5 Stages of a Healthy Relationship

One of the leading causes of overall life success is the quality of your relationships. But do you know whether or not you're actually in a healthy relationship? Well, if you'd like to stay tuned to find out.

So one of the things that I enjoy most is actually relationships as a whole. Primarily because one of the things that I used to struggle with the most was relationships. I used to go from toxic relationship to toxic relationship to toxic relationship to toxic relationship. That was until I understood that there was a cycle, a progress, if you will. And I began to also understand that healthy relationships look very different than a toxic relationship. They have very different steps, very different progressions. So what I wanted to do today is I want to go through the five specific stages to help you identify where you are in your relationships. One and two, Whether or not you're trending towards a toxic relationship or if you are trending towards a successful one. So I want to go ahead and jump in here for just a second. So the first thing that I always see, okay, and we've all been here, right, all of this lovey dovey phase where, you know, the person can do no wrong. They're like totally perfect. We refer to that as the infatuation stage. Okay? Now I see a lot of people, right? This infatuation stage can last anywhere from three to six months or three to six days, depending on the people and how they're put together. That's a lot of Ps. In the meantime, consider this. When you're in the infatuation stage, everybody is on their best behavior. And because everybody's on their best behavior, they're going to have a reason for every single bad thing that's ever been said about them. All right? Here's why this is important is because people are not perfect. Now, true love is not loving someone for who they are. True love is loving someone in spite of who they are. Flaws and all. Why is that important? Because in the infatuation stage, it's all about we're in love. It's all the fairytale. It's the prince climbing the mountain to get to the princess and fighting all the dragons off, right? It's every single rom com you've ever watched, the very beginning portion of the movie. That's why it's important to understand where you are in the process. Because if you make a decision to marry someone or get in a committed relationship at this stage, you do not have enough information to know whether or not that's going to pay off big or. Or cost you big. Alright? So let's talk about the second phase, what I refer to as the visibility stage. At the visibility stage, again, from around the three to six month mark, maybe around the nine month mark, you're gonna begin to see who the person really is through and through, day in and day out. Because you cannot put up that front for extended periods of time. It's impossible. You just can't do it. You're gonna start seeing, is there a character, something you can work with or is it something that's a complete turn off at the end of the day? The visibility stage has one thing in common. You're not who I thought you were.

Every single relationship, every single one of them follows this trend. Different. What's different here specifically is what happens at this moment. What happens when you get to the place of you're not who I thought you were. Okay, I will tell you. I am a non detailed guy. You've heard me say it a thousand times. If you've been watching this channel for any hot minute, okay? My wife, on the other hand, is also not necessarily fantastic at details, but she's very good at being an encouraging spirit in my life, right? So when I'm down, she picks me up. At the same time, she also backfills and actually is a gatekeeper in my life, preventing people from taking advantage of me. All right? We only discovered that because we got real with each other early on. In fact, the first night I met my wife, when we were supposed to have our very first date, she sits down at the table and without a beat, says, give me your dirty. I'm like, give me your dirty. She's like, give me your dirty. I don't care about how awesome you are. I don't care about which money you make. I don't care about who you. I want to know who you are when no one's looking. Who are you when no one's looking? Who are you? When the world is falling apart? Who are you? What are your biggest failures? What are your biggest setbacks? Talk about fast forwarding progress. Oh my gosh. So I began to be honest with her and vulnerable and transparent with her and told her, hey, look, these are the things I'm not good at. These are the things I struggle with. This is where some of my routine in my life, I had to rework and revamp. What happened in that moment is we slowly began to build trust on date number one. So much so that she also, right after that, said, well, you know, I've been on a lot of dates and I'm Going to tell you. I'm just going to be. I'm going to be honest. I'm looking for my husband. I'm not looking for any games. I'm not looking for any hookups. I'm done with those days. I'm looking for my husband. I'm like, to me, I'm like, okay, cool. And she goes, no one's made it past date number two. To which I replied, well, what are you doing tomorrow?

Pretty bold, right? It's because I felt comfortable. I felt very comfortable in my own skin to know that she had enough intelligence because of the questions that she was asking me. She showed me that she was at a much deeper level than anybody else that I had been dating at the time. She illustrated the kind of person that I wanted to be married to, the kind of person that would fight with me, against me, and for me all at the same time. Right? The person who was loyal and caring and considerate. That's the kind of person you really, really want, right? Unfortunately, if you make this lifelong decision in this area without having that kind of information, knowing what the strengths, the struggles and the blind spots of both of you are, then you might make a decision to partner with somebody who down the road is going to lead you astray, who is going to break your heart, leave you isolated, not be there to support you when you're going through something difficult. That's why this is so important, because at this particular stage, the visibility stage, this is where you make the decision to move forward or to stop altogether. Stop. Gotta add the P, right? That's where you make the decision. You don't make the decision here. You don't have enough information here. A good friend of mine told me that you'll know whether or not someone deserves another date within the first three hours of the first date. And within the first three weeks of that date, you'll know if you need to continue dating them for a couple of months. And by the time you get to three or four months now, you know whether or not you need to continue seeing them for a year. And after a year, you have a really good understanding about who that person is. Because unless you guys are not spending time together on a regular basis, all of the ugly will show up. Okay. And then it comes down to, is your ugly something I'm willing to deal with or is it something that I'm willing to walk away from? And it's going to be different for everybody. Fortunately for me, my wife loves me and I love her, and it's been awesome But I can't tell you how many times I made the decision to invest my heart in here. Not having enough information. Okay? Now, so let's. For healthy relationships, let's assume, okay, that you do, in fact, want to continue, that you're willing to work through some stuff that maybe you're not super crazy about. Maybe they leave their underwear laying on the floor, their shoes somewhere. Maybe they don't clean the room the way you want or wash dishes in a timely fashion. Whatever your thing is, whatever your shtick is. Right? Maybe they don't do those things well, but they're loyal, they're honest, they're caring, they're considerate, and they actually want to be with you. Right? Right. All of those things are important. Let's assume all that takes place. Then we get to go up the ladder to level three, which is I want to be with you, which I refer to as the commitment stage.

You are now in a place because you identified strengths, struggles, and blind spots on both sides, and you've both committed. Hey, look, I'm not crazy about the way you leave your bathroom. I'm not crazy about the way you make the bed. But I do love the fact that you're loyal. I do love the fact that you're considerate. I do love the fact that you're. That you make me feel important. Okay? These types of things are the things that you're really, really looking for. And at that time, you actually get to this commitment stage. It's okay to be in a committed relationship. So let me tell you what's gonna happen in a committed relationship at this particular stage. All the stuff that drives you guys nuts, right, is probably some of the stuff that you thought was really cute and cuddly. Like, maybe the person had a really cute snore when they fell asleep, and the next thing you know, you're laying beside them and they're snoring like crazy. You're like, shut up. Okay? All of this stuff here at this commitment phase now starts to come up to the surface. And now the couple gets to deal with it. And whether or not they choose to deal with it in a healthy fashion determines whether or not they continue climbing or they continue falling away. We have all taken bad relationships into our current relationships because we didn't know any better. Someone broke our heart over here. So we automatically assume that the new person's a cheater, even though they've never given us any evidence to kind of substantiate that we've all done that kind of stupidity, right? Let's just be honest. Let's be real. We've all taken garbage into what is beautiful before. The trick is, is when you're walking through this specifically and you're in this commitment phase, I want to be with you. The conversations are always centered around how can we improve our relationship? How can we improve together in such a way that allows us to continually grow, even though we may aggravate each other one on one from time to time? I can tell you, my wife, if she's locked away with me for weeks on end, like some of the COVID stuff that's been going on, she's ready to pull the remaining hair out of my beard since I don't have any on my head anymore, right? That's okay. That's our normal relationship. A normal relationship loves, admires and respects, but also has a healthy identity of personhood with each individual. All right? So again, let's assume that the commitment thing's working out. We're working with each other, not against each other. Because that's another decision here that you have to figure out. Those decisions are vitally important in how you actually build or destroy your own relationships. If you get to this area here and you cannot move forward with consistency, with compromise, with empathy, with love and understanding, then the relationship honestly probably should start to end. I'm just being real. This is such an important step in actually laying the foundation for a consistent approach to loyalty. And actually the. What do they call it, the person that's sitting on the porch with you when you're 80 years old, sipping a coffee as you're watching the sunset. That's the kind of person you're really after, not the person who's trying to get in and out of your pants. Right? That is not going to get you love, true love. It may be great for the moment, but if it's not great for years to come, it's not worth investing time, energy in personal opinion after being broken hearted more times than I can possibly count. Alright, let's move on the next phase. In the event that everything is going great, you can find this compromise, you can find this communication, all that stuff's working really well. Then you're going to go into the establishment phase. Basically, your commitment essentially is getting deeply rooted into a firm foundation. Okay? Because the commitment has now taken precedence. It's basically waking up each morning and saying, as my good friend Chris Pipes used to say, I choose you.

