Mark Knapp's Model Of Relational Development

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As we all know: Relationships are hard. They are delicate, and require ample amounts of effort from both parties. As sad as it may seem, nothing lasts forever, and sometimes we grow apart from the ones we love the most. It’s quite strange that we can go from knowing someone so well, and spending so much time together. To very rarely seeing them, and becoming such a miniscule part of their lives. Sometimes it’s a falling out, a move far away, growing apart, or just wanting different things in life. When I was senior in high school I had a romantic relationship with a girl from the town over. At first we were both quite content with our arrangement we were both going off to colleges in different states that coming Fall, and we both knew …show more content…
Knapp was another Communication scholar who was interested in relationships. Knapp developed a model of relational development, that systematically lays out each stage of a relationship from start to finish. The first step of the ‘coming apart’ process is Differentiating, defined as: the emergence of individual differences. This stage happened when she veered from our initial arrangement of keeping things causal and started saying she wanted to date and move the relationship to a more serious stage, while I was ready to keep things where they were. The next stage of the process is the Circumscription stage, where communication becomes limited with regard to both topic, and amount. Our conversations in this stage consisted mostly only talking about breaking up, or staying together. Constantly weighing the odds, and rehashing the same points made in previous arguments. The Stagnation step is where communication is infrequent, and insignificant. In our case, mostly out of stubbornness, and knowing the end was near, our conversations made me feel like there was no point to go on like this. Avoiding, shortly followed. We didn’t respond to each other’s texts or phone calls if we saw each other at a party we would avoid each other, or be forced to make awkward small talk. Finally, the Termination stage marks the end of a relationship, where parties come to terms with the circumstances. We both went on to college and saved ourselves from more heartache, or the challenges of an almost unrealistic college long term

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