A Look Through Knapp's Relational Model

Relationships are hard work! So it's important to keep in mind what's needed to maintain a healthy relationship with everyone from loved ones to acquaintances. Knapp's Relational Model is designed to provide an outline for distinct relationship stages, indicating the closeness and nature of that interpersonal relationship. It involves 5 stages of development: initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding. There are also 5 stages of decline: differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and terminating. While one size may not fit all, these stages provide an outline that allows individuals to gain a better understanding of their own interpersonal relationships. I'm going to be taking a look at my current relationship with my boyfriend, as an example of the model. 

My boyfriend and I have known each other for over a year, starting as coworkers and slowly getting to know each other, then seeking out each other more frequently, to when we started dating in December of last year. We were in the initiating stage for a long time. I infrequently spent time with him outside of work on a few occasions, but it was always a casual hangout between a few friends. Towards the end of the year, I started to intentionally seek out his company, and we had many a good conversation (admittedly on the clock). This falls under the experimenting stage, but it didn't take long to reach the intensifying stage. In fact, we practically skipped it, since we went from a coworker-friends relationship to dating in three days. It took one day of us mutually thinking "Is this a date?", another day of acknowledging the next day would officially be a date, to deciding to pursue a relationship by the end of that day. And we've been integrating ever since! I would say that our current level of closeness is near the bonding stage, but I feel like we haven't been together long enough to classify it as such. 

The growth of our relationship was exponential! Despite that, this is the healthiest relationship I've ever been in. It has never felt anything but right, and I've never had a partner be so supportive of my interests and goals. For others, it may take significantly more time to reach these stages. It's all about doing what feels right! Holding back on your feelings can be detrimental in the long term.

For my relationship, online communication does not play a big part. In fact, my boyfriend quit using social media sites since we've been together for his personal well-being. For the brief time we were using social media sites to communicate, it was practically only sending each other things we found interesting. If we're not together, we're usually on the phone. He's a terrible texter. But this makes our communication straightforward, and more often than not face-to-face. Better communication is important for relationships, so this higher quality has likely contributed to the higher quality of our relationship. It definitely takes a level of knowledge, trust, and understanding in the interpersonal relationship to effectively prevent those negative habits from social media forming.