A dating expert has revealed the 'five stages of a relationship' after claiming most couples only reach the third stage.
Kevin Pasco, who goes by the handle @kevinxpasco online, took to TikTok to share with his 146.8k followers the rundown.
Kevin, whose bio says he's a men's relationship coach, began: "There's a thing called the five stages of relationship, it's like five levels of like depth that you can go in a relationship with someone.
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"And what's so crazy about it is that something like 88 percent, or almost 90 percent of people never even make it to stage three, let alone stage five."
He then went on to share what each of the stages are and 'what you need to be on the lookout for when you want to go from one stage to going deeper to the next'.
Honeymoon stage
Kevin explained: "So the first one is the honeymoon phase.
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"We've all felt this before, it's when you have rose-coloured glasses on."
He added: "You first meet someone, you'll feel it for maybe six months to a year, potentially a little bit longer and it's just those overwhelming feelings of 'oh my God, this person's amazing, I love them so much' and the reason why you feel that is because you're bonding on the similarities that you share together."
Power struggle stage
"The second phase after the honeymoon phase is called the power struggle phase," Kevin carried on. "And this is when you start noticing the differences in your partner and you start seeing, 'Oh, all those similarities don't seem as great anymore, because I see all the differences'.
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"This is what's really interesting about this phase, there are two different ways that people can go; they either stay in it forever, which is the old couple that still bickers and fights, they're literally still stuck in the power struggle phase.
"Or people end up breaking up, they say 'nope, this is too much. I can't love you for your differences. I can't do that this with you anymore'.
"And what they end up doing is they go back to the honeymoon phase, but with someone else, and they repeat this very toxic cycle of honeymoon, power struggle, breakup, honeymoon, power struggle breakup."
Adaptation and acceptance stage
He then explained the 'way to get out of this' and 'actually move on to stage three' which is known as 'adaptation and acceptance'.
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In this stage, you must be able to 'accept the differences in your partner understand that they may never change'.
Kevin continued: "And if you can still love them for that, then you're doing f**king amazing.
"But it's also key to be able to adapt, you are creating a new energy of using the likes and the differences between you two to create something brand new."
He also revealed that 'most people don't even make it to this phase', adding: "It is very difficult to do.
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"Yet all human beings are on this path, eventually you're going to get it and, like I said before, the key is to not hit the power struggle phase and just give up to go back to honeymoon because that feels better for your nervous system.
"It's instead to use some consciousness and be able to push through into this new third level."
Commitment stage
"Now the fourth phase is commitment," Kevin carried on. "It's when you actually fully accept the person for who they are and you commit together to building a really powerful, beautiful life that you two can share for a long, long time."
Sounds nice, that.
Oneness stage
And, last but by no means least, is the fifth and final stage.
"It is when you are so in tune with each other that you're literally - you're one," Kevin rounded off.
He concluded: "You know each other like the back of your hand, you actually know your partner better than they know themselves."
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Life, TikTok
Rhiannon Ingle