Vivian Baruch

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

Updated 23rd July 2025

Did you know that there are five stages of intimacy in relationships? These stages develop over time and each stage has specific skills that can be learnt and practiced.

We enter into love relationships with hopes and wishes, but without a manual on how to be in relationships. This leads to inevitable relationship conflicts, where couples find themselves unskilled in how to identify their thoughts,  feelings and needs, how to ask for what they want or how to practice new ways of behaving and responding.

We are especially unskilled in how to encourage our partner to respond in a positive manner to our requests. Studies show that the dark side of the second and third stages of intimacy are marked by conflicts and power struggles, or by trying to avoid conflict, which is still a power struggle. These two stages of intimacy can often feel like we’re stuck in gridlock.

Deliberate practice

If you find yourself in a power struggle, don’t worry. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything is going wrong. If your relationship is not troubled by addictions, affairs or chronic anger/abuse, it’s probably a stage that you can work through by practicing specific skills. Mastering a skill set takes deliberate practice, not naïve (unwise) practice and hoping for change. This crucial difference in mastering skills is explained by K. Anders Ericsson, an expert in the psychological nature of expertise and human performance.

The Gottman Institute also has over fifty years of research on what behaviours separate the “masters of relationship” from the “disasters of relationship”. Their research reveals that there are predictable skills which the masters of relationship use with each other. For example, they fight about the issue, instead of making personal attacks, avoiding each other or the topic. There are many evidence-based skills which you can learn so you can have healthy fights. Remember that learning these skills requires deliberate practice. This involves insight plus new actions, based on the insights. This often requires coaching and individualised learning objectives to help you move through the relationship stages more easily.

The five stages of intimacy described below were devised by Ellyn Bader & Peter Pearson (1988). The stages mirror Margaret Mahler’s theory of childhood development. You will see that the first three of Bader & Pearson’s stages all have a “dark side” describing what can go wrong if the growth challenges aren’t adequately met.

Stage One – Honeymoon/Exclusive Bonding

This is the most wonderful of the five stages of intimacy. Movies, novels, love songs and poetry describe it as magical, overpowering and unstoppable. The honeymoon stage, which is the early romantic love stage, has been studied by biological anthropologist Helen Fisher. It brings with it a blissful experience of togetherness and feels as if you and your loved one can do no wrong. There is passion, hot sex, mutual giving and receiving. You’re prepared to do anything for the one you love, and you feel capable of achieving anything because you feel on top of the world.

Nature has engineered this necessary and beautiful stage to bring two different and separate beings together. It is fuelled by the powerful hormones of lust, testosterone and oestrogen which create the “chemistry” designed to bring about bonding. This stage helps you to move from an “I” to a loving “we”, to bring about a merging of lives and personalities. Your similarities are magnified and your differences are minimized. It is a necessary foundational stage for intimacy. Couples who miss out on establishing this bonding stage may have difficulties moving through the next stages in healthy ways. Yet if this happened to you, there’s no need to lose hope. You can still build a new foundation, based on your current, more mature selves.

Dark side of stage one

Love is powerfully driven by hormones, hopes and desires. Yet love in this stage makes you somewhat blind. What feels like an indestructible “we” is inevitably based in fantasy, because both partners are putting their “best self” forward. You’re doing your best to impress, to be interesting, to get “picked for the job”. You want to be chosen above all others by this magical, special person. Inevitably and disappointingly, the intense bliss of this powerful connection fades as it’s biologically costly to maintain this state of arousal. For some people this can happen after weeks, for others this stage can last for around two years. But its intensity does come to an end.

The developmental challenge here is to progress to the next stages of romantic love with their accompanying hormonal correlates. According to Fisher, these stages of romantic love are the attraction stage (dopamine, adrenalin and serotonin) and the attachment stage (oxytocin and vasopressin). These happen in the healthy manifestations of stages two and three of successful relationships.

If you don’t grow through stage one, you may find yourself struggling with conflicted feelings. One part of you doesn’t want to let go of the belief that everything should remain “perfect”. The other part can’t help seeing that this magical person has vulnerabilities, wounds and annoying habits. Romantic love hangs around long enough to bond two people together. Then it seems to change. Our dream relationship can turn into our biggest nightmare. This leads us into stage two of intimacy.

