The Four Stages Relationships Go Through Before They Die

Barbara De Angelis shares that relationships die in four stages. Your relationship may pass through each stage ten times a day, but when it is characterized by one of these stages, it is time for radical surgery or your relationship will end, or perhaps worse, just drift along with no passion.

The four stages are resist, resent, reject and lastly repress.

Resist is when your spouse does something you don’t like and you notice you don’t like it. Maybe they make a comment that you felt was inappropriate, and now your guard is up. If not handled and processed in a healthy manner, you can move to the next level, resent.

With resentment there is an emotional charge that goes along with not liking something your spouse has said or done. Now there is the self-talk about your spouse and how they were wrong. There may be thoughts to say something to hurt them, or the silent treatment is used. Your partner may not even be aware you are upset. If not handled, you can find yourself moving to the next stage, rejection.

At rejection you begin to push your spouse away. Your thoughts of resentment become verbalized and you sense a distance. If this stage continues and is not dealt with you end with two options, divorce or denial. Denial is where you push your feelings down deep inside and begin to pretend everything is fine.

This leads to the final stage, repress. This is the stage many watched their parents live in. In repression there is no longer an emotional connection, there are just two bodies sharing a house. In this stage the couple looks like they have it together because they don’t fight. However, this is because they no longer feel.

This stage could last for years. If the relationship finally did end in divorce friends would say, ‘I never knew anything was wrong, they never fought.’

So what is the solution? See these stages as warning signs, as a signal it is time for radical surgery. Get counseling, get away for the weekend and open up about how you really feel and deal with the real issues. Most people fight about anything but the real issues. It is time for radical honesty.

Kill the monster while it is small, realize problems don’t just go away but must be faced head on. Have the courage to do the hard work of making necessary repairs, and in the end you will have a passionate and growing relationship in which you feel fully alive!