Marriage or Bust! Where r u Headed?

Just tying the knot myself, I though this talk on The 4 Steps of Marriage (or committed relationships) by Dr. Harville Hendrix was very thought provoking, a must read!

"Getting the Love You Want" Dr. Harville Hendrix

The 4 Steps of Marriage:

1. Romantic Love
2. Power Struggle
3. Resolution
4. Consolidation


First Stage: Romantic Love 

The Selection Process: bringing together 2 incompatible people to grow and heal.
The selection of a mate is first fuelled by attraction and then our unconscious mind selects it's partner based on our childhood wounds. Our "Imago Match" is the picture we have in our minds of what our marriage should look like when we are older, we carry that ideal through our life into our committed relationships, creating our "Dream Like Partner" in our minds.

Second Stage: Power Struggle
The natural second stage from the Romantic Relationship leads into the Power Struggle. The natural high or honeymoon stage begins to fade, your dopamine and serotonin begins to recede, typically this honeymoon stage can last anywhere from 2 days to 18 months.

During the Romantic period we do what we need to do to stay in our "new" relationship, once a commitment has been made we tend to drift back to our natural self. This is when resentment can creep in, the idealization of the women or man you fell in love with has changed. The dopamine has now been replaced with adrenaline and cortisol. You "Partner of Dreams" has turned into anxiety and maybe a disappointment. The differences between the 2 partners in the relationship has come to light, which brings us to Stage 3.

Third Stage: Resolution (3 possible options)

1. Parallel relationship options: You begin to recreate and heal your relationship or  look for fulfilment outside of your relationship: you withdraw into your social circles, consume your life with work, devote all your time to your children or fall into the arms of another mate.
2. Hot Marriages:  you are always in conflict and negative.
3. Divorce: 50 % of marriages end in divorce.

if you make it to Stage 4....

Fourth Stage: Consolidation 
This is a recommitment to your relationship, making a decision to close all possible exists in your relationship ie. drinking to much, too much golf, to much time at work...

Relationship vs Self
When you constantly come back to self your relationship suffers, when you commit to partnership the self is taken care of.

The Way of the "Imago" partner or dream partner is to ask "What does our partnership need from me" More: laughing, intimacy, reliability, healthier diet...etc.

The conditions for success in your relationship is to remove all negativity, surrender.
Acknowledge your partners "otherness", its not bad, its different, its not you.

Imago Dialog: Keep connection always, don't get stuck in negativity... Listen, Repeat "what I heard you say is....is there anything else you want to add to this ?" and then hug and practice empathy. Your connection to one another is never broken....

I am working on the Imago!

That's it!

Love your thoughts!