Stage Two – Conflict/Power Struggle/Differentiating

During the grip of romantic love, you can do no wrong. When the honeymoon fades, it feels like you can do no right. Your biggest fan turns into your worst critic. Your dream come true turns into your worst nightmare. Idealization and devotion is replaced by tension and nagging. You think: “What happened? Why don’t I feel the way I used to?”, “Who is this person? We were so compatible”, “How can my partner think that way, say those things, do those things? They tricked me into believing they were someone else!” This is the start of the conflict stage of relationships.

This rude awakening from the dream of perfection, can make you very anxious. The sex and the closeness are mediocre or don’t exist. It’s common at this stage, and in dark side of stage three, that couples decide to seek coaching or counselling. Desperate to end the pain and disappointment of this stage, many couples think they should separate. Others want to avoid the pain of dividing up joint lives and belongings, so they decide to “settle”, to give up on being their best self and on the hope that the relationship can grow and develop. This leads to living parallel, disconnected lives, without any true intimacy. You think “Maybe this is as good as it gets”. Yet secretly you think something must be terribly wrong.

Don’t worry, nothing has gone wrong. This stage is supposed to happen. It’s a crucial stage in learning how to deal with differences by engaging in healthy conflict. Conflict in relationships is inevitable and learning the skills to deal with normal relationship conflicts in healthy ways is what is needed here. The issue is that you don’t yet have the skills to manage differences or to deal effectively with conflict.

Some aspects of the inevitable power struggle at this stage are:

1. The cultural remains of arranged marriages from our historical past. It is marked by inequality, and an imbalance of power that was typical in the history of marriages. This struggle is characterized by “You and I are one, and I’m the one!” (Harville Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt, 2013).
2. It’s fuelled by the powerful, unconscious romantic love force that draws you to someone who has the positive and negative qualities of your parents or caregivers. Your partner may not look or act like your parents. But you will end up feeling the same feelings you had as a childwhen you were with your carers. This includes the positive sense of love and belonging and also the negative pain of not getting all your needs met. The impacts generally fall into two categories. a) Your parents were either over-involved, which left you feeling controlled, smothered or annihilated. Or b) Your parents were under-involved, which left you feeling unimportant, insignificant or abandoned. It can also happen that one parent was over-involved and the other parent was under-involved. In all of these cases, it may have left you with some attachment wounds that may need healing.

It’s important to note here that many respected psychologists in the fields of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), positive psychology, and resilience research (such as Martin Seligman, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, Carol Dweck, Viktor Frankl, Judith Herman, Edith Eger, Daniel Sigel and Marsha Linehan) argue that we are not prisoners of our past. This means that early life experiences, while influential, do not necessarily determine who we become.

Many people, including therapists, cling to the belief that our past dictates our present and future.

Power struggles can happen between any two people, no matter what happened in your history. In stage two of romantic love, your differences necessarily emerge. And the developmental challenge here is to learn to manage your anxiety about these emerging differences. That’s why one of the names for this stage is “differentiation”. Differentiation is a necessary and ongoing process of development that needs to happen if you and your relationship are to grow rather than stagnate.

Each partner must be “taken down from the pedestal” created by the romantic fantasy so you can see them for the real human being that they are, complete with strengths as well as weaknesses. A healthy desire to spend less time together emerges in this stage. You may also spend more time taking opposite sides of an issue. You don’t see eye-to eye, you don’t feel connected, the sex is not so exciting, or it can be totally absent.

The learning challenges in this stage are to:

1. Maintain a clear sense of self, especially in the face of your partner pressuring you to adapt to them.
2. Practice self-soothing and emotion regulation skills instead of expecting your partner to do this for you. To stop expecting them to change and work on changing your own reactions instead.
3. Control your own reactivity while staying close, instead of dis-investing from the relationship.
4. Develop the ability to face the issues that haunt you and your relationship and the willingness to tolerate discomfort for growth (David Schnarch, 2011).

