Romantic relationships require different things at different stages… Most people are not aware of these stages and even less that what the relationship needs evolve. Additionally, the partners have different needs themselves as the relationship progresses and as life unfolds… To treat all of this as a static phenomenon is highly ineffective and dissatisfying in all. Give yourself and your relationship the right kind of attention.
In a nutshell, there are 3 stages of relationship according to Harville Hendrix and Hellen Hunt’s Getting the Love You Want:
~ The Infatuation Stage ~ The Power-Struggle Stage ~ The Conscious Stage
In each of these stages, the partners experience each other very differently, and how they choose to show up and invest in the relationship determines its success…
Some partners are naturals at being in relationship and hardly notice that they are investing in its success. They just invest in their relationship, their partner and their love.
Yet others, consider relationships an enigma. They struggle finding a partner, keeping a partner, and/or creating a radiant and successful relationship.
Of course, most people and most relationships fall somewhere in the middle of that range.
Regardless, they all go through at least the first two stages to varying degrees…
STAGE 1: The Infatuation Stage
In this stage, the partners meet and they fall in love. They are attracted to each other because a there is a sense of familiarity and comfort about each other…
This is when they show up with their social mask, showing what they believe to be socially acceptable, how they believe they should be in a romantic relationship, and what the other might want… They show up with their best foot forward, they do all the nice things, and give all the time and attention…
This is where the Love Cocktail starts coursing through the body, that makes the partners want to spend as much time with each other as possible, can’t but think of each other, have a hard time sleeping and eating, and experience other disruptions to life as they know it… Though it feels amazing, this natural high is not sustainable…
Eventually the partners need to get back to regular life, and they want to share that with their newfound blessing. So, they make a higher level of commitment.
They decide to be exclusive, then to move in together or get engaged, then possibly get married.
Depending on the nature of the partners and what they’ve created so far, each higher level of commitment can be triggering…
STAGE 2: The Power-Struggle Stage
Once the partners start making higher levels of commitment, that’s when they enter, and revisit, the power-struggle stage. The higher level of commitment invites them into a twilight-zone of sorts.
Where they feel so comfortable and familiar with their significant other, that the unconscious mind gets a little tripped up. It can no longer experience their partner as this other person that they love, but rather experiences them as an aggregate of their own caretakers growing up…
Any unresolved issues, wounds, sensitivities, internalized messages and believes, and such are part of this equation…
So, when the partners are trying to create their new life together, they both want to make sure past hurts, disappointments, frustrations, and limitations don’t repeat themselves…
They are both on the lookout to get their own needs and preferences met… Which are usually in conflict, they are seemingly in opposition, because of the nature of the attraction in the first place! Have you heard that opposites attract? Exactly.
This creates the power-struggle… They partners get stuck trying to be seen, heard, valued, appreciated, and getting whatever else they need above all else. Otherwise, they experience a sense of existential death… As this is too painful, the partners keep looking out for themselves first…
They might not even be aware of this- even those that “sacrifice themselves” are still doing it for themselves… Ouch!
At this point the relationship can be so painful, that it might not make it. Sometimes the partners figure it out enough that they minimize the pain making it tolerable to stay. They still struggle though, and question the relationship and the partnership from time to time…
Then there are others, that decide they want to have a radiant and successful relationship and that are willing to put in what it takes to make it happen. Yay!
STAGE 3: The Conscious Stage
As soon as that decision is made, the couple enters the conscious stage. They now know that their relationship, its status, and its flavor is a choice.
With this comes a sense of freedom and empowerment, for then the partners can create anything they want…
Investing in learning more about the nature of their power-struggle, how they loop and recreate dissatisfying patterns, is key. For understanding what is driving their dynamics helps them be proactive at addressing the root causes, healing and reprogramming as needed.
It is a gorgeous and satisfying investment that creates a deeper and more meaningful connection between the partners. This is the first step in creating their epic love affair. Bringing intentionality into their interactions, their lifestyle, and their collaboration in a magnificent culmination of the expression of their love.
What’s needed at each stage
As with anything for something to thrive it requires tending…
The Infatuation Stage – To enjoy dating and progressing to seeing each other and then to going steady (like that language? LOL), the key is to show up as authentic as possible… This is the time to be open, vulnerable, and passionate. Show all of you the best you can. This doesn’t mean sharing your darkest secrets, fears, and tribulations on the first couple of dates…
Get a sense for each other first. Then you can share your history more in depth… Without knowing your heart, your details might be scary to the other… In context and with your essence anything is surmountable… Keep it light and fun, but super authentic.
