More about the... Dead Zone Stage

If you are unable to work through your shared issues that caused the power struggles, your relationship can still survive, but at a cost. The relationship will gradually sink towards what has been called the Dead Zone. This is a time when you may become bored with your partner and life in general. At the heart of the dead zone is withdrawal and emotional dissociation.

In the Dead Zone a relationship loses its sense of connection and the feelings of love. Love may remain as an idea rather than a feeling - you will know that you love somebody but the emotion has lost the delicious sensations that you experienced when you first fell in love. You and your partner subdue your emotions in this stage because you are afraid to deal with the fears and negative feelings that might come up if you were to become truly intimate.

...pitfalls

- You might take on arduous roles, duties and responsibilities in this stage because we feel that is what is expected of you.

- The denial of true emotions can eventually lead to stress, burn-out and ill-health. The latter can be seen as a dramatic way to escape the dead zone and find more authenticity in life.

- You or your partner might have an affair or separate/divorce in this stage in order to bring more excitement and love into your lives. Or you might mid-life crisis.

- You or your partner might become very competitive and materialistic to compensate for the feelings of deadness. This competition is often seen in work, and transferred to children at school and sport.

...the way through

The key to getting out of the dead zone is to commit to your partner and move towards them emotionally, so that you can once again begin to feel and share your full spectrum of emotions. It is not feeling emotions that destroys relationships and robs you of life's joys. Although sharing fears and insecurities in a heartfelt way with your partner, especially after many years together, can be frightening, it will always leads to more honesty and love in your relationship.

Being in the dead zone, personally or in your relationship is a sign that you are avoiding the next step in your life. What might this be? It is time to take some emotional risks and to do what you have been putting off for quite a while now. As you find the courage to do this important thing, your heart will open again and the dead zone will fall away. You will once again begin to feel those powerful feelings of love that bought you together with your partner in the first place.

My book Lovecoach describes in detail how to break through the Dead Zone Stage and find true love, intimacy and joy with your partner.

These stages are based on the model for relationships originally developed by Susan Campbell in her book The Couple's Journey (1980) and adapted by Dr. C. Spezzano - go to model description