Dear Reader,

What if relationship struggles weren’t a sign that something was wrong—but a sign that something was trying to grow?

In their Developmental Model, Dr. Ellyn Bader and Dr. Peter Pearson describe relationships as living systems that evolve through predictable stages. Just like individuals, couples need to grow, adapt, and differentiate to stay healthy. When they don’t, they get stuck, which often leads to disconnection, resentment, and painful cycles that just repeat over and over until someone has had enough.

So today, let’s take a closer look at four stages of relational development and what their common struggles are. I’ll invite you to reflect on which one you might be in, and give you some tips on how to get moving in case things are getting stuck.

The Three Main Reasons Relationships Fail

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

― Leo Tolstoy

While it may be true that your unique situation does feel uniquely challenging to you and nobody else could possibly understand your agony, it is also true that there are patterns when it comes to why people break up. The most-cited culprits of “irreconcilable differences” I have seen are about money, sex, parenting, values, addiction, or health issues (not necessarily in that order). These all describe the “what”s couples are fighting over.

In the Developmental Model, the focus is more on “why” the fights occur in the first place, i.e., what are the underlying structures or paradigms that get in the way of successful relating:

1. Lack of Development – A relationship isn’t a static thing; it needs to evolve. When couples resist growth—whether by avoiding tough conversations, staying in outdated dynamics, or fearing change—they create stagnation.
2. Re-triggering of Old Wounds – Unresolved childhood wounds often resurface in intimate relationships. If a partner’s withdrawal feels like a parent’s emotional neglect, or a disagreement feels like a childhood shaming, past pain seeps into present interactions. Without awareness, couples get caught in reactive loops.
3. Lack of Relational Skills – Love alone isn’t enough. Skills like emotional intelligence, self-soothing, healthy communication, and managing anxiety around differences are essential. Without these, even deep love can deteriorate under the weight of unresolved conflict.

In this post, we’re just going to look at the first point.

It might feel a little tricky to parse out at first, but basically, your individual level of development will affect your capacity to support the relational development, whereas your growth as part of a couple will also help you grow as an individual.

Kinda like how Brené Brown said that you can’t love anyone else more than you love yourself (because you’ll project your insecurities and desires), and once you accept someone else’s love and feel their generosity, it might help you love yourself and be generous with others a little more as well.

The Four Stages of Relationship Development

So - relationships and individual growth are closely linked. They both move through distinct stages, and the challenges of each stage are where couples tend to get stuck.

Before we get to how these stages show up, and how to move forward, it’s important to remember that you used to be your own single selves before you got together. Each one of you had their own dreams, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires.

Also, keep in mind that not many people pursue individual or relational development consciously - present readers of this newsletter excluded, obviously - so there’s no shame in being in one stage or another. Your emotional and psychic development are influenced by your Type preferences, your childhood, your trauma, your context - you literally can’t know what you don’t know until you start looking at it. With that, let’s see which stage resonates with you:

1. Symbiosis: "We Are One"

This is the first phase of when you just get together. There’s a merging of two separate selves that takes place. This is the “honeymoon” phase, characterized by neurotransmitters and hormones facilitating an intoxicating sense of closeness. It’s all about finishing each other’s sentences, feeling like you’ve found your missing piece, or NRE as it’s often called, “New Relationship Energy”. It’s about bonding and making a “We” out of the two previously separate “I”s. Incidentally, this phase is crucial to lay the foundation for any development work further down the line.

Common Issue: If a couple stays here too long, they can lose themselves. One or both partners can feel suffocated and/or overly dependent. Conflict is generally avoided to maintain harmony (note: not in the Typological extraverted Feeling sense, but as a relational strategy of this stage).

2. Differentiation: "I Am Not You"

Most couples naturally enter this stage after about two years together.

Differences emerge, and partners realize they aren’t perfectly aligned in every way. This, and I cannot stress this enough, is absolutely common and necessary. Still, this stage can also be pretty painful, because given our society’s programming of mono- and heteronormative romanticism, many couples mistake having different opinions, needs, or desires for incompatibility. If the partner isn’t “perfect”, then they are not “the one”, so off we go to try and find someone to “complete me” somewhere else.

Common Issue: Difficulty managing anxiety over speaking up. Checking out to look for an “easier” partner, because “it shouldn’t be this hard”. Increased conflict as partners struggle to express needs without triggering defensiveness. For more on this, I wrote a couple of posts in the last weeks exploring attachment vs authenticity.

3. Exploration: "I Am Me, and You Are You"

Couples who navigate differentiation successfully arrive at a stage where both partners feel free to grow as individuals. This phase is about building self-esteem that is separate from the partner or the relationship. Bader and Pearson call this “individuation”, i.e. the awareness and the pursuit of what gives you deep satisfaction and clarity of who you are in this world. Note, this is not the same definition of individuation as Jung uses.

Common Issue: Partners tend to be supportive of one another’s independence here, but there’s also a risk of drifting apart if the emotional connection isn’t maintained. If one partner is not quite at this stage yet, they might fear the growing independence of the other. They might then either pull away emotionally to protect their ego, or they might become controlling of the other in an attempt to regulate their own nervous system.

4. Synergy: "We Are Two, and We Are One"

This is the most mature stage of relational development. Differences are embraced rather than feared, and the relationship is a source of support without restricting individuality. Neither partner has to make sacrifices about who they are, and both nourish the relationship and the “We”. There is both independence and interdependence.

Common Issue: Couples may take this connection for granted and stop prioritizing time together to keep up-to-date with one another’s personal growth.

Getting Unstuck

If you find yourself stuck, here are some questions that apply to all stages to help get things moving again. As always, feel free to meditate, journal, go for a run, take a bath, pull tarot cards, or do whatever you do to help you center and listen to your inner voice. These answers are less likely to come from logical analysis, and more from an embodied felt sense of what’s working for you and what isn’t.

Remember also that you are part of the relationship system, which means even if your partner doesn’t want to change anything, just by virtue of you changing your thoughts and behaviors, the relationship system will also change. And of course you don’t have to do it alone, that’s literally what I’m here for: to help you figure out what it is you want and support your change process.

What kind of relationship do you want to be in? What’s happening now that is good that you want to keep? What’s happening now that is not what you want? What do you want instead?

Why is that important to you? What’s your motivation to change? How would living in your desired relationship help you align with your values? Who would you get to be in the desired relationship? In short, once things go differently, what’s in it for you?

What is required of you (not your partner) to bring about this desired relationship? What are you willing to start, stop, or continue doing? How do you want to be showing up in this relationship?

Growth is the Goal

If you recognize your relationship is getting stuck in any one of these stages, know that there’s nothing wrong with you, or with the relationship, necessarily. The key is learning how to move forward in a way that honors the development of all involved.

Yes, sometimes that means having grown apart. That still doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the relationship; merely that it has served you as long as it could. The quality of a relationship should not be measured by how long it lasted, rather by how well it allowed the individuals in them to grow.

So, which stage best describes your current relationship dynamic, and what’s one small action you can take to move toward growth?

Reply and let me know—I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Cheers,