The Process of Love
Falling in Love
The typical process flows through the following steps (Lauer & Lauer, 2012):
This is the getting to know someone stage, where you are becoming comfortable with them, learning more about them, and noticing shared attraction and similar interests, attitudes, and values.
This step is when self-disclosure moves beyond surface level “get to know you” questions. You share more of your history and struggles, fears, hopes, and dreams. Sharing these deeper parts of you, and a partner doing the same, deepens intimacy in the relationship.
In this stage, you appear as a couple, regardless of whether you have officially decided You begin to have behaviors that cannot be fulfilled without your partner. They become someone you can confide in, share your current life struggles and experiences with, and you have things that the two of you tend to do together now.
- This step is reached as self-revelation (step 2) and mutual dependency (step 3) grows. They are interdependent. As one gets stronger the other needs to also. Similarly, if one decreases, the others will begin to decrease also
- Intimacy leads to interdependence between a couple
- Each partner may feel distinct levels of interdependence
- When there is accentuated unequal interdependence, the more committed person to the relationship has more to lose and can be exploited, controlled, or abused by the other less invested partner.
- Work toward equal emotional involvement so your relationship can benefit from higher satisfaction and stability (Lauer & Lauer, 2012).
- Learn what commitment looks like and feels like, talk with your partner about it.
Commitment
(Lauer & Lauer, 2012)
Here are a few nuggets of wisdom about commitment to help you get started:
- Commit to a person and not just the union or institution of marriage
- Committing to an individual results in
- less relationship problems
- more open expressions of love
- improved satisfaction
- determination to work through problems (instead of committing to endure)
- Committing to an individual results in
- Commitment is:
- a Promise- to engage in something that will include some difficulties
- Dedication to the joint goal of staying together
- Emotional attachment
- Building commitment:
- Each individual must feel equal in the relationship
- Actively guard your relationship
- Express true affection
- Have shared values and relationship expanding activities
What is Intimacy?
Intimacy is a broadly applicable concept. Intimacy means a closeness with another person by deeply knowing them.
Without an adequate level of intimacy we could not trust, rely on, or commit to our partner.
In our society the focus seems to be on sexual intimacy, but that is only one part of a fully intimate relationship.
You also can know and be known through emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, spiritual intimacy, experiential intimacy, and physical intimacy.
In fact, intimacy is not reserved only for romantic couples. You can have intimate relationships with other people in many of these categories.
The single defining difference between relationships with family and friends and a romantic relationship is sexual intimacy.
Each of these intimacy areas is especially important to develop and strengthen in your relationship!
There is no expected length of time to accomplish each step. However, It is better not to rush through any of the steps.
Just like in the RAM relationship model, you need to have a durable foundation in the first step before moving to the second, and so on. If you want to truly know and understand someone, you need to be willing to spend the time doing that.
Love at first sight is normally a misattributed physiological attraction response that is unlikely to remain with you for the long term. This pattern of love holds to key to long healthy formation and longer lasting relationships.
Before fully committing, ask yourself?
- Have you experienced this person throughout each season of the year?
- Have you celebrated a full year's worth of holidays with them?
- Do you know how they interact with their family and how they handle stress in their family?
- How do they treat other people?
- Have you been with them to experience some of their personal highs and lows?
- Have you seen enough of their life to know how they live it, physically and emotionally?
- How do they handle their own stress?
- How do they value money and possessions?
- Do they take care of their responsibilities?
- How clean or messy are their physical living spaces and vehicles?
- How do they handle their own stress?
- How do they handle the ups and downs of your life, that you share with them?
There are so many ways you can look at a person to learn more about them.
The answers to these questions and others like them can give you valuable information about what a life with them would look like.
Learning all of this cannot be done in just a few months. You also cannot learn everything about someone, but give yourself the chance to learn enough, so that you can feel more comfortable and confident in trusting who they are.
Research shows that people who spend longer getting to know each other before making a marriage commitment are more satisfied in their marriage and less likely to divorce (Lauer & Lauer, 2012).