not too much of a romance stage, so if you don’t manage to go through these dating steps successfully, then your chances of going further in the relationship are not that high.
Make sure to compromise and listen to your partner so you can overcome power struggles the right way.
5. Growth
After you successfully overcome all the struggles and steps of dating, and you come to a whole new level in your relationship, your connection will feel more natural, and everything between the two of you will seem so rare and genuine no one will be able to harm it.
This is the moment when you will realize what all the things you have done wrong in your previous relationships or in the earlier stages were, and it will help you improve the way you view relationships and yourself in them.
It is also the time where you will try to sit and see where this whole thing goes and how you need to act if you want to get to that final stage and create lasting love.
However, make sure you communicate during this phase of your relationship because if you don’t, there could be many incompatibilities that can hardly be overcome in the future.
6. Romantic love
The honeymoon phase and blind love may feel amazing, but adult romantic love is an entirely different thing.
A dating couple that has been around for so long that they were able to overcome all the problems the first 5 stages bring will most definitely stay with each other for good.
Romantic love begins once you forget all those little things that may irritate you and stop you from developing a new level of intimacy.
It is based on knowing each other so well that you feel safe and comfortable around this person even much more than you would alone.
People who fall in love this deep see each other as life-long partners, as two people who can’t become inseparable; otherwise, they wouldn’t know how to act.
If you don’t pay enough attention to your partner and you don’t invest yourself truly in the relationship, you can always end up in a crisis, but the chance for that is much smaller if you have already succeeded in all of those phases before.
7. Crisis and recovery
The crisis stage can happen at in anytime in the dating timeline, whether it is with a new partner or with someone you have been dating for years.
There are several reasons for the crisis occurring, but it mostly happens when stressful situations in life appear, and one person doesn’t know how to support the other in the right way.
It will drain both partners, especially if it is connected to an unfortunate situation like the death or illness of someone close to them.
Those who genuinely love each other will try by all means to help and save the other person and their relationships along with it.
The most important thing during the crisis is the accessibility of the other person and knowing you can rely on them no matter what happens.
In case the two people weren’t able to form a bond that well, then surviving the crisis can be a tricky thing, and it doesn’t mean it will lead to mutual recovery.
If you love this person, and the crisis stage appears after all the previous stages, then working out through it is probably the only thing you could do because you would never sacrifice a bond that honest and pure.
These are not stages of a relationship by month or year, and depending on the dynamic of two people depends on when these stages will appear and how.
The first stage is pretty much the same for everyone, but everything else can differ from one couple to another, especially if you are onto the slow relationship timeline.
No matter what happens, you should know that there is a solution to all of these phases, and you as a couple can always come out a lot stronger, no matter what you may be thinking at the moment.
Don’t focus on what are the 5 stages of relationships and what are the 7 stages of relationships because the relationship dynamic is different for everyone, and you never know things will roll out in your case!
Are Relationship Stages Same In Every Relationship?
Every relationship will experience highs and lows, especially at the beginning when two people are still getting to know each other and seeing what the other person likes.
How to get into a relationship is not easy, but maintaining this connection is even harder, so you will need to work a lot in all situations to make things go smoothly.
Whether your relationship will follow the above-mentioned phases or not depends on a lot of things, and while you will eventually experience all of them, it doesn’t mean everything will appear in the same order.
The stages of relationship development may go much slower or much faster for some couples, usually because of their private matters and situations, so don’t stress too much if you think your relationship is not following these stages in the mentioned order.
This whole relationship timeline is also just one of the ways you can split relationships into phases, and there are plenty of different ones where you will see authors claiming there are only 4 or 5 of them.
We have used this division because it seemed to be the most detailed one and would help readers understand how relationships work in the most straightforward way, so don’t stress out if you feel like you are not doing it right.
Every couple has their own dynamic, and there is no author that could make their relationship look unloving or unhealthy as long as the couple doesn’t feel the same way and their connection is not full of red flags.
The stages of a relationship will differ from one couple to another, but the love will stay the same, so as long as you feel loved, cherished, and connected to your partner, you will know you are doing the right thing.
