In the comfort of a warm spring lived two caterpillars, Schmet and Ling. The beauty of nature is familiar to these two caterpillars. They had been in love since their first days and enjoyed a life of splendour. They would munch and chomp their way through the leaves of the forest and both would wish nothing would ever change. But as the seasons came and went, Schmet felt an urge to grow and developed a cocoon for themselves. Ling was quite happy with their life as a catapillar and patiently waited for their love Schmet to return. When the sun's brim beamed the twilight rays through the forest floor, Schmet burst from their rest and emerged. Ling was filled with anticipation, at last they were to be reunited with their love. But nature is quite the prankster when it comes to love. Schmet floated with long crystal white wings that stood majestic in the sunlight and a slim jet black body. Schmet looked back at Ling almost repulsed at a state that reminded them of their previous self. Schmet could fly freely where they so chose and Ling was immovable from their birthplace. Schmet wanted to discover a world in which they previously didn't even know could be explored, whereas Ling could not understand why anyone would leave their comfortable leaf-eating life behind. Schmet and Ling could no longer recognise the other in both the physical and mental realms.
The cruelty of heartbreak is familiar to the caterpillar and the butterfly.
Have you ever looked back through the ghosts of partners past and think, how on earth did I ever go out with that person? How can two people that cannot find any shred of connection be in love? What we may find is that human love and caterpillar love is not so different.
Most developmental psychology centres on developing through stages of childhood, but Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan saw the line of development that is drawn at the end of adolescence as arbitrary and that we very much continue to develop through stages of adulthood. This essay is not about explaining Kegan, as that has been done already very well by himself (if you're short on time, here's an excellent summary). Some of the knowledge is a prerequisite and reading the core premise of the stages will suffice.
This essay maps how the different stages of development connect with who we look for as a romantic partner in different stages. How does our own development through life alter what we value in a partner? I believe understanding how we develop as adults and connecting that with relationship choices can explain a lot of our breakups, choices (good and bad) and help provide guidance as to who we may look for in the future. We'll walk through each stage of development and detail what one looks for in that stage, why they look for it and what causes their demise, focusing on Stages 2, 3 and 4*.
"They are so hot."
Description
I was talking to a teenage cousin of mine at a wedding over a warm walnut salad as I listened to their list of crushes and their graveyard of past relationships - from the past 3 months. In our teenage years, the cycle of infatuation, romance, despair and breakup could happen all in the space of two weeks. Relationships as a teen are so transient they barely resemble anything like an adult relationship. It's why we patronise puppy love. The culprit here is the core of what is important to those in Stage 2, social capital.
In the Imperial Mind stage, the obsession is with how others perceive you as this how you derive your sense of self. If people say you're smart, you feel smart. If people say you're ugly, you feel ugly. It's why so many teens struggle during adolescence, because words really hurt when you believe what everyone says about you. The difficult thing in the schoolyard is that there's a huge degree of groupthink. Everyone seems to acquiesce to the same opinions with very little critical thought and popularity becomes polarised. There's a very clear pecking order of popularity because teens aren't thinking independently of the group. All the same kids are popular and all the same kids are unpopular, rather than an even spread of popularity based on individual preference. The way to ensure you don't end up on the bottom of the ladder is by accruing social capital.
You want to garner as much social capital as possible because that's your investment to work your way up the hierarchy. That generally comes through wealth (showing off that you've got money, or conversely showing that you don't not have money), physical attractiveness (how attractive you are) or special skill (like being a champion sportsperson). That puts the rich, hot star athlete at the top of the pecking order, which feels pretty consistent with every Hollywood high school movie I've ever seen. Consequently teens are tirelessly aiming to move their way up the social ladder as high and as quickly as possible.
Relationship Type
Your desire for a partner is not necessarily to feel love, but to improve your social value because that is what matters most to you in the world. The mere fact of just having a partner helps boost your attractiveness points because you're signalling to everyone else, you're desired by someone. It's very much about signalling to the group that you are attractive, as you derive your entire sense of self worth from their opinions. So people in Stage 2 search for a partner that is as attractive, as wealthy and/or as skilful as possible. It has almost nothing to do with romance, connection or love but how that person is going to increase your social capital.
How it Ends
As a heartbreaking consequence, relationships are entered in to very quickly because you're not judging their personality for one second. All the important things to you - hotness, wealth and skill, are superficial, which in Latin literally means 'relating to a surface'. You know everything you need to know to want the relationship.
After extracting the social value from the relationship by showing it off to the group (i.e. telling as many of your friends as possible), you don't really have any more incentive to stay. In fact, quite the opposite. Now you've climbed up a few rungs on the social ladder and you've gone as high as you can go with this partner, you need someone new to go even further. So you breakup and get a new crush and do it all over again in the hopes that the higher you climb the better you'll feel about yourself. The converse of this is failing to enter into relationships to build social capital and thus decreasing your value in the group, which decreases your personal self-worth. It's why the battle for 'who broke up with who' is a key piece of information in the playground. The breakee loses social capital and the break-uper gains it. This creates a prisoner's dilemma for relationship participants to move first and be the break-uper because if their partner moves first, they could end up losing their gained position. This game theory application to teenage romance may explain the fast cycles of relationships that are common of Stage 2.
"They tick all of the boxes - tall, good job and a great family. They're perfect."
Description
I think we can all agree that high school society is tragic and we can at least be thankful that almost all adults will leave that phase behind. Stage 3 however is where the majority of us will land on and stop. The relationships will resemble many of your early adult relationships where you may have felt love for the first time.
