should i stay or divorce?

[cat03]

Love is not a feeling, it is a desicion. You are confusing the fireworks of a new-found love to a more sound, strong based love that happens after the newness and the lust fades.

Falling in love and being in love are different things, many cheaters have felt they've found the one, they felt something they hadn't felt in a while--they forget they had the same chemistry when they were first dating their spouses.

Love has 4 seasons:

Infatuation or Attraction
Power struggle
Cooperation
Synergy
The first phase is often called the honeymoon. The second is where people make the most growth, but it is also the phase where most break-ups happen.

Breaking up in the second phases is like going to the gym, putting your workout clothes on, and then leaving before you lift any weights. You never get a chance to grow or get any benefits from the experience until you actually start to lift the weights.

Most break-ups happen because people do not understand the 4 phases of relationships. They enjoy the first phase, but as soon as they start to “work” in the second phase they bail because they do not understand that completing the 2nd phase leads to the 3rd and 4th phases, which is where real relationship enjoyment occurs.

When someone bails during the 2nd phase then they never got the growth and they must repeat that struggle in their future relationship until they finally make the growth so that the issue doesn’t come up any more.

Another common occurrence with people who don’t understand the phases is they get to the 2nd phase of power struggle, and instead of breaking-up or growing-up, they just give-up. They remain in the relationship, but never progress through the power struggle phase. This results in all the people who are in miserable relationships.

Another common reason people break up in the second phase is because the phases are cyclic. They get to synergy (the 4th and best phase) and then as they continue to grow a new opportunity presents itself and they are attracted to that phase with their partener. Once they grow through that phase then they redefine their relationship at this new level which results in a new power struggle. If people don’t understand that this is just a phase between attraction and cooperation then they might be frustrated that they are in power struggle again, which could lead them to give up.