Relationships can be tricky and tough and they require the perfect balance of give and take in order to survive all of the obstacles.
Every relationship is a unique experience in itself and you can never know how it’s going to finish until you reach the end of the relationship cycle.
But, there are some stages that all couples need to go through and if they ‘survive’ them, they will reach the stage of an unconditional love meaning that they have developed an ultimate trust and mutual understanding of each other.
If you fail at the first stage, you will never get to the next one because they are all interconnected.
That is why relationships require large amounts of effort in order to survive and become indestructible.
Some couples will realize after the first stage that they are not compatible with each other and that is when they decide to go separate ways.
The worst thing that could happen is to fail in the very last stages when you’re almost there.
No matter how hard it seems, never give up trying to revive the passion and bring joy to your relationship.
Think of relationships like babies. They require constant nourishing, feeding, dressing, bathing and they require the warmth of love.
That is how you should treat your relationship if you don’t want to get stuck at one stage and waste your potential for unconditional love.
And you can achieve it, too! Just trust yourself and always make efforts no matter what and the success will be guaranteed.
Here are 9 stages of a relationship that all couples need to go through and you’ll find all of them described in detail below:
1. Attraction and infatuation stage
2. The understanding stage
3. The struggle stage
4. Opinion and expectation stage
5. The give-and-take stage
6. The radiant love stage
7. The crisis stage
8. The unbreakable trust stage
9. The unconditional love stage
Attraction and infatuation stage
This is the first relationship stage that we go through when we meet someone who makes us feel like we’re living in clouds.
It has the same effect on our brain like drugs, except that you’re being high on love. And you can never get enough of this feeling.
You appreciate every second spent with that person and you want it to last till the eternity.
And when the two of you part, you feel like you’re missing a big part of you even though the two of you haven’t been together for a long time now.
Attraction is a really powerful thing and sometimes it makes us behave irrationally.
For example, you’ve met a bad boy or a girl and you know that he or she is not good for you, but you still crave for them.
You still want them so bad because you’re in a way ADDICTED to them. You’re addicted to the way how they make you feel.
And you’re infatuated by them because you’ve never felt like this before and it’s a real breakthrough for you.
In this stage, you’ll go through the different kinds of happy, but sometimes it may end fatally if you rush things instead of taking it slowly.
The understanding stage
In the understanding stage, the two of you are engaged in getting to know each other better.
You talk a lot and it feels like you’ll never run out of potential topics. Whatever you say to your partner, it immediately turns into a discussion.
In this stage, you realize each other’s likings, preferences, attitudes, interests and many more.
This stage is all about understanding each other and digging more and more in order to excavate everything you want to know about the person you like.
You ask each other questions all the time and you’re happy and excited about everything new you hear about your partner.
And then you start forming their personality in your head and you finally know all of the missing pieces of the puzzle.
You learn so much about them and you don’t forget to tell everyone what an amazing partner you have.
This stage is also about understanding yourself and knowing what you expect from your relationship.
You either want it to continue or you see that it is not going to work like you’ve thought it might. You get the understanding of your own feelings because finally, everything makes sense to you.
You feel like you’ve known them for years and you’re all positive about the outcome.
The struggle stage
The third, struggle stage is where infatuation becomes less intense and you become aware that the things are not that vibrant as they used to be in the beginning.
This stage starts after six months or more. In this stage, you engage in your first arguments with your partner and both of you struggle to accept each other’s quirks and flows.
In the first stage, you were simply unaware of all of these things because infatuation has made you literally blind and the feeling of being high on love prevails.
But, the third stage is about real struggle. You fight hard the urge to tell your partner that something irritates you.
And when you do tell, it quickly escalates into arguments because and that is the struggle the two of you need to overcome in order to get to an ultimate nirvana.
In this stage, you need to learn to accept all of their bad sides along with the good ones if you want the relationship to continue.
Many couples fail at this one because they find it hard to accept that their partners are not that perfect as they might have thought in the first, infatuation stage.
And that is when they experience a revelation and sometimes realize that the relationship is bound to fail because of the incompatibility and being unable to compromise with each other.
Opinion and expectation stage
In this stage, both of you have developed strong opinions about each other’s habits and general behavior.
You know what drives your partner crazy, you know his reactions on certain stimulus and you know how to deal with them.
And you also expect the same from your partner. You expect him to know your preferences and to treat you with respect.
This stage revolves around feeling ecstatic and feeling disappointed. When your partner does the right thing you’ve expected of him, you’ll feel an ultimate joy and appreciation for it.
But, when he fails at meeting your expectations, you’ll feel utterly disappointed and you will start questioning your relationship.
For example, your partner surprises you with bringing flowers or making dinner even though you didn’t expect him to do it.
