Stages of Partnership Marriage

The marriage literature is replete with models of marriage as a series of stages through which a couple fulfills a lifelong journey together. By identifying the key conversations that couples need to attend to within each stage of their marriage, couples can then focus on mastering those conversations that will promote their growth and development. What they are able to talk about in one stage not only builds on the conversations they have had in the previous stages, but also sets a sound foundation for having important conversations in subsequent stages. Being effective in planning, problem-solving, conflict resolution, sharing with each other, and many other kinds of conversations that are required to have a happy and healthy marriage is a continual process that takes time.

When a couple is having difficulty in one stage, they may need to re-visit conversations in previous stages. Development is not completely linear, but can also be cyclic with the couple having critical conversations that are incomplete from earlier stages. For example, in the first years of marriage, if the couple begins to argue about roles and responsibilities and, as a result, their sense of teamwork and workability is absent in their day to day activities, it may be necessary for them to re-connect with each other about what is important and what they are committed to in their lives together.

Elysian Enterprises offers a coaching program focused on six stages of marriage and helping couples master the central conversations that are at the heart of each stage.  Understanding and mastering the essential conversations that occur at each stage of marriage can give couples access to transforming how they relate to each other in life.

Stage 1: Co-creating conversations for connection, commitment and couple-ness

There are many names in the marriage literature for this first stage of partnership marriage. Some of them include the passion stage, the honeymoon stage, bliss, and romantic love. This first stage is where a couple first meets and “falls in love.”  Another way to think about this stage is that not only are the couples “falling in love” with each other, they are “ falling into us.”  They connect with each other in important ways. They develop a sense of being seen and known by the other person and they develop their unique shared experience of “us.” When couples are connected to what’s important to their “couple-ness,” their experience of “us” is often expressed as being “in love.” It is a time when “love is blind” and the sentiment in the relationship is, “I am so happy with you!”

Although this stage can be a wonderful time in a couple’s life together, it is by no means an easy time. Many couples fall in love only to have things happen that doom their love affair. In order to set the foundation for a more satisfying relationship, couples at this stage are exploring the possibility of being committed to each other. They might not be thinking long-term at this point, but many couples are having conversations for being in an exclusive relationship. They are learning what they can count on from each other and what they can expect. Such conversations allow the couple to co-create the frame for their relationship, called “We are a committed couple.” Exploring what they are committed to in their relationship builds trust, respect, and a sense of safety and belonging with each other.

If a couple does not have conversations for what connects them to each other in important ways, for what they are committed to and for what they want in a loving, exclusive relationship, they risk not adequately forming the foundation for an enduring, fulfilling partnership in their lives together. Couples that do not engage in these important formulating conversations may inadvertently sow the seeds for an unsuccessful and unsatisfying relationship down the road. The potential pain that many couples live with and settle for in their marriages later on is a loss of connection, a lack of clarity around what they are committed to and a breakdown in the container of being a “loving couple” for each other.

Couples who are successful in co-creating conversations for connection, commitment and couple-ness set the groundwork necessary to move successfully into the next stage of a committed relationship. This second stage of marriage often starts when the couple begins to talk of getting married and/or living together.

Stage 2 – Co-creating conversations for teamwork, workability, and the future

The second stage of partnership marriage is often called the stage of disillusionment, disappointment. realization, reality, and/or compromise. This stage begins when the couple takes the plunge of either getting engaged or moving into a home together or both. It is a time when the couple and those around them recognize that the couple has made a significant commitment to being together in life.   It is a time when the couple gets to know what living with their loved one is really like, day in and day out. Each person now witnesses their partner’s behavioral patterns and habits that they may or may not have seen before. Personal differences begin to emerge, expectations are dashed, and disillusionment and disappointment burst those ideal images about “the way it is supposed to be.” It is a time when “reality sets in” and the sentiment in the relationship may turn to, “What was I thinking?”

In this second stage of marriage, the couple starts to see each other as having different interests, preferences, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. How they each complete the task of doing the laundry may be different. What their partner likes to eat, how they like to spend their free time or what they like to watch on television may be in sharp contrast to what they had expected going into marriage. Household activities need to be accomplished, managing the money needs to be attended to, and effectively communicating about individual commitments and joint plans must take place. Learning to live together under one roof requires a whole new set of conversations to occur.