The Power-Struggle Stage – Once you start moving into more serious territory, you will find that you will start to experience conflict. Such is life. This is the beginning of the power-struggle. So don’t get too serious too quick. Learn each other a little more before you jump in with two feet. Once you start experiencing conflict, know that this is actually a wonderful thing…
Conflict is happening for you (so you can continue to evolve), is not happening to you… Recognize your pattern in there if you can (or get help!), and bring a ton of compassion for yourself and the other person. Armed with curiosity, resilience, and compassion you can start creating a conscious relationship…
The Conscious Stage – Just making the choice to address your patterns, makes you a conscious person. Woot! Bring this understanding to your relationship. Share what triggers you without blaming the other, without making them responsible or wrong, without putting pressure on them. It’s not their job not to trigger you.
In a more committed relationship being intentional at not triggering each other and compassionately addressing triggers when they do happen is how you create a sustainable and wonderful relationship.
And, working at meeting your own and your partner’s needs on a consistent basis is how you heal and reprogram yourselves making you less triggerable in the first place.
At each stage there is a specific focus that when tended guarantees more harmony, peace, joy and love in your life.
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication? Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
It is not uncommon for couples to have the same recurring issues and arguments… If partners are not intentional and proactive about addressing the underlying reasons for these, they will continue to have them…
Not addressing relationship dynamics can break a couple… Banging around unconscious as to who you really are, what really is driving you, what you really want and how this impacts interactions with your partner, is a sure way to create a dissatisfying relationship and mediocre life. Ouch!
Is this how you want to live your life?
Unless we’ve done personal development work, we all walk around with most of ourselves unknown to ourselves. Isn’t that something?
We have unconscious and subconscious mechanisms at work that inform most of who we are and influence most of what we do… A minuscule of our experience actually happens in our conscious mind…
The subconscious mechanism has to do with how our mind works… We can identify our unsupportive scripts, negative narratives, biases, fears, and limiting believes and address them. We can focus on reducing our Negativity Bias.
The unconscious mechanism has to do with how our embodied-brain works… We can identify/infer our wounds, emotional programming, and physiological responses and address them.
How we were raised and what we experienced growing up influenced our embodied-brain development, our sense of self and our impression and experience of the world…
Left unexplored, we are only aware of and know a small percentage of ourselves and how we experience the world…
This is where partners get into trouble. Partners sensitivities might get poked by the mere being of the other person and their imperfections.
They make assumptions and assign motives as to what they are perceiving.
Their interpretations are influenced by their limited and unexplored knowledge of themselves.
They rely on their senses and their logic to interpret an interaction and experience their partner and their relationship.
And, their senses and logic as limited as they are, they are usually additionally compromised for whatever reason.
When understanding interactions and relationships from this concept, it is really a marvel that people are able to have any sort of good relationships… The whole thing is a constant moving target!
Luckily our brain doesn’t like open loops, questions, and the unknown. I say luckily because then it looks for patterns and responds accordingly, this is useful. Otherwise, it is not great that the brain fills in the blanks with whatever it needs to reassure itself or prove itself right… This continues the virtual reality and veil we live with…
But, working with patterns allows us to plant the flag somewhere, address the experience we are having, and give us the ability to do something about it…
Working with the Unconscious Mind
I usually tackle this topic from the unconscious perspective, as this is where a lot of our programming happened growing up. This is when we literally wired our embodied-brain that’s now used to sense and perceive the world around us… (Element3 of The Strategy, of course addressing our conscious mindset and subconscious, is super important and a priority as well – Element1 of The Strategy)
In interactions with our caregivers we formulated our neuropathways and developed and integrated the structures of our brain. When our interactions were less-than-perfect (because no caregiver person is perfect), we wired ourselves according to the experience that now informs our sensitivities…
We have a filter that is on the lookout for preventing the same pain… The brain is amazing at this. Put the brain on something and it’ll find it, it’ll look for an answer to whatever question, and work on closing any open loops.
Therefore, if we have a theme of a certain kind of parenting growing up that scarred us in some way, the brain will latch on to that pattern…
It is imperative that we are aware of how our brain works so it doesn’t trip us up!
Changing the Patterns
It is our job to discover what is the pattern we keep playing out. What is our brain looking for? What keeps triggering us? How do we respond in the face of this experience that perpetuates the cycle? And in turn, how does this interact with our partner’s sensitivities? How are we co-creating our reality…?
Once we identify what is triggering us ongoingly, we can translate that pain, feeling, wound, into a need. What is the message of the feeling we are feeling? What do we need to give to ourselves to meet the need? What mindful and respectful requests can we make of our partner to help us meet our needs?
