Relationships

George Levinger came up with a theory to explain the lifespan of a relationship called the ABC(DE) model. The ABC(DE) acronym stands for Attraction, Building, Continuation, Deterioration, and Ending. In relating this to my own relationship with my boyfriend, I would consider the attraction stage as when we would hang out together with mutual friends. It was always exciting to hang out with friends, because we knew we would get to see each other. This stage makes me think of having a 'crush' on each other. The building stage would be when we actually started dating. We chose to make a commitment to each other, in which we could build a relationship out of. In this stage I think of the difference between having a 'crush' and actually calling him my boyfriend. In the continuation stage, this is where the decision is made to keep committed to each other; the daily desire I feel to continue my relationship with him. It is this stage that I would say we're going through now, but in a more difficult way than I would think the continuation stage has to be. As we now live three hours apart, and will for at least the next two years, it really becomes a daily commitment to work to keep our relationship strong. The deterioration stage is when one of the partners no longer wants to remain in the relationship. As this obviously hasn't happened with my current relationship, I will relate it to my past experiences. In one past relationship this occurred with the build up of disagreements and differences, in which we both decided outweighed the benefits of our relationship, (to relate to the social exchange theory), in which case lead to the ending stage where we parted ways.