Stages in Interpersonal Relationship

"Communication is to a relationship what breathing is to maintaining life"

Stages in Interpersonal Relationships

Contact

• Kind of perceptual contact- sense( see. touch, hear , smell)


• Form a mental and physical picture- gender, age, height


• there is usually interaction contact- superficial and relatively impersonal
  
• Start exchanging basic information that is preliminary to :-


• Intense involvement ( "Hello, my name is Tasha")


• initiate interaction ("May i join you?")


• Invitational communication ("May i buy you a drink?")


• At this stage, we decide whether to pursue in the relationship
  
• In face to face interaction, physical appearance is especially important because it is readily seen
  
• Through verbal and non-verbal behaviours, qualities such as friendliness, warmth, openness and dynamism also are revealed.


• In contrast, computer mediated contact, attitudinal sameness and wanting essentially the same things may be almost influential in the beginning.
  
  
  

Involvement

• A sense of mutuality, of being connected develops
  
• Here we experiment and try to learn more about the other person


• At the initial phase of involvement, a kind of testing goes on


• You want to seek whether your initial judgement proves reasonable


• Questions will be asked:- ( Where do you work, What are you majoring in?)


• You might continue your involvement by intensifying your interaction by beginning to reveal yourself, though in a preliminary way


• In a dating relationship you might use a variety of strategies to help you move to the next stage and perhaps to intimacy.


• For eg: Increase contact with your partner tokens of affection such as gifts, cards or flowers
  
• Increase your own personal attractiveness


• Throughout the relationship process, especially during the involvement and early intimacy stages, we test or partner


• Try to find how our partner feels about the relationship.


• The strategies are :-


• Directness-ask partner directly how they feel,


• Indirect suggestions-joke bout a a shared future together or touch more intimately


• Public presentations- introduce your partner as your boyfriend/ girlfriend


• Third party- ask your mutual friends about your partners feelings and intentions

Intimacy

• Feelings that we cloud be honest and open when talking about our self our thoughts and feelings that we don't reveal in other relationships.


• Commit yourself still further o the other person and establish a relationship
  
• An individual becomes your best or closest friend, lover or companion


• All start sharing the same social networks


• Relationship satisfaction also increase with the move to this stage
  Intimacy as the feelings that you could be honest and open when talking about yourself, your thoughts


• The relationship satisfaction also increases with the move to this stage
  
• Intimacy stages divided to two:-
  
• Interpersonal commitment-


• two people commit themselves to each other in a private way


• Social bonding
  
• commitment is made in public ( family, friends & large public)


• We and our partner become a unit, an identifiable pair


• When intimacy stage involves a lifetime


• Security anxiety- ( Worry that our partner might leave us for someone else)


• Fulfillment Anxiety- (We may not be able to achieve a close, warm and special rapport)


• Excitement anxiety-( boredom and routine may set in or you'll lose your freedom and become trapped)

Deterioration

• Characterized by a weakening of the bonds between the friends and lovers


• Intrapersonal dissatisfaction (personal dissatisfaction with everyday interactions, begin to view the future negatively)


• If dissatisfaction grows, we pass the second phase, interpersonal deterioration


• You withdraw and grow farther apart
  
• Share less of our free time


• When we are together, there will be awkward silence, fewer disclosures, less physical contacts and lack of psychological closeness.
  
• relationship begins to deteriorate, the breadth and depth


• A process of deterioration, sometimes referred to as the reversal hypothesis. ( In the process of terminating a relationship, you may eliminate certain topics from your interpersonal interactions)


• you may also reduce the level of your self disclosure, revealing less and less of your inner feelings

Repair

• A stage that is not always pursued.


• May pause during deterioration and try to repair the relationship


• Intrapersonal repair ( analyze what went wrong and consider the ways of solving you relational difficulties.


• At this stage, consider changing your behaviours or perhaps changing your expectations of your partner
  
• To repair your relationship you might discuss this with your partner at the interpersonal relationship phase


• Might talk about the problem in the relationship, the changes you wanted to see


• Negotiating new agreements and new behaviours


• You and your partner might try to repair your relationships yourself


• Seek advice from friends, family or counsellor

Dissolution

• The stage where the bond between the individuals are broken


• Interpersonal separation- go to separate apartments, lead lives apart


• Social or public separation- marriage will end up in divorce.


• Some former partners change the definition of their relationship:- ex-lovers becomes friends
  
• Ex-partners begin to look up upon themselves as individuals rather than halves of a pair


• Try to establish a new and different life, either alone or with another person


• Some people continue to live psychologically- Recall all the sweet memory they spent with their partner

A divorce cake