And you feel real special. But, when your partner fails to do something you’ve expected him to do, you will feel ‘betrayed’ and disappointed.
And when they disappoint you, you will feel like they are not trying enough and they don’t take your relationship for serious.
And that is when you start making assumptions about their commitment towards your relationship.
You categorize them as emotionally unavailable , egoistic, a commitment-phobe or something else.
You seek an explanation for their behavior and you will not give up on it until you find your answers and understand the type of relationship you are in.
The give-and-take stage
You have your own vision of an ideal partner.
And in the fifth stage, you’re trying to change your partner’s habits that you find annoying or you try to find the missing puzzles that will make your partner into an ideal partner you’ve ever wanted to be with.
In this stage, you need to realize that love is a mutual agreement, giving and not only receiving, and embracing what you’ve got.
If you try to change your partner, the chances are high that your relationship is going to break down.
In order to keep this from happening, you need to be ready to compromise because compromising is the key to every successful relationship.
The give-and-take stage is here to learn you to adapt to new situations and to accept everything you cannot change about your partner.
But, if you decide to only receive and not compromise with them when needed, you will create a large gap between the two of you and it will be impossible to fill it with appreciation and respect again.
Give with all of your heart and receive with an open mind. And don’t forget to be grateful for everything good your partner does for you.
Appreciation and gratefulness are the main ingredients of every successful relationship.
The radiant love stage
If you get to this stage, it means you have accepted all of your partner’s good and bad sides and you’re ready to compromise with them.
This will make you radiate love and ooze happiness.
You will finally feel like everything’s the way it should be and you no longer try to change your partner because you like them they way they are.
But, this stage lacks complete trust in each other.
You trust to your partner, but to a certain degree because you still have that defense mechanism which tells you that you’re not 100% sure that this is it.
And you choose to stay on guard while building trust.
This stage is more about contemplating about your relationship than it is about experiencing it.
Your mind is your biggest enemy here because sometimes our mind may deceive us not to trust them because we’ve been hurt before.
But, if you overcome these barriers and you see that you’re ready to fully commit to your partner , you’ll get to the next stage.
And in order to overcome it, you have to go through the crisis stage that will be a crucial factor in achieving unconditional love.
The crisis stage
The crisis stage is here for a reason. It works like a filter for all of your doubts or lack of trust in your relationship. It works like this: If you want to see the rainbow, you must go through the rain first.
If you want to succeed in gaining ultimate trust in your partner, you have to go through the crisis stage that will reveal the real strength of your love.
In the crisis stage, your passion and radiant love fade. But, don’t let this confuse you. The crisis stage is about reviving your initial passion and bringing love to another level.
And to do that, you have to go through a few challenges that will make you stronger and readier for what is next to come.
In this stage, you need to look for ways to make your sex life and time spent together more exciting.
You need to realize that things are not as they were in the beginning and now you have to work hard to preserve the passion you’ve shared in the first few stages.
You need to think of some new ways on how to surprise your partner and keep the excitement level at its peak.
Because if you fail at this, your relationship will change its direction and you will find yourself in a rut.
The unbreakable trust stage
Once you’ve survived the seventh stage, you’ll automatically be in the unbreakable trust stage.
This stage is the result of all of these previous stages and if you’ve gone this far, you’ve done an awesome job.
In this stage, you will have no doubts or second thoughts about your partner. You’ve accepted them as they are and you trust them with all of your heart.
You can also imagine your future with them in it because you’re 100% that your relationship is the right thing.
The trust stage is all about enjoying a mutual appreciation of each other, being ready to compromise, respecting each other and trusting them as you’ve never trusted anyone before.
Once you get to the unbreakable stage, you will be UNSTOPPABLE. From this stage, everything that happens next will be a true blessing.
You will no longer question anything about your relationship because your relationship will become your second home where you feel safe and taken care of.
And you will be grateful for all of your efforts and troubles you’ve gone through in order to reach this eighth stage.
You will become the best version of yourself and nothing will stand in your way to happiness.
The unconditional love stage
The last stage is the unconditional love stage and it is equal to the real love stage.
In this stage, you come to the realization that you’ll be loving your partner unconditionally no matter what happens. And your partner realizes it, too.
In this stage, you’ll be asking yourself how you could have lived without that person in your life.
Before you’ve met them, your life was just another story, but now it has become a fairytale and you feel like you’re the only woman/man in the world.
You want to share your joy with the rest of the less lucky who didn’t succeed in coming to the last stage of their relationship.
And you tell them that you’ve fought hard to come to where you are now and you realize the importance of love.
You realize that real love is not something you can start feeling overnight. It is a long process of ups and downs testing your limits and the will to compromise.
And once you pass this test, you become blessed with the unconditional love that is really rare to find nowadays.
And you find yourself being unable to fall asleep because the reality is finally better than your dreams.