Every single morning I wake up before I leave the house, I kiss my wife and I tell her I love her before I ever leave the door.

Every single morning, without fail. Unless one of us is sick, then she won't let me kiss her. But the principle is still the same. Every single day. I choose my wife every single day. There's not a woman on this planet that can touch my wife. Why? Because we have gone through the entire phase. We've gone through the infatuation phase where there's like a bubble of love above us. We've gone into the visibility phase where we're looking at both of our stuff and we're like, it bugs the crap out of me, but I love you and I'm willing to stay committed. And you see what I'm saying? It's a progression. Okay, which gives us to this section here. We are one team. We are one team. It is the area of the relationship that has the most fruit that I have ever seen as it relates to other people. Because when you and your relationship are in unison, people can sense that they can pick up on that. And it inspires them to come close and say, how are you guys doing this? How are you actually doing this? Where you guys are staying together and not fighting all the time. I'm fighting all the time with who I'm with. It's why relationships have so much power in your life. All right, moving on. This is a continuation of a process. Everything is going good here. We've already made the decision back here of whether or not it's worth the investment of time, energy and resource. Now we've already made the commitment as you continue to do more team building activities, continue to do more stuff together, continue to be more vulnerable, more caring, more loving. On a day in and day out basis, you develop what's powerful, which is true intimacy. Which is true intimacy. I can share every hurt, every hope, every fear, every frustration, every foundation with my beautiful wife, Karen. And we do, we get on each other's nerves as part of being married, as part of a quality relationship, is you're not going to see everything eye to eye on the same different ways. There's a lot of things we don't see eyed on. But what we do know is that we genuinely love each other. And as a result, we are working on building intimacy day in and day out. Which at the end of the day says, I could not imagine my life without you. You've heard me basically say that several times through the course of this video is, I cannot live my life without caring. At least I don't want to, right? Every day I choose my wife because we laid the groundwork. And I can tell you when these things are not done correctly and you're making bad decisions in this first part of the. The area, the stages here, and you're making all your commitments and all this kind of stuff without giving enough knowledge and wisdom and understanding, then you end up with lots of broken hearts. I made a checklist for myself a long time ago about who I wanted my spouse to be. What I did differently was, is I listed the. I listed the traits by character first. Okay, by character first. I want her to have a heart for people. I want her to love God. I want her to love her husband. I want her to be loyal. I. I want her to be committed. I want her to be vivacious and spunky. Right? These different character traits. And then I got into the physical traits far too many times. You are judging yourself and the people you're supposed to be with on whether or not they look beautiful or cute or sexy or whatever.

There's a place for that in the relationship. There's a place for that, but it shouldn't be the primary focus. You should be looking past the exterior and into the person's inside to determine what are they a good person? Do they have character? Can they be loyal? All this kind of stuff. So you can actually get to the intimacy stage. So you can actually get to the intimacy stage. The intimacy stage, I'm going to tell you, is beautiful, right? Everything that comes with intimacy is more beautiful. Everything is brighter. It's like looking at the color blue for the first time. It's brighter. So as you take a look at your relationships, I want you to ask yourself, where are you at in the process? 1, 2. Is it part of the process for you to basically own up to some things that you can add value and change to add more value to the relationship? Is it a relationship that doesn't follow the track record that maybe needs to end? Okay. But above all, what will make you actually go after a healthy relationship with all you got on it? Because I can tell you that the largest portion of your overall success in any area of your life will come down to your key relationships. So I challenge you to keep moving forward. I challenge you to become aware. I challenge you to let your partner watch this video with you so you guys can figure out where you are together. And in the meantime, if you want more information on what a healthy relationship looks like, I invite you to check this out right over here, which is the seven relationships you must have to win at life. And above all, do me a favor. Hit subscribe so I can keep sharing with you and hopefully keep you moving forward. See you in the next video.