At this time in their marriage, a couple has made the commitment to and invests in the possibility of a stable, long-term marital partnership. The couple must learn how to be a team and to work as a team. The activities of daily living now require both persons to be involved in negotiating roles and responsibilities and how their relationship will work. The workability of their interactions and activities are critical to giving them a pathway to co-creating the future that they say they want to have together. Many couples go into marriage with goals to buy a house, to expand their careers and to start a family. In the second stage of marriage, couples must focus their conversations on whether they are working as a team or not, how well their commitments and arrangements with each other are working or what kind of future they want to build together.

Couples who fail to be successful at such conversations because of open conflict, conflict avoidance or pretending that everything is just fine run the risk of being ineffective at taking care of basic responsibilities, operating as a team, meeting each other’s needs and wants, and being satisfied in their marriage. The view of themselves and their marriage as being happy and successful in the future can be thrown into doubt. Couples who become accomplished in working as a team and in putting the structures in their relationship to ensure workability and that each other’s needs and wants are met set the foundation for the fulfillment of the next stage of partnership marriage.

Stage 3 – Conversations for success, happiness, and individual development

The central conversations in Stage 3 of marriage turn to the success and happiness of each partner and to that of the marriage itself.  Names for this stage in the marriage literature include rebellion, power struggle, the seven-year itch, identity and self-knowledge. This stage of marriage often begins in the fourth or fifth year of marriage when reality has set in and individual concerns turn to juggling all the commitments involved in a raising a family, having dual careers, creating space to socialize with friends and having time for personal growth and development.

This stage is a time when both individuals in the relationship are growing and developing and asking foundational questions about who they are and what they are committed to. They are asking themselves, “Can I grow and develop and get what I really need and want in this marriage?” In order for the marriage to be happy and successful, the couple, at this stage, must re-commit anew to the promises they made on their wedding day. Before they can each put both feet fully inside the marriage though, they must re-assess and question that very commitment. it is  a time when each person may be asking, “Is this it?” or “Is this all there is?” and the sentiment in the marriage turns to “I’d be happier if you changed.”

At this stage, couples are investing in the possibility of being happy and successful over the long haul. How the couple is able to meet each other’s needs, support each other’s goals, and be authentic with each other at this stage has real consequences for the long-term viability of the marriage.  If the couple is unable meet these challenges and resolve critical issues, they each may be very unhappy in the marriage and, sometimes, for a very long time. They each run the risk of being disconnected, feeling alone and harboring real concerns about whether their marriage is going to work. They may find themselves living in a constant state of struggle and turmoil, where they each feel they can’t have what they really want unless the other person changes. Their relationship devolves into “you or me” context.

Unfortunately, the full realization of this stage can be elusive for many couples that don’t resolve the essential imperative of the third stage, which is to re-commit fully to their marriage and step in “with all four feet.” Couples that do not make it successfully through this third marital stage can find themselves living parallel lives with a lack of partnership, a loss of happiness in their marriage, a feeling of being alone and a lack of any shared meaning with their spouse. This state inside marriage can go on, sadly, for years, particularly, if each person gives up his or her will to have their marriage work. Couples who have given up see no possibility of long-term happiness or success in their marriage, have no sense of a future or being able to have it work. Their connection to each other and their commitment to their marriage become tenuous. This condition can lead to cynicism, resignation, and despair for spouses in such a marriage unless they seek professional help.

Couples who learn to fight fairly, to communicate compassionately, to apologize for their hurtful behavior and to forgive the other person’s misdeeds develop important tools to their long-term happiness and success. They learn to each express their commitment to what they want for themselves and their relationship so that not only both individuals “win,” but also their relationship is nurtured as well. They recognize that for their marriage to be fulfilling and enduring, they must co-create a commitment to “you and me and us.” The health and well-being of their marriage become a priority in which they both are able to support each other in getting their needs met, in fulfilling their goals and in caring for their relationship. These couples are able to successfully transition to the fourth stage of a partnership marriage.

