Source Type: Song
Have you been in love? How does it feel like to go through the crest and trough of the relationship? It is indeed an eye opener to realize that there is model developed by Mark Knapp, Model of Relationship Development, which describes the progression of relationship as a series of 10 stages. If you have heard the song ‘Love Story’ by Mariah Carey, you would most likely agree that the lyrics closely resemble the type of relationship that most youngsters experience. Interesting enough, it follows the two phases of coming together (stages 1-5) and coming apart (stages 6-10) as described by Knapp.
Coming together (stages 1-5):
The song begins with ‘Boy meets girl and looks in her eyes.’ which depicts the Stage 1 of Initiating. This is the stage in which the very first interaction takes place. Very often, both parties will try to present themselves in the most favorable light, as someone who is attractive, so that they would be able to be accepted by the person of the opposite gender. Very soon, they skipped a stage and reached Stage 3 of Intensifying, as the lyrics continue with ‘Time stands still and two hearts catch fire. Off they go rollercoaster ride. Up & down and around. Twisted all out they minds.’ It is the most exciting stage with the highest level of satisfaction where the two parties increase their disclosure of feelings as well as physical contact. When the song continues and mention the following words ‘And then his friends’ and ‘And then her friends’, it shows that the couple’s social networks begin to associate them as a joined social entity. At this point of time when they are recognized as one relational unit, it marks the 4th stage of Integrating.
Coming apart (stages 6-10):
As chapter two of the song continues, the lyrics continues as follows ‘Let's meet up today. Gots bout an hour or two. You might as well come thru. We can make it like it was. Just the two of us. Back up on that rollercoaster. Like we been supposed to. Cause this isn't.’ The fact that they are no longer enjoying that rollercoaster feeling in stage 2 and that they are going through the motions of a relationship of meeting up, they are at the 8th stage of Stagnation. There is practically no sense of excitement and that the partners are starting to feel alienated from each other. Most of the time, as reality shows, this type of relationship usually completes the cycle at Stage 10 of Termination. It may be due to many reasons like boredom, unrealistic expectation of each other, or even a simple reason that they don’t feel like continuing.
This brings me to my discussion about the type of relationship youngsters are going through. Many, though not all relationships, escalates very quickly and reaches the most exciting stage of Intensifying in a very short period of time. Some of them even bypass Stage 2 of Experimenting, where the two people could engage in more self disclosure.
Therefore, at the next phrase of coming apart, it is when couples face the grief as they lost that emotional support they would have gotten if they remain as couples. Sadly, in the modern days, as youngsters terminate a relationship, they start hunting for another one to replace their feelings of loneliness. Once they reach the stagnation stage and feels bored, there goes another termination. As this spiral continues, we can never keep track of the number of broken hearts and the amount of emotional damage caused.
Therefore, it is always wise to first contemplate on the reason to why one initiates a relationship, rather than letting the emotions rule the mind. Relationship takes time to develop, thus rushing through the early stages of foundation, is a dangerous move. So, for a lasting relationship, it is always recommended that both parties take one step at a time to work it out and develop healthy interaction patterns. In addition, it is also important to understand what you base your relationship on. Is it that physical beauty that you are looking for? Or are your relationship based on the values and beliefs both of you share?
So what is your take when it comes to having a relationship?
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17 comments:
It is always easy to pigeonhole relationships into stages, but human interactions and r/s are so unpredictable, vague and hard to classify.
An amusing senario comes to my mind: a couple look at each other and say," Erm... what stage of erm... that guy... Nap?... Knapp.. yar knapp's... Model of Relationship Development are we at right now?"
Its also possible to finish all stages in one day too... in this ever promiscuous and open society of casual relationships and one night stands.
The singaporean government is also encouraging singaporeans experiment and date more, get married and have babies.
In 2008 National day rally PM Lee said "Many singles want to get married. But they face difficulties. Some have never dated. They didn’t date in school, they started work. Once they settle into a routine, they are older, no chance, no social circle at all, no opportunities to meet new people."
