Introduction – What is a Relationship Roadmap?
It has become very commonplace to see life as a series of challenging obstacles, each growing in severity and complexity. Mental and physical health, career success, meaning and fulfilment – all of these big picture goals are rarely ever ‘done’.
We like to chase our tails, solving problems when we find them, and just generally try to keep ourselves sane and healthy. But this can be challenging – how do you know where to aim without a north star to guide you?
Whilst I am by no means qualified to speak on things such as the gut microbiome or the intricacies of nutrient intake, in the scope of topics I am more authoritative on, I find it useful to look at a model of what a strong set of milestones look like. I have a lot of conversations about romantic partnerships in the course of my work – it is shocking how many people find their standