by Ray Anderson

Created on: January 29, 2008

It is hard to imagine that a loving relationship can die but they often do. Why they die can be a very hard thing to put your finger on. For some the spark of love just fades and , for others, the couples just seem to drift apart.

I believe that many things become factors as the relationship progresses and if we know the stages that the relationship is going to go through , we can help to alleviate many of the problems and survive the dying relationship.

The first step of the relationship is generally the "Puppy-love" stage. This is the stage where you see the partner as a beautiful and young body that is food for your eyes. Next the hormones kick in and you see the partner as a sex object. Soon the sex fades and you find that the emotional partner isn't as good as the sex partner was so most relationships begin to die at this point. This is usually the easiest stage to recover from because it is just a physical attraction. Both partners are usually not in love emotionally and can cope with the fact that they are just not physically attracted to each other any more.

The next step is the emotional stage. It is the stage where the sex has faded and the emotions are now in full force. If the partners have many of the same interests then this stage will flourish and take the relationship to the next stage , but if there isn't even a foundation to build on , the relationship dies. This is usually the most painful of the stages. Usually one of the partners is deeply in love and the other isn't so it becomes a one-sided relationship. When it suddenly dies the one in love takes it very hard and has trouble coping and understanding where the relationship went wrong.

The third stage is usually called the "mid-life crisis". The relationship has usually become a marriage and there are children now. It usually happens with men more than women but that isn't always the case. Usually the man has been with the same woman for many years and is thinking about what he has missed in being married for all those years. Life is not as exciting for the man as he wants. This stage usually begins with the purchase of some item he wanted as a young man. Maybe it is a sports car , motorcycle, or some wild idea of adventure ... like taking up skydiving. Almost always it revolves around the man testing his mortality by dangerous items or stunts. Usually it is the woman that tries to talk sense into the man because women tend to have a more stable sense of adventure. More romantic than life-endangering.

If the relationship makes it past the mid-life crisis then it is in full cruise-control ! The partners usually last for the duration ,up until the death of one of the partners. Sure some may say that there is the stage that the relationship goes through for the woman called menopause. Lucky for me I am not old enough to have witnessed that stage yet ! I'm still the 41 year-old teenager going through puberty !

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