When you start loving someone and are in an intimate relationship with them, all you can think is the blossoming love between you both. You are fascinated by affection, care, intimacy, surprises, dates, and sex. Your mind has the image of the filmy love stories. And you are full of beans to live it.
The stages of a relationship
There are 5 stages of a relationship. They are The Merger, Doubt and Denial, Stability Stage, Decision, and Wholehearted Love. Every relationship faces the distinct stages of love. Merely falling in love is not enough for the final commitment stage but you both have to go through sacrifices, trobles, fights, and compromises.
Love is accepting each other’s imperfections and standing by each other to create a long term relationship. When you cross these 5 stages, you move towards eternal love.
The Merge
The first stage of a relationship happens to be the Merge stage, also known as the honeymoon stage. This is the most happening stage in the life of a couple. in this stage, the couple is involved in a full swap romance, a full level of intimacy, and passionate sex.
At this stage, you both will feel that your life is not the perfect track. You will be floating in the ocean of euphoria. Everything will feel as if you have merged into each other and you do not need anything else than each other. You will have no boundaries of anything between you.
This stage is considered to be the most romantic relationship stage of a couple’s life and the hormonal level especially oxytocin and dopamine are on the 9th cloud. You will always be involved in romantic and sexual activities with each other.
Relationship experts say that a couple should enjoy this stage in full swing because this comes just once in their lifespan. It is advised not to make any serious decisions in life in this romance stage because you will be in a very happy and romantic mood all the time and you should not make any decisions in such times.
Doubt and Denial
The second stage of a relationship starts when you come out from the fascination of a romantic relationship with your partner. Here in this stage, you actually try to notice your partner. You will now find flaws in your “perfect partner”.
Some of their habits will annoy you, and some may irritate you, which initially were sounding cute to you. You will find more differences rather than similarities. It might happen that you may fight for something which you used to do for them with love in the initial stage.
This is the major stage of survival. When you both will have fights and differences more than love and care, you will see the love fading off. You might also feel to leave your partner and ending the romantic stage. But now you will have to be patient with each other and understand each others’ language of love.
The language of love includes 5 things i.e. words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. Understanding these about each other will help your relationship grow.
Stability Stage
After the doubt, there comes stability in the relationship. When you both are able to cross the storm of doubt and denial and now you understand each other’s love language, your relationship is now at the stage of rest.
Now you will know the dissimilarities about each other so now you will fight but you will not think about ending it and the love will not be fading out from your romantic relationship. You will have stability now.
Now you have met the actual person and that will not annoy you anymore. you will enjoy the moments of joy and boredom together. You are completely out from the infatuation and now you know the real meaninqg of a healthy relationship and that doesn’t irritate you.
Decision
This is the most crucial stage of a relationship. Not at relationships are able to survive the storm of doubt on denial and not every relationship is strong enough to come at the stability stage. In this stage, you make the decision of whether to stay in the relationship or to walk off.
If you decide to stay with your partner then you must consider the point that relationships are not fairytale love stories that are depicted in romantic movies. They are much more than romance. You will have fights, misunderstandings, anger issues, etc. But despite everything, your love should remain the same.
You must communicate with your partner about your feelings truly. This will give you a better understanding of each other.
Decide with a calm mind that do you want to stay with them or not. Even if you do not want it, just let them know because your mental health is above all. Do not stay with someone under any pressure.
Wholehearted Love
The final stage of a relationship is wholehearted love. This means that you both have accepted each other wholeheartedly along with the flaws and imperfections. There is the eradication of uncomforted from your relationship and you both are out from the fascination.
Now you both listen to each other actively and there are healthy fights. You can also say that this is reviving phase of your relationship. There will be stressful sometimes but it will go away smoothly.
You will start sharing the happy and joyous moments again. You will again feel a zeal for each other and the passion for sex and intimacy will again strike your mind. In fact, the intimacy level will now be wild.
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Final thoughts
Entering a relationship is like being a newborn baby. As he crosses different phases like infant, teenage, adult and old age, a couple in a relationship also have to cross the stages of a relationship. These phases of a relationship make it strong enough to survive all the storms of life.
When a couple is able to pass all these stages of the relationship, they will understand each other’s love language in a better way. It’s not like, you enter into a relationship with someone and directly jump on to happily ever after.
Even if you love your partner utmost, you need to remind yourself that every individual is unique. They will react differently in different situations and to make two as one, you need to pass these 5 stages of a relationship.
FAQs
How long will it last?
It takes around 5-6 months when you become sure that you want to stay or leave.
Honeymoon phase: fact or fiction?
it is the infatuation of a fairytale romantic relationship that is present in the initial stage of a relationship.
What stage of a relationship is the hardest?
The Decision Phase is the hardest stage of the relationship. Everything depends on if you want to stay with the person or not.