I get the sense that the govt wants singaporeans to get into r/s so that they would get married, have kids, increase the birth rate, just for the sake of producing more workers for the future workforce, pay income tax and boost the economy.
I personally find everything rather amusing and think that my comment is also rather incoherent haha but nvm.
There's no yes or no to this question. It really depends on how you define love. In the case of this blog entry, it obviously defined love as a feeling of attraction between the 2 genders.
I personally don't think love is blind. Instead, the person in love is blind.
As the blog has indicated, love really is a stage by stage process. We all know it and understand it. It is crystal clear. However, when people are in love, most turn blind as they choose to ignore all that. Issues start to arise as we irrationally follow the impulse of our heart and start to "love passionately" leading to unfulfilling relationships. Jumping headstrong into a relationship lands you in a heap. I've seen too many of them.
I have never been in a relationship before so I have not much of an experience to share. I comment here only as an outsider observing those in love and my own conclusion is, "never trust your heart, and trust your mind instead." Next time you are attracted to someone, just remind yourself, "The heart can be a real bastard at times." Maybe that's what's keeping me single I guess! Ha-ha...
May I ask where's stage 2? Probably stage 3 is just stage 2? Haha...
This model should be true so some extent la...but I don't think that everyone in love would go through these stages?
Also, I don't think that these stages apply to everyone..if yes, all our parents would have divorced! (As mentioned, "this type of relationship usually completes the cycle at Stage 10 of Termination"
Anyway, nice song! =)
People fall in love easily. especially the teenage, they normally got attracted by appearance. Hence this kind of relationship won't last as long as those relationship that base on values and beliefs both share. The foundation of the relation is known to be weak.
In your post you wrote, "Stage 1 of Initiating. This is the stage in which the very first interaction takes place. Very often, both parties will try to present themselves in the most favorable light, as someone who is attractive, so that they would be able to be accepted by the person of the opposite gender." This is a very short stage normally it only last a few seconds. Many disguise themselves as someone they isn't. Thus as days goes by the mask will fall apart so do the relationship.
Many youths get into relationship without knowing each others well. They base on the sudden emotion they called Love and they start to introduce their partner as steady, means their relationship is steady enough. However many of them end up in the stage of termination.
Like what you had mention, "Sadly, in the modern days, as youngsters terminate a relationship, they start hunting for another one to replace their feelings of loneliness." I have a friend who did this, and made her look so desperate. Why people get themselves into this desperate state?
I was in a few relationship in secondary school, one to word to describe as i think back. Nightmare.
hee thus single is preferred, before i find someone who share the same beliefs and value with me. xD
To be honest, dont most of all relationships start by physical attraction? It is then by spending more time, having more conversations, getting to know each other better, which will determine whether the relationship will start. By getting to know each other better will let both parties know whether they can get along with each other. But it does not determine whether the relationship will last or not. It all boils down to the maturity of both individuals during the relationship.
Of course not all relationships start this way. There are the really romantic ones that start by two people becoming really good friends, and slowly progressing into a relationship when they realize that they like each other.
Many may say that they way the relationship starts very much determines how the relationship will go. And I think it is very true. If the relationship is started solely based on attraction, and not continued on the suitability of personalities, it is likely that it'll not last as both parties might not understand each other and what they want from each other.
Then again, I'm no expert at relationships, but this is just my view.
Without initial physical attraction, it is hard to get into a relationship. This accounts for the manic pursuit of slimness and accelerating rates of people getting eating disorders. From Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, being loved and accepted is the third level of the hierarchy. After the fulfillment of psychological and safety needs, one needs to be loved to have a sense of belonging. Such love relationships includes family, friends and love between spouses.
As humans are a species of animals that changes over time, our character, values and priorities change over time too. Therefore, there are different stages of love. Feelings are not a good indicator of love. Love is sacrificial and is not dependent of the passion felt at just one of the stages of a relationship between members of differing genders. Love can be shown through actions, words of encouragement, pats on the back, helping one another do things, etc. This list is not exhaustive.