Dark side of stage two

Some people can’t bear the fact that differences exist, let alone that discomfort and conflict are inevitable in relationships. If this is you, you’ll keep holding on to the idea that your dream relationship will return, or you fantasize that you’re with the “wrong” person and that the “right” person would fulfill all your needs. Others want more autonomy or privacy, but feel guilty and afraid about this or don’t know how to ask for space.

The dark side of stage two is full of disillusionment, disappointment, confusion and ambivalence. This stage of intimacy is characterized by open or guerrilla warfare, overt or subtle insults, sabotages or avoidance of your partner. You want your partner to change or accept your version of the “truth”, instead of managing your own anxietyand practicing self-soothing skills.

This stage feels awfully messy and confusing. But since partnership is designed to resurface old wounds, it means that most of the upset that gets triggered in you during your relationship is from your past. Hendrix and LaKelly Hunt (2013) say that about 90% of the frustrations your partner has with you are about their issues from the past. Yet remember that this may not always be the case, because you are not a prisoner of your past.

In the dark side of power struggles, Bader & Pearson say that couples can get caught in two common patterns of relating:

1. You bicker, intimidate, yell, attack, blame or dominate. You inflateyourself to feel powerful, because you’re scared underneath. You get trapped in a cycle of anger, hostility and conflict. You are too terrified to end the relationship and not mature enough to end the battles. These are called hostile-dependent couples.
2. You engage in passive-aggressive sniping, you resentfully comply, sulk or withdraw. You deflateyourself and feel powerless. You are so afraid of tension that it leads to hiding by deception and denying that anything’s wrong, so you avoid conflict or minimize your differences. These are called conflict-avoidant couples.

Getting expert help from a qualified couple’s coach, a mature mentor couple or a wise friend, family or community member, and deliberately practicing new relationship skills can help to move you into stage three.

Stage Three – Practicing Creating Partnership/Respecting Differences

In the third of the five stages of intimacy, you practice evolving individually as well as developing your relationship into a true partnership. This is where both partners respect equality and are free to explore and grow as individuals while remaining connected. The healthy expression of this freedom is “what’s good for me, has to be good for you and the relationship” too. It’s all about teamwork and deliberate practice. You focus on consciously promoting your own growth as well as each other’s growth. This is what evolutionary psychologist David Buss (2021) calls the welfare trade-off ratio (WTR) – the ratio of how much emphasis you place on your own value relative to your partner’s value. In a relatively balanced WTR, you experience the deepest connection possible between humans. The research on a gross imbalance in the WTR is discussed in Buss’s TED talk Sexual Conflicts in Human Mating.

Take note – practicing the skills to respect differences takes work. There is no quick fix.

Why is this work on your relationship so demanding and challenging? Not only may the person you’re committed to be like your parents (or the exact opposite of them) in many ways, but the two of you are also different in various other areas. It’s as if you are mysteriously attracted to someone who’s similar to your carers (that’s why in the honeymoon stage you feel you’ve known them for ever, even though you’ve just met) but different enough that your incompatibility provides key elements for the process of growth and healing of old wounds.

Incompatibility, or learning to deal with your differences, is a crucial developmental ingredient in progressing through the stages of intimacy. Incompatibility helps you practice to meet your own as well as each other’s needs. Meeting your own needs in a healthy way cannot be done at the expense of your partner. Confusingly, incompatibility may be a reason to stay in relationship – but only if there’s noongoing control or abuse. And, as the research shows, too much avoiding of differences sets the stage for boredom and drifting apart.

One word of warning!

Incompatibility is a stimulus for growth in relationship only if thethree A’s have minimal impacts:

Addiction problems.

Affairs (ongoing affairs) take energy out of the relationship. A choice needs to be made to commit, leave or negotiate an open relationship.

Anger/Acting out/Abuse (physical violence, rage, contempt, control, punishing withdrawal, unmanaged mental health issues, constant denial of another’s reality, spending hours on computer/porn, lying, stealing, cheating, etc). (Terry Real, 2008; Susan Heitler, 2011).