Stage 4 – Conversations for alignment, balance and partnership

The marriage literature has called this stage of marriage a time of reconciliation, awakening, accommodation, acceptance, cooperation acceptance and collaboration. It is a time when neither individual in the relationship is seriously questioning their commitment to their marriage. They have chosen and re-committed to working together to co-create a fulfilling marriage that works for themselves and their family. They have “all four feet in” and the sentiment in their marriage turns to “I am happy with you and our marriage.”

This is a time when the couple, having put any doubts and concerns about the success and viability of their marriage behind them, can fully attend to balancing all the commitments and responsibilities in their lives for the sake of co-creating and sharing a fulfilling life together. Attention turns to raising their children and creating family life, enhancing their careers, and being involved in volunteer, church or community activities. Emphasis turns to being in alignment around what matters most, to focusing on what they are committed to and to working together to build their future. It is a time when couples express their partnership in fulfilling their joint vision for their lives.

It is in this stage when couples must put the marital executive system, their relationship as husband and wife, first and be partners in raising their children and taking care of all the responsibilities on their collective plates. Couples at this stage recognize the importance of staying in communication and having conversations that allow them to be in alignment, balance and partnership with respect to their commitments and responsibilities. Their investment of time and energy in the first three stages of their marriage pays great dividends as they move into and through the fourth stage. Typically, this stage can last quite a number of years as their children grow into young adults.

Couples, who are successful in building and sharing an enduring and fulfilling partnership marriage, begin to realize the fruits of their labors as their children become young adults and begin to leave home. Their marriage becomes a resource and anchor for each partner to reassess their lives, to find their passion or to re-examine their contribution in life. The next stage in their journey is Stage 5 or the stage of passion, fulfillment and contribution.

Stage 5 – Conversations for passion, fulfillment and contribution

In this fifth stage of marraige, couples shift their focus back to the quality of their marriage and begin to look at the dreams they have been putting off and how to fulfill them. Grown children have left home and attention shifts to adult-to-adult friendships and to enjoying grandchildren. This stage is a time when taking care of one’s health becomes vital to being able to do the things one has put off for years. Couples in a partnership marriage orient themselves around what they are passion about, what fulfills them and what contribution they want to make in the world. Couples at this stage fall in love with each other “all over again” and the sentiment in the marriage turns to “I am fulfilled in our life together.”

Couples in Stage 5 are often shifting major roles. Men are slowing down completing long careers while women may interesting in pursuing new life paths, such as gong back to school and getting a Ph.D. Couples are searching for renewed meaning and purpose in their lives not wanting to settle for work or activities that are not fulfilling. Couples realize that the time is now to explore what really lights them up and to fulfill on new goals. Couples rediscover simple pleasures like working in the garden, traveling and getting together with friends. They also take on partnership projects that require their joint attention, team effort and coordinated activity.

These couples are aware every day of their commitment to co-create and share an enduring and fulfilling marriage. All the hard work they have been putting into their marriage over the years has now paid off and given them a platform to make a real difference in their families, in their communities and in the world on their terms. Their partnership is a strong foundation for each of them to step out and contribute to the community. It is not uncommon for these individuals and couples to seek support groups and/or professional coaches to help them stay true to what is important to them. What becomes important to each of them are living lives that are creative, self-expressed and purposeful and sharing together on that journey.

Stage 6 – Conversations for completion, wisdom, and legacy

In this stage of partnership marriage, couples have become exemplars of having lived an enduring, fulfilling partnership marriage and are an inspiration to others who seek to have a full life together. Couples at this stage are sharing activities together, they are still growing and they are finding news way to play because they know just how short life is. The context of their life is “We are enough” and the sentiment in their marriage is “I deeply appreciate you and our partnership in life.”

They are coming to grips with what their life together has given them and, realistically, what won’t be fulfilled. They renew their commitment to celebrate what gifts they do have and let go of past hurts. They have conversations about what they will leave to their loved ones, their possessions, their values and their traditions. They reflect on the role they played in life during their time together and understand the larger context in which their life has played out. They celebrate and honor that. Their conversations focus on being complete, sharing their wisdom and honoring their legacy. Their dream that they had fifty or sixty years ago of sharing a long and happy life together has been realized and there is much to appreciate.