Theories of the Breakdown of Relationships
Duck theorised that the amount of reasons why relationships break down are infinite, but that there are three categories these reasons can be put into:
-Pre-existing doom, failure of the relationship, for instance incompatibility are pre-destined
-Mechanical failure, the most common cause, two people who suit each other and have good intentions and good natures find they can’t live together
-Sudden death, for example discovery of cheating can immediately end the relationship
Duck identified 4 stages of the break down of relationships, each phase triggered by a threshold- > The intrapsychic phase, which means that within the relationship thoughts begin to develop that see the partner in a negative light, these are not discussed with the partner.
>The dyadic phase, following on from the previous stage, the person confronts their partner about the negative aspects they’ve been thinking about
>The social phase, which involves thinking about face saving accounts of what has happened now the relationship is over
>Grave dressing phase which involves communicating socially acceptable reasons why the relationship ended which is important with moving on to different relationships. The thresholds over these stages range from, ‘I can’t stand this anymore,’ (intrapsychic) to ‘It’s not inevitable,’ (grave-dressing.)
Lee’s model of relationship breakdown is similar to Duck’s yet it sees breakups as happening over a period of time rather than a single event, he split it up into five stages.
>Dissatisfaction, one or both partners realise there are problems in the relationship
>Exposure, the problems in the previous stage are brought out into the open
>Negotiation, there is discussion about the problems brought up in the previous stage
>Resolution attempts, both partners try to fix problems brought up in previous stage
>Termination, if resolution is unsuccessful then the relationship is ended
Lee based these 5 stages on a study of 100 premarital breakups; he
-Pre-existing doom, failure of the relationship, for instance incompatibility are pre-destined
-Mechanical failure, the most common cause, two people who suit each other and have good intentions and good natures find they can’t live together
-Sudden death, for example discovery of cheating can immediately end the relationship
Duck identified 4 stages of the break down of relationships, each phase triggered by a threshold- > The intrapsychic phase, which means that within the relationship thoughts begin to develop that see the partner in a negative light, these are not discussed with the partner.
>The dyadic phase, following on from the previous stage, the person confronts their partner about the negative aspects they’ve been thinking about
>The social phase, which involves thinking about face saving accounts of what has happened now the relationship is over
>Grave dressing phase which involves communicating socially acceptable reasons why the relationship ended which is important with moving on to different relationships. The thresholds over these stages range from, ‘I can’t stand this anymore,’ (intrapsychic) to ‘It’s not inevitable,’ (grave-dressing.)
Lee’s model of relationship breakdown is similar to Duck’s yet it sees breakups as happening over a period of time rather than a single event, he split it up into five stages.
>Dissatisfaction, one or both partners realise there are problems in the relationship
>Exposure, the problems in the previous stage are brought out into the open
>Negotiation, there is discussion about the problems brought up in the previous stage
>Resolution attempts, both partners try to fix problems brought up in previous stage
>Termination, if resolution is unsuccessful then the relationship is ended
Lee based these 5 stages on a study of 100 premarital breakups; he