Stage 1 of the Relationship: All I Can See Are Your Good Points

February 27, 2024,  Counselling, Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

The first stage of a relationship is a time of exclusive attachment. It creates such a strong connection that it seems that the couple cannot survive separately. The honey bee has the same attachment to a flower where both the bee and the flower benefit. For the bee it’s pollen to make honey and for the flower it’s a way of being pollinated by another as the bee hops from flower to flower.

Now you’re not a honey bee but the relationship between two people when they first meet can be similar in that they become so close that all their attention is focused on each other, often to the exclusion of everyone, and everything else.

The first time in your life when you should have experienced this was in your relationship with your mother when you were first born. For mothers and their babies, as well as for new couples, this is normal and necessary.

“Love at first sight” is the stuff that so many great films, songs, and books are based on. It is when two individuals suddenly occupy themselves with each other in such a way that all they can think of, twenty four hours a day, is the other person. They just cannot stand to be apart, even for a moment.

It goes something like this: you arrive at a party. Your eyes lock on someone across the room, and you know somehow, deep in your heart, that this is the person with whom you will spend the rest of your life.

Your work suffers. Your social life suffers. You are not interested in anything unless it involves her or him. You would do anything to spend time with that person, even go to the football or ballet. Events that never interested you in the past and that you might even have found tiresome suddenly take on a completely new meaning because now someone you love is involved.

We sometimes call this stage the “honeymoon period,” when life is at its sweetest, and when you experience such a strong attraction to another person that you feel you would simply stop existing if you were separated.

The pleasure of giving to and receiving from that special someone exceeds anything you ever imagined. Something as simple as a flower picked from the field, or from a neighbor’s garden, becomes the most endearing of gestures—at least for now.

You not only experience your attraction emotionally, but every cell of your being quivers at the sight of your love, and you want to fuse with each other as if you were one person.

This stage is not just about giving and receiving, but about being as well. When you first meet the “love of your life,” you are on your best behavior. You present your best side as you seek, more than anything, your love’s absolute acceptance of you.

The boundaries that defined who you were as individuals just a short time ago becomes unclear. “The two of us” becomes your primary reason to exist as you seek to spend as many waking moments of every day with that person as you can.

During this stage, any noticeable differences between you are often not noticed, ignored, or simply denied. And similarities are naturally accentuated to help validate your growing belief that this person just has to be “Mr.” or “Mrs. Right” or even your soul mate.

This is why we say “love is blind.” Love makes you blind to anything but what you want to see. And this is as it should be. It is actually a trick of nature to ensure the survival of our species. If you were confronted with all your lover’s blemishes up front, you might not actually want to pursue the relationship at all. But if you see only the great stuff, then by the time you see the other, not-so-great stuff, it’s already too late.

You’re Hooked!

The saddest thing about this stage, however, is that it simply cannot last. As you desperately try to hold onto it, you realize that your individuality is now being overridden by being part of a couple. You may start to feel stifled even by the other person as you lose sight of where you each begin and end.

You simply cannot stay this way.

The attraction that brought you together in the first place starts to fade despite your efforts to prolong it. And as you desperately try to hold onto what was, you bring the inevitable ever closer.

If this didn’t happen, no one would ever work again, and the cooking and cleaning would never get done. The world would simply come to a standstill.

Challenges for Couples in Stage 1

One way or another, you must move on—hopefully, forward into the next stage of relationship. However, for the way to be cleared for you to move on, you must first complete a number of challenges.

The first (if it can be called a challenge) is for couples to simply enjoy their time together. This stage is when you create a strong friendship between you, and hence a strong bond, that will stand you in good stead in the future. If you don’t, the relationship is probably not going to last very long.

Another challenge for this stage is to discover and strengthen shared values and areas of compatibility. It is the time to really get to know each other as you truly are.

And how successful you are at completing these challenges may actually depend on how well you and your mother (I refer here principally to a biological mother), managed time apart when you were young. If you separated easily, then the challenges will not seem as great as they might be if you had found it difficult.

To put this another way: the first instinct for most newborns is to reattach themselves to their mothers for safety and security as well as for all the other lower-rung needs I mentioned earlier. If a mother understands the importance of attachment, she allows it to continue until she and the child both decide that the time is right to put some space between them.

This generally starts when children learn to move around on their own. If a child is able to explore the world freely with Mom close by ensuring safety, he or she grows in confidence to explore further until they are able to manage time alone or with other caregivers, without the need for Mom to be so close. This is the result of what is understood in Psychology as a secure attachment, one which is perfectly healthy.

If, however, your mother was not comfortable with your need for attachment, or if she pushed you away before you were ready, your response may have been extreme anxiety in her absence. You may have tried to keep her close by becoming upset (or even throwing a temper tantrum) if ever she was out of your sight, even for a moment.

The early attachment sequence is quite similar to what happens when adults progress to Stage 2 in a relationship.

For now, however, enjoy this time together. The next stage, the stage of disenchantment, will come soon enough.

To the wonder of you,

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