Research has shown that when one is in love, it numbs the part of one’s brain that discerns character flaws. Therefore, giving rise to the phrase love is blind. In actual fact, all the emotions that we feel are controlled by our brains but are felt by our hearts through the increase heartbeats, the feeling that your heart dropped, et cetera. Our minds are always controlling. So no point saying let your mind control your heart. Rather, we should let the rationales dominate over the emotions. I guess love is not blind but just a test of self-controlling your mind, patience waiting for a relationship to ripe and persistence in putting in effort to spend quality time with one another in the maintenance of the relationship.
i feel that love cannot be blind. But it is easier said than done cos when one person get into the emotion roller coaster, it is hard to be logical.
But there is a need to stay logical and think thru, if not it would be like what artsywan said, one can go thru the 10 stages of r/s in a day!
it is interesting to note how Knapp had put together this model and there is definitely some level of truth in it. It is really important to know what you are basing your r/s on; is it just to build a family to pass on your family line? is it to response to the govt? or something more than that? =)
i feel that this is something we should take time to think seriously about for r/s is one thing that is very close to heart for us as human being!
It is really interesting to see that someone actually developed a model for relationships.
It will be good if you can include what the other stages are. And what about those who get married? How do they get out of this 'vicious cycle'; at what stage do they leave the model described?
When it comes to relationships, even the most level-headed person may become 'blind'. And isn't this the amazing part of interpersonal relationship?
I think that we can never have a proper study of relationships for we can never fully comprehend the human mind.
Why don't we leave things as it is and continue to marvel at the how people interact?
Overall, very well done and interesting to read.
Frankly speaking, it's hard to think by logic when you are in love. Just like what most people say. "love is blind".
In some cases, after considering all the factors and reason, it would be too late to tell the person how much you love him or her. He or she might be in search of a better one since there is no reply or answer.
I feel that at times, we should follow our heart. Some things are gone for once, and forever. Well, we shouldn't live to regret ya?
Mark's model might not be readily applicable to every relationship but it does highlight one important point: the progress of a relationship takes place in stages. In other words, we are supposedly given ample opportunities to intervene & make amendments to reversible problems, nipping them at the bud (preferably at the stages of coming together) before things escalate to irreversible ones leading the relationship to ultimately go down the pathway of termination.
That is provided we do not rush through stages & are sensitive & sensible enough to detect the problem & realising that if unresolved can be an even harder issue to tackle down the road when it is complicated by other circumstances. Think: marriage? The sad truth for many relationships is that the stages of coming apart can come about much more rapidly than the stages of coming together.
The challenge is not to have a good reason to end a relationship; the real challenge is having a good reason to start one, and convincing oneself that you have understood the basis of initiating one & not be tempted to start for temporary gains or unrealistic rosy pictures. And this, I personally believe, is hardly achievable & remotely possible if both come together in a short expanse of time without adequate time to know each other properly. This article reinforced to me that we should not rush to start or might find ourselves one day rushing to end a once beautiful relationship.
Thanks for the very thought-provoking article.
Hm... I would like to cast a different light, as opposed to what was transpired so far... I would choose to delineate the boundary between physical attraction and love.
Physical attraction is pretty much a biological affinity that baffles the most rational mind. Why do we feel attracted to someone else? Scientists have suggested several aspects of our appearance that have been deemed 'appealing', such as facial symmetry, complexion, pitch of voice etc. I'm certain we've not worked through all the kinks in this hormonal flash flood to sufficiently explain attraction.
Love on the other hand, deserves a far higher accolade than lust. I would think of it as a conscious commitment to act on the basis of physical attraction. This is where our rational faculty acts as a safeguard to our emotional floodgates. Despite what many may claim, I think all of us hold the key to our emotions, some more loosely than others.
Before we blame our emotions for the inevitable plunge into 'love', should we take a step back to evaluate the consequences with our logical mind? What am I looking for in THIS relationship? (For that matter, ANY relationship)Where's the endpoint of this relationship? How far am I willing to commit before my threshold for separation is reached? Will I ever regret starting a relationship that will eventually not work out?
