Knapp's Relationship Model

 


Mark Knapp developed a model that describes the stages related to the forming and ending of relationships.

My story is one of an interpersonal relationship slowly coming apart over time. I have a dear friend I met about 15 years ago and we've drifted apart and together many times over the years. More recently, since I have young kids and she doesn't, we start to find that we have little to talk about. Our relationship wobbles somewhere between circumscribing and stagnating. My family moved across the world a year ago and we don't get to spend time in person together, which I feel is valuable to a relationship that is already challenged by our life stage differences. This feels a bit like the avoidance stage but it's certainly not intentional. Our circumscribing and stagnating stage mostly consists of exchanging reels or memes on instagram and commenting here and there about kids, family, the dog, and work. These are pretty mundane and safe conversational topics. I know that without this form of online communication we likely would have terminated many years ago.

It was strange at first to consider this model applied to platonic relationships, friendship. But once I applied it I could understand quite quickly how others in my life fit into each step of the model. Some of that is difficult to come to terms with but I'm a practical person and I like to find solutions so I consider this exercise a positive experience in assessing my personal relationships.

a link to a video about relationship maintenance strategies

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