Trigger warning: talk of weight loss, please don't read if you have issues with disordered eating
When it comes to love and our “limiting beliefs”, to borrow a term from pop psychology, there are 2 types of people -
The ones who believe love should be effortless and any kind of challenge or disharmony is a sign they’re in the wrong relationship
and
The ones who believe love is hard, hard work and any real connection goes along with a serving of tumultuousness.
But, Nelly, I thought real love was supposed to be easy, what happened to that?, you ask.
Yes, real love is characterized by a feeling of ease. But, life is not a fairytale even with the most compatible of partners by your side. So, let me tell you about the six stages of a relationship. Or - let’s be honest, let me tell you about the third one cause that’s the one couples tend to struggle with the most.
Six stages of a relationship
As you know, I’m a bit of a relationships and personal development geek. When something is confusing, I research the heck out of it. And what more confusing than human connection?
So, in my research (and thanks to a friend of mine who is a no-BS psychologist) I found out about the 6 stages of a relationship.
First, you have the dating phase. It can last from 1-5 months, roughly speaking. In the dating phase, you’re getting to know each other, trying to gauge compatibility and see if you can progress things further.
Then, you have the honeymoon phase. We all love that one. Some people (see above) even leave relationships as soon as the honeymoon phase is over. It typically lasts anywhere between 2-12 months.
According to my friend, the psychologist, the dating and the honeymoon phase can be lumped together and last for about 6 months at most. She said she’d even be concerned if it lasted any longer. But since different people have different names for the 6 stages, they also have different ideas about the duration of the stages.
And then, the dreadful power struggle stage begins. This one could last for years. My parents are still in it. Your parents are probably too. The power struggle stage has a bad rap but it’s essential if you want to get to know each other on a deeper level and establish long-lasting harmony and peace. I’ll talk more about this stage in a bit.
After (if) you’re done with the power struggle you get to stability, commitment and finally - bliss. You can go back to a previous stage but since the forces of the relationship tend to move you forward, you cannot stay in the honeymoon phase forever. Besides, why would you want to? In the honeymoon phase, you’re both on your best behaviour and you don’t really get to establish boundaries and connect as your truest selves.
To do that, you have to go through the scary stage - the valley of the shadow of death - the power struggle stage.
The power struggle
You know how you’re always right and everyone else gets it wrong and the world would just be a better place if everyone was more like you? Yeah, that’s a nice attitude you have there.
I’m the first one to admit I’m not above such arrogance. But in a relationship, there are two people who are typically different from each other to varying degrees. And if you’ve tried dating someone who is a lot like you, then you know why - we just don’t get those sparks when we meet our emotional twin.
So while you’re a hopeless romantic who scribbles poems on the last pages of books, your favourite person is a pragmatic who thrives on solid data and certainty.
The back end code to your frilly design, the “How much will that cost?” to your extravagant redecorating ideas, the mind to your emotion.
Okay, maybe that’s not your case. But whatever it is, you and your partner need different amounts of me-time, process information in different ways, you were fucked up differently by your parents and now the verdict is - you don’t always get each other.
In the power struggle stage that looks like you trying to get your way and them trying to get theirs.
I need to see you 6 times a week, so we should see each other 6 times a week. My love language is gifts, so I’ll be showing you I love you with gifts and that should be enough for you because obviously, that’s the superior way to love. I’m ready to meet your parents, so you should be too and if you’re not - I’m starting to doubt the relationship. I want to be with someone who has no piercing, so if you get a piercing it means you don’t love me and you don’t care about my opinions. I want to have a baby and so we’re having a baby. Etc., etc.
This kind of “my way or the highway” attitude is just.so.tempting. Heck, I wanna be a dramatic ass bitch and throw a tantrum every time I’m inconvenienced. Are you kidding me?! It sounds like the easiest thing to do.
But you know why I don’t do this anymore? Cause I don’t want to hurt my partner. I don’t want to be an immature woman-child who wreaks havoc and shreds her life, her connections and her own peace of mind to pieces.
My favourite YouTube psychologist (follow her, she’s awesome) says that the power struggle stage is a rite of passage. To get to the coveted bliss stage (I mean, c’mon bliss sounds so cool, who doesn’t want to get there) you must learn to communicate well with each other, to set boundaries and come up with win-win solutions - my favourite solutions.
Yeah, I know I portray myself as a madwoman sometimes but I honestly love it when I get what I want AND my partner gets what she wants, it’s just the best. But it’s also hard.
For someone so emotional and so into writing, when the passions are high I am not the best communicator. And to be fully honest, the word ‘communication’ itself makes me cringe.
I spent roughly 7 years in therapy talking and talking and talking some more. I now want to telepathically transmit the essence of my feelings. Which is part of the reason I’m so hesitant to get back into therapy.
But the reality of any relationship is that your partner doesn’t and cannot read your mind. You have to actually say what you feel and explain why you yelled “I CANNOT HANDLE THIS F@%$ING S$#@T ANYMORE” when your app asked for a verification code to let you watch kitten videos.
It’s really hard sometimes to say what we’re feeling or to ask for what we need. And one of the reasons is that… well, sometimes we just don’t know.