Certainly, if we’ve ironed these issues out in our mind before diving headlong into a relationship, our little roller-coaster adventure might turned out to be more of a kiddie-ride than a corkscrew. If 2 people jump into a relationship confused, they are likely to go nowhere when time dilutes the chemistry.
What am I saying, folks? I’m saying that we needn’t transit through this unfortunate model of relationships if we choose to pause, and ponder, anywhere before a definitive indication of commitment is made. Don’t put the blame on poor old Cupid. He’s got too much stress from the Singapore government already! (Hahahahaha… just joking lah…)
It is interesting to read all your comments, to discover a myriad of different values and thoughts that guide all of us regarding starting a relationship.
Indeed, as all of you have pointed out, LOVE is indeed both an emotional and logical thinking process.
The challenge, i would say, is to be able to strike a balance between the two conflicting spectrum of how our brain works. The ideal case is to be able to stay rational yet romantic. Don't you think so? =)
It all depends. Sometimes, when the time comes, you may break up with your existing boyfriend to go with another man, even if its already a 10-year relationship.
Moreover, I personally think that it is real difficult to find someone or rather 'true love' during teen life.
Thanks for this interesting and rather amusing read. I wonder what was going through Knapp's mind when he was dating his girlfriends(haha just some casual random thoughts).
I do agree with artsywan and kr that the concepts of how relationships and how human mind works will forever remain an enigma to many.
Personally, I'm quite baffled by this rigid model of relationships. I mean look, people due to their unique personality + experiences, family backgrounds + personal or religious beliefs etc. will have varying behavioural patterns which has a direct impact on their relations.Whatsmore a love relation which is definitely more confusing + unexpecting etc. than ever since it's a fusion (or rather clash) of both the male and female minds.
SO...There can never be a general model for relationships just like there can never be a general personality. Every individual is one unique blueprint from the creator.
I think whatever I've just mentioned is not just a personal insight but rather a viewpoint shared by a few others.
Well, as for what Xinxuan has mentioned haha she brought up this good point on the last stage - "if yes, all our parents would have divorced!" Perhaps Knapp's marriage didn't work out or something but surely it would be a sweeping statement to insist that all relations should have such a tragic conclusion.
All in all, it's not that I think this article is an entire joke. It's good that Knapp has identity and categorize these various feelings into stages (easier to self check?) but to put them in ascending order (or any order) is quite forceful.
I've got pals who got stuck forever at the initiating stage, leap right over to the stagnant level and got apart. (ok me too)I've got pals who're stuck forever in the stagnant stage but still stick loyally to their partners, you know so on and so forth.
Well my bottomline is: relationship stages are not like gameplay where one level up accordingly.
Gosh i wish i can meet Knapp...
yes, i do agree with you, footprints.
There can never be a model that all of us fall into. And yes, having a relationship is such a complicated process that perhaps the couple themselves would not understand the reason behind certain things.
That's why i feel that as much as the Knapp model could be used as a general understanding of progression of stages, it is not exhaustive.
Due to the difference in the social setting, each individual would be different in terms of their mindset and upbringing. This is what makes everyone unique even when it comes to interpersonal relationship.
It can be a "yes" or "no".
To some people, love is blind, they are willing to accept the other person without knowing who he/she really is and also willing to accept who he/she is when they slowly get to know them.
However, some may say love isn't blind and they are only willing to accept the other party when they truly know he/her.
To me, love can be blind but I will not step into a relationship just because I have feeling for the person.
I feel that there is a need to understand him first to see if I am able to accept his values, characters, behaviour and lifestyle.
If I can't accept any of them, I will not enter into this relationship.
However, I do agree that if i really do enter into a relationship and there are things about him which i cannot accept, I must learnt to accept it, because noone is perfect and there will be bound to be disagreement, but if each party give in a little, it can be solved.
Hey qiqi,
Thanks for your comment. To add on,
I came across this phrase before:
Marry not a person you can live with,
but a person who you cannot live without.
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