Your Relationship?

At what stage is it?

- Munmun Bhattacharjee

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity,” by Barbara De Angelis is a line which consists of much more truth in it than any love guru out there. No relationship can be all roses as there are thorns too. When we talk about love, we don’t even realise what the meaning of love is. Nowadays “liking” has the same value as love and so it won’t be wrong to say that people are actually pretty confused. Keeping aside those people who mistake tiny attraction for affection, we will talk about genuine relationship problems. For all those who actually gave some thought before starting a relationship, this may help you through your journey. Knowing the stages will actually help you in understanding your relationship. The stages of a relationship include; romance, power struggle, stability, commitment and bliss. Let us start with understanding them one by one.

Romance

The first best and the most exciting stage for lovers is the romantic stage. The feeling of flying and falling and our heart doing summersaults is a part of this stage. Our brain releases hormones such as oxytocin, dopamine and phenyl ethylamine which makes our emotions go crazy for someone. Many people are so much in love at this stage (they are in love with the idea of being in love) that they don’t want to move forward towards a stable relationship where the partners mature. Rather, they want to avoid conflicts that cause them pain and only experience love. But there is a problem at this stage.