Reflection On Mark Knapp's Relational Model

I chose to reflect on my relationship with my ex-boyfriend and current best friend, Nate Weeks. I chose this relationship because our relationship has cycled through all the stages in Knapp’s Relational Model. Mark Knapp’s Relational Model describes five stages in relationship formation: initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding. It also describes five stages in relationship dissolution: differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and terminating. My relationship with Nate also models the different types of interpersonal attraction: task attraction, social attraction, and physical attraction.
To start, Nate and I met sophomore year on a day we were scheduled to work together lifeguarding. In the first stage

Nate and I dated for roughly four months before our relationship began to come apart. In the first stage of the relationship dissolution part of Knapp’s Relational Model, people begin to differentiate. In this stage, people may begin to become annoyed with each other, and create conflict. In my relationship, this stage began after Nate began talking to another girl intimately over text message. This created a significant conflict between the two of us which we worked through, but nevertheless left me feeling distant. In the “circumscribing” stage communication decreases in quality and quantity. The days and week following our conflict we spent much less time together, and the relationship began to stagnate, the third stage in Knapp’s Relational Model. In this stage relationships don’t grow and people just “go through the motions”. For Nate and I, we still walked with each other to class and kissed each other goodbye, but we stopped talking altogether. The fourth stage, “avoiding” is when people create distance and make excuses not to see each other. Nate stopped trying to support me in my after-school activities such as attending my swim meets, and I made excuses for why I couldn’t go to his house after school. It seemed mutual that our relationship was coming to an end. Finally, the last stage in Knapp’s Relational Model is terminating where the relationship is officially

Often, I glaze over, or daydream while people disclose information to me. For example, in class while my health teacher professes about unhealthy behaviors, my mind tends to wander to topics that interest me more. Another area of listening I engage in often is pseudo listening. This is where a person uses feedback behaviors to give the false impression that they are listening. For example, my roommate likes to lay all her problems and every little event that has occurred throughout the day on me. I tend to live by the moto, “smile and nod” where I pseudo listen and try to appear as if I am engaging in the conversation. I would like to improve these areas of my life because actively listening will allow me to connect with others in breadth and depth, and potentially form longer lasting relationships where there is mutual respect and