And of course, we reciprocate. When they get triggered, we try to understand what might be happening for them. We check if we are understanding them (we don’t run with assumptions!). We ask what we can offer to help them meet their needs. We can have conversations about patterns, needs, and meeting them… It just requires intentionally.
Note, I set this up from the perspective of one partner. These interactions are much easier if our partner has similar awareness and motivation to work on themselves and the relationship. But note that they don’t have to, partners get stuck on this. When we focus on what we do and how we show up, we can create change… We are not at their mercy!
APPLICATION: Take inventory of the theme of your recurring issues, arguments and fights…
How can you go about self-agenting to meet your needs while remaining mindful of your partner and their need and respectful in your approach?
We have to take responsibility of our own experience and how we co-create our reality… This self-agency allows us to create the relationship and life we desire…
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Abundance in our life is experienced in direct proportion to the level of Self Love and Self Care we give ourselves… Take a moment to soak that in. When we are stingy with our Self, our energy vibrates at a lower frequency which attracts other low frequency people, situations and results in our experience…
This ranges from having your driver’s license suspended, to a tree falling on your house, to going bankrupt, to a family member becoming seriously ill, to you becoming seriously ill, and even death. Now, I’m not trying to be gruesome, but I’ve witnessed and have experienced this level of low vibrations. It’s not pretty.
When we operate from such a low vibrational level, we have the experience of everything going wrong, life being challenging, the world is against us, people are out to get us or bring us down, things break or just decide not to work, we get hurt, etc. There is an experience of being or witnessing a train wreck…
This shows up with varying intensity and manifestation throughout our lives. When it is obviously at play, it is an indication that a repeating pattern hasn’t yet been broken, a lesson still needs to be learned, a code needs to be cracked or a stretch is required to move to the next level in our Journey…
If we are able to frame disappointment, frustration, roadblocks, lack, headaches, heartaches, and the like as mere indicators of where proper and informed attention is needed, we’d realize that life is actually not so difficult and more akin to a game to be intentionally played and enjoyed. For the Journey itself is the Human Experience we are seeking… Our task here on Earth is to live well… To have Authentic lives that are in alignment with our Soul.
What does it mean to be in alignment with our Soul? This means embracing our Creator’s characteristics as we were created in HisHer likeness – positive, compassionate, forgiving, loving, magnificent. It means embracing our Purpose, what we came down to do and experience. It means honoring our Self.
Most of us go through life dismissing and discounting our Prime Directive. We don’t mind our vibrational energy. We revel in misery as if that is normal… We don’t intentionally attend to our mood and feelings. We let them run the show and worse, we let Ego inform them. We do not identify and own our Purpose. We do not respect nor honor our Selves. This is not living an Authentic Life, a Soulful Life.
I know this is daunting to those of you who are just opening up to the existential angle to creating the life and relationship you want. For some of you all this is a given are now fine tuning how you do your Journey.
For yet others, this might sound like a crock of s*** and don’t see the relevance at all to your relationship and are wondering why I’m writing about this… I’m with you all… I just want the skeptics to stretch a little and see how you can apply any of this to your current experience. I witness day in and day out that the skeptics struggle the most… So, please, stay open and find the sliver that is resonating with you today and embrace it…
Coming full circle and on the more practical side of things. A way to honor our Self, and give our Soul its Human Experience, is to practice Self Care. This is how we experience an Abundant Life. We all have different ideas about what Self Care entails and I encourage you to develop a Self Care Practice that is rich and diverse.
I also want to add to your repertoire by introducing, or reminding you, of a powerful Relational Self Care tactic, that of sharing your perspective and experience. This honors your Existence…
This does not mean to be stubborn, power struggle, nit pick at your partner, force your idea or world on them, seek agreement, demand your way, and such. This does mean to share your internal word (thoughts, feelings, perspective, experiences, memories, etc.) with your partner while being mindful and respectful of theirs. An Awesome Relationship is comprised of two partners that get to fully show up and be accepted…
As I’ve written in the past, our job is to mind our Selves not our Partner… Be the boss of you, and only you. Step up the Self Care to raise your energy’s vibrational frequency and enrich your way of Being. Watch Abundance increase in all areas of your life…
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life… Please share your takeaways on our Blog!
Happy Self Caring!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Invite your Partner to a game of “Getting to Know Each Other More” (it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together!!). You each get to write a list of 100 items about yourselves that your partner might not know, that you want to showcase, dreams, wishes, preferences, bucket list, anything you want. Then schedule a Reveal Date where you get to share items on your lists. Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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