A huge part of therapy for me was finally having someone translate my emotions into a language I could speak. Find the patterns between them. And then connect them to my past experiences in a way that made sense.
But when you don’t have that, what do you do?
The no power struggle
Don’t make your partner feel defective. Chances are, they already do.
Few of us were blessed with idyllic childhoods and perfectly emotionally available and responsive parents. We all picked up a few traumas and fears along the way. Some of us fear getting closer and some of us fear not being close enough. But what we have in common is that we all feel inadequate and a bit ashamed of our fears.
You’d do your relationship a big favour if you remember this and empathize with your partner. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s the two of you against the problem, not the two of you against each other.
Have patience and know that you won’t learn how to show up for each other overnight. And - this is also important - you won’t have to do it just once.
Think of it this way, if you have 30 pounds to lose and you didn’t get blessed by the genetic lottery, you don’t just eat in a calorie deficit for a week and expect to lose the weight and keep it off. You go on a ‘weightloss journey’ as they say - it’s a journey because it takes time and you learn a lot along the way.
You get into a slight caloric deficit, you start getting more active and mentally prepare yourself that you won’t see results immediately. You know you need to be consistent even if you slip up once or twice and once the weight is off, you don’t just go back to what you were doing before.
“Well, I guess if I’m not at my goal weight eating donuts for breakfast and sitting on my butt all day, then it just wasn’t meant to be!”
That’s not a mindset that will take you far in life. Can you imagine saying “Well, I guess if I’m not earning good money by doing nothing then I was just meant to be homeless”???
It’s the same with relationships between two people AND the relationship you have with yourself. The first kind of person (see above) gives up easily. They believe there is one person out there - their soulmate - who is going to be so perfect for them, they’ll never have to go through difficult conversations. Or, that they’ll go to therapy once and then they’ll be forever ‘fixed’ - no fears, no anxiety.
I used to be that person. The “Are you telling me that after 7 years in therapy I still get anxious and have negative thoughts???” kind of person. I felt so ashamed of it too like I was ‘un-fixable’, damaged forever. If after all that time I still had a hard time dealing with my stuff, maybe I was beyond “healing”.
But let me tell you something else about myself. I did not win the genetic lottery either. Unless I watch what I eat - consistently - and work out regularly enough, I am not at my dream weight. I’m not one of those people who can eat whatever they want and still stay slim. If I were to eat the way my thin friends do, I’d be gaining weight like crazy.
And guess what? I don’t bemoan my destiny. I know that every week I have to work out 3-5 times, go easy on dessert and moderate my portions. Sometimes, when I gain a little weight (thank you, global pandemic!) I have to be a little extra conscious of my eating for a period of time until I get back to my happy number.
It’s the same with my mental health. I have to find time - regularly - to meditate, connect with my emotions, talk to my friends, do some self-help exercises, do some yoga, go on walks in nature, etc. to feel my best.
And when I’m feeling dysregulated for a longer period of time, I need to take extra care of myself.
Relationships with other people, and especially with our partners, also require maintenance. My first girlfriend once said “I told you I love you once, why do I have to say it again and again? I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
I find it very funny now. “Oh, I ate salad once, now I’ll be slim forever!”
We need to be patient with our partners just like we’re patient with ourselves. Ask for what we need not just once but every time we need it until we learn each other’s ways. Let them know we love them continuously with small gestures of intimacy and tokens of our feelings. Communicate clearly every time it’s needed. Take a deep breath, collect ourselves and do it again.
Then there is the second type of person (see above). They believe the power struggle stage IS the relationship. There must be something suspicious if there is no fighting, if no one is yelling because love is supposed to hurt and there’s that.
To reuse the analogy from above, they believe you’re supposed to always be on a strict diet, then inevitably lose control and gain the weight back, then get on another strict diet and so on.
This kind of person distrusts the peace and quiet of the stability stage and therefore, refuses to get there. If pressed, they’ll share their other beliefs about how life is unfair and it’s not supposed to be easy, and you better get used to it too, summer child!
The third type of person
A-ha! You knew this was coming. There’s always, I believe, a middle way.
There comes a time in your life when you finally become genuinely tired of both of the polarities mentioned above. You either go through a few different relationships, pile up enough therapy sessions behind you or you were so lucky to grow up observing the healthy marriage of your parents.
The middle way is this: you’re wise enough to know when someone is a great match and realistic enough to moderate your expectations.
Maybe not every day can be a rom-com movie. Maybe sometimes it gets tough for months on end and you simply need to stick it through. Maybe your partner doesn’t always get it right and they need more than a few gentle reminders. Maybe you let your fears get the best of you and behave in ways you later regret - within the no-abuse zone. But at the end of the day, you are with someone who has your back and you have theirs.
You run low on patience but then collect yourself, say sorry and try again. Your partner builds up the occasional emotional wall but then admit their fear and let you in a tiny step.
It’s a dance that goes on.. well, forever.
Hah, sorry! You thought it was gonna get to that perfect level eventually. Nope. Misunderstandings are a sure thing, as sure as the truism that everything changes… but over time, you and your love get better at clearing them up, putting them behind you and navigating this crazy uncertain world together.
I guess that’s the bliss stage, if we had to put a name on it.