The 8 Levels Your Relationship Must Pass To Thrive
A new relationship is like a child, learning to navigate and experience the world. Like a child, it must pass through certain stages or challenges in a particular order. Whether a couple successfully overcomes these challenges determines how resilient and satisfying the relationship will be. Knowing these stages will not only help grow your relationship, but will help you assess where you may be stuck. At the end of this article is a brief summary of the psychological background of this model, but for now, let’s dive right in.
There are eight challenges a relationship must master to reach its potential. Successful couples mature as they resolve each challenge or struggle, making them more resilient and able to thrive in the world.
Level 1: Trust vs. Mistrust
The first level or challenge a couple must negotiate is trust vs. mistrust. This is not just about fidelity, but dependability. Can you trust that your partner will be on time or run that errand? Do you feel that your partner is being honest and sincere? Trust is important, but there must be a balance. There will always be some doubt, and complete and utter trust and faith is also problematic. Can you accept that sometimes you may not be able to trust your partner in small areas, and be ok with that?
When partners trust each other they feel secure and don’t need to constantly check up on each other and can communicate openly. Failure to resolve this conflict results in a sense of mistrust and insecurity defined by anxiety, depression, anger or avoidance. There is also a sense of trust that extends outside the relationship. Can you trust your community and friends to support your relationship? This may be of particular concern for partners from different cultures that may object to the relationship. Trust is the foundational level that lays the groundwork for future stages.
Level 2: Autonomy vs. Doubt
The second level involves your basic interaction and needs as a couple. Can you function as an autonomous pair, making joint decisions that impact you both as a couple? Can you communicate effectively about physical and emotional needs? Can you satisfy those needs at a basic level? Can you have frank discussions about sexual intimacy and make it enjoyable for both partners? The successful resolution of this stage results in partners feeling they have control over the internal dynamics of their relationship and can meet their essential needs. And, as alluded to earlier, this would be difficult to do without resolving the trust conflict in Level 1.
Level 3: Initiative vs. Guilt
The third level focuses on how the couple takes initiative and interacts with the outside world. Can you figure out basic timing, event planning, chores and tasks? Do you help each other get things done as a team? Can you connect with other people in your environment to help meet your couple and individual goals? Success at this stage feels like you have a sense of purpose as a couple and can get things done. Guilt or self-doubt can occur when you cannot complete tasks or try to do too much, feeling like a failure.
Level 4: Industry vs. Inferiority
Are you proud of how good you are as a couple? As partners grow together they begin to accomplish larger joint tasks. Maybe it’s navigating a crisis, planning a large trip, buying a house together, or adopting a pet. These accomplishments make us feel good about our relationship, like we can do great things together that we cannot do alone. These successes and feelings of pride create memories that drive growth and resilience, making it easier to cope with setbacks in the future. On the other hand, failure to accomplish or even take on big projects invites feelings of inferiority and fragility, making you start to question other aspects of the relationship. When disappointments do occur, which happen to all couples, having past successes bolsters the strength of partners to move forward together. Without these accomplishments, the failures begin to define and erode the relationship. Again, without the skills learned in the first 3 stages (trust, autonomy, and initiative), passing Level 4 would be nearly impossible.
If your relationship has made it this far, congratulations, but you’re not home yet. Levels 5 though 8 are where partners cement the lifelong bonds that will keep you happily connected for the rest of you life….or not.
Level 5: Identity vs. Confusion
This level is about defining and finding comfort in your couple identity. Who are you as a couple? What values do you espouse together? Are achievement, success and wealth important for you? Or, maybe intellectual pursuits and curiosity join you together. Are you people of faith who approach the world together in a spiritual way, or do you laugh together at the silliness of superstition? Can you identify as this couple in front of your friends and family?
Having a clear sense of who you are as a couple through joint values, virtues and principles helps relationships stay on a well-marked path and provides stability as well an ability to adapt to change. When a couple knows who they are together they can use this identity to cope with struggles as they arise. Conversely, an unclear sense of who you are as a unit leaves the relationship insecure and vulnerable without a template to cope with challenges.
Level 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation
If two people get married in the forest and no one is there to witness it, did it happen?
If you strand two soulmates on an island together, sooner or later they’re going to argue and perhaps even retreat to separate sides of the island for good. Relationships should not exist in a silo. Couples need to connect with other couples and groups and create new experiences, sharing and learning as the evolve. Your partner may be your best friend, but the two of you need others to share time with together. Love is born within a relationship but will be reflected and grow in a community of friends.
Level 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation
You have your love and your friends but what have you done to leave a lasting impact of your relationship on the world? Many couples have or adopt children, start a business, foundation or club, write a book, make artwork together, teach, or become active in the community. The question that comes up at this level is how are you as a couple contributing to the world in a meaningful, lasting way. Couples that don’t have these areas of engagement may find themselves stuck, bored, or unattached to the environment around them. Couples that have lasting engagements find focus and feel a sense of progress.
Level 8: Integrity vs. Despair
You have made it to the final stage. As you look back on your long relationship (because these stages take years to progress through) you should be proud of what you accomplished. This is exactly what this stage is about: looking back. Have you accomplished what you wanted as a couple? Do you have deep regrets? Couples who feel they have not lived up to their ideals may feel depressed or lost. What was all of it for? This is not so for those who can remember what they accomplished and who they are…together.
Psychological Background
Some of you psychology nerds out there may recognize these levels from psychologist Erik Erikson’s psychosocial model of personality development. Developed to explain psychological development from infancy to old age, the model describes certain crises or challenges individuals face at certain points in their lives that must be overcome to move forward. While evidence has supported much of his work, he stopped short of applying this model to relationships. Nonetheless, relationships appear to progress in a similar way, encountering and overcoming obstacles to grow.