The first step needed for a healthy partnership is to form a solid foundation in trust and commitment to the relationship. This provides the safety and security you need to go out and explore yourself and your world without putting you, the relationship or your partner at risk. Healthy practicing helps you re-establish your own identity and self-esteem by engaging in interests and activities outside of your relationship. You focus on careers, hobbies, friendships, travel, or on being alone again at times. You spend time learning how to negotiatespace and distance, time together (we time) and time apart (me time). You work on skills to reconcile conflicting interests and  learn to talk about sexual intimacy and desires which are probably different from your partner’s.

Dark side of stage three

If you avoid doing the necessary developmental work of this stage, you get sneaky. One or both partners “check out” and dis-invest from the relationship, rather than be truthful with the other about their unhappiness. Lies, infidelity, misrepresenting finances happen in this stage. Power struggles become entrenched or gridlocked. You do unethical things, and you take liberties without caring how it affects your partner. You look for emotional intimacy or sexual gratification outside the relationship, rather than identifying what you desire and addressing this with your partner. Developing your self becomes more important than developing the relationship.

Once again, getting expert help during this stage from a qualified couple’s coach, a mature mentor couple or a wise friend, family or community member, can help you move through the stages of intimacy into stage four.

Stage Four – Reconnecting/Rapprochement

This is a lovely time in relationship. Because of the energy that’s been channelled into building self and relationship at the same time, you emerge with a well-developed, well-defined and competent identity. You know how to resolve your own and your partner’s anxieties and insecurities quickly, negotiation is not as difficult as before. You know more clearly who you are and who your partner is, so it feels safe to look to the relationship for true intimacy and emotional sustenance. It’s a deeper yet more grounded experience of stage one, when you can truly appreciate your partner for their uniqueness and individuality.

You are more accepting of yourself and of each other, so there’s no need to control, engage in power struggles or play small. Relationship and intimacy deepen on all levels. Sex becomes exciting and rewarding again. Because you know each other so well, there’s little need for lying. You can respond to differences with humour, compassion and respect, rather than hostility or deception. Revealing your vulnerability re-emerges, because you can share deeply without fear of ridicule or abandonment. This stage has periods of increased intimacy alternating with times of re-establishing independence. You come together and move apart, in a well-practiced dance. There are no dark sides in stages four and five, as both self and relationship are now on solid footing.

Stage Five – Mutual Interdependence

This stage is the final reward for the effort and work which you poured into developing yourself, while remaining in connection with your partner in a committed relationship. Each person is encouraged and supported by the other to grow by following their passions and external contacts with the world. You can do this because you are backed by the knowledge that you are deeply loved, trusted and respected. Intimacy continues to deepen because of your increased ability to manage emotional reactivity.

Sex is fulfilling because you know what you want, how to ask for it and how to deal effectively with differences in desire. Two key findings from 50 years of relationship research from the Gottman Institute show the following:

• Happy couples behave like good friends, and handle their conflicts in gentle, positive ways.
• Happy couples are able to repair negative interactions during, or soon after, an argument. They are able to process negative emotions with each other.

What is seen at this stage is a pair of well-integrated individuals, with satisfaction in their own lives and clarity about their own values and beliefs. They have created a bond that is mutually satisfying, based on a foundation of trust and growth, rather than on need. They’ve moved through the stages of intimacy and done the hard work to earn this reward. It takes years to reach this mature stage and the solid sense of self to be able to sustain it. Earlier desires for something perfect is reconciled with a satisfaction with what is real. Each partner benefits from this synergy, and has a desire to give back to the world. Couples at this stage want to leave a legacy for others, not only their family and friends but also to the wider community. They feel fulfilled individually and as a couple and wish to share this in ways which benefit others.

This last stage is what many people dream about. Yet it only comes with regular, daily, and deliberate practice of relationship skills. These skills have been studied for decades and can be taught. If you’re willing to learn and practice them, seek out someone who is versed in the science underlying successful relationships.

To find out about the skills needed to move through the stages of intimacy in healthy ways, you may need an experienced relationship counsellor & coach. Call 0421 961 687 or email us to schedule an appointment. International callers should call +61 421 961 687.

You deserve the best trained relationship coaches if you’re planning to invest time and money in your relationship. If you’re not ready to book an appointment, call us on 0421 961 687 to book a FREE 15 minute phone consultation to discuss how we may be able to assist you.