In the Socialised stage, external sources heavily shape our sense of self and how we understand the world. Our mode of thinking is defined by social scripts provided to us and the most important thing is identity as defined by social norms. Things like culture, family and ideology are what we now obsess over, e.g. 'I am the type of person who is a good Christian" or "I am the type of person who is smart because I have good grades". We are still highly concerned with how people will think of us because that is how you define yourself. "They think I look stupid" becomes "I am stupid".
Relationship Type
Relationships for the Socialized mind is very social script driven. You look for people that fit closely to the social norms you identify with. You are hyper-sensitive to finding the right partner that checks boxes - do they have the same morals, do they follow the same religion, do they have the same family values? In all of this, you are looking for a relationship that will have a high approval rating with your friends and family. In Stage 3 'the right person' needs to fill a specific set of criteria before you enter a relationship and depending on how closely your list resembles the popular social norms at the time, that might be very easy or very difficult. If your identity closely resembles the most popular social norms, then you may find it easy to find 'the right person', but if your identity is counter-culture it may be difficult to find a relationship. For example, a person in Stage 3 who feels a deep moral duty towards reversing climate change will draw a hardline on anyone that is not extremely climate conscious in their day-to-day behaviour. That would restrict the pool of potential relationships, thus making it harder to find one.
How it Ends
Stereotypically most people will remain a stage 3 couple and depending on the norms underlying the relationship may be able to hold out for years, decades or forever. However, these relationships tend to break when one of the partners develops into Stage 4 (or was already at Stage 4) whilst the other remains in Stage 3. The Stage 4 partner will struggle as they can see the partner is good on paper, their friends and family approve and they can see why they should want to be in the relationship. At the same time, they know the relationship is not right and may end up staying in the relationship unhappily for a long time because they can't understand why they want to leave a partner they were once so happy with. It's as if one partner has burst from the cocoon and transformed into a butterfly, whilst the other remains a caterpillar in a completely different phase of life.
The problem the couple are likely to encounter is the Stage 3 partner focusing heavily on the opinions of others, for example, wanting to spend their money on an expensive car to show to others, whilst the Stage 4 partner no longer cares so ardently about such opinions and instead wants to pursue personal growth. The obsession with how others perceive the couple is something the Stage 4 individual now finds infuriating and it will cause consistent friction. As these instances pile up, the relationship can break under the pressure.
Given that all of your friends and family are unlikely to have the exact same boxes on their lists, the f&f that feel the boxes are ticked are likely to be confused by the decision as they cannot understand the logic of the breakup. Those whose boxes weren't quite filled will be relieved. The breakup is expected to be particularly challenging for the Stage 3 individual in the separation who cannot understand what went wrong, because from their perspective nothing has materially changed. What they struggle to see is the shift in life values and priorities in their partner that have transformed during the course of the relationship.
"They are everything I wish I was"
Description
For the first time, those in Stage 4 are free of defining themselves of the opinions of others and can start to define their identity independently. When people talk about finding themselves or going through dramatic personal growth, it is generally the transition from Stage 3 to Stage 4 as we break away from the ideas that were given to us by default and start to question who we are and what we like for ourselves.
Relationship Type
Given the hallmark of this stage is about personal growth, the types of people Self-Authoring minds seek out is people that can help them grow and develop. Whereas in Stage 3 they were attracted to those that are close to their own social identity, in Stage 4 they'll find themselves attracted to people who are different. They'll see people who are ideologically similar as people whom they don't have much to learn from and vice versa. People who are different have something new for them to discover and assist in the growth of their own identity. This openness to difference makes finding relationships for Stage 4 people much easier because the criteria is no longer tightly constrained nor are they concerned with the opinions of family and friends. The key challenge the Self-Authoring mind will face is finding others in a similar stage or higher. They may go through relationships with people in an earlier phase of development who they were initially attracted to on account of their difference, but without long-term prospects. When a pair (or more) of Stage 4 individuals come together, as long as there is a basis for continued mutual learning that allows for personal development for both, they can have a very long-lasting deep bond.
How it Ends
The key reason Stage 4 relationships breakup is because one of the partners is in an earlier stage of development which causes issues described above. Stage 4 individuals may continuously find themselves in unfulfilling relationships with others in earlier stages because they haven't yet been able to reconcile the type of people they have historically been attracted to and what they now value in a partner. For example, they may used to feel that, "It's really important my partner likes football" and still seek that out in a partner, even though now this attribute plays little to no role in the development of feelings. Stage 4 couples may also find themselves amicably separating because of no specific reason, but through an abstract sense of things running their course. This lays the foundation for long term friendships with a high degree of respect. Some couples may even transition into a long-term friendship but remain in a couple due to old age.
"if you can't love yourself, how in the hell can you love somebody else?" - Ru Paul
The goal of this piece was to provide a framework for understanding how our relationships come to be and offer comfort to those trying to make sense of their relationships past, present and future. As we ascend through the different stages of development we get further away from external approval and thus get closer to finding relationships we want, rather than relationships we are told we ought to have. This brings us to a concluding point - that growing as a person and developing your own sense of self will guide you towards more meaningful relationships.
*As the first stage, the impulsive mind, typically covers very early childhood and we don't have romantic partners at the stage, I will set that aside. Equally, only 1% of us will reach Stage 5 and it's hard to detail what these relationships may be like because they are statistically the least common individuals to find. With little evidence - anecdotal or scientific, I'll leave the story of the inter-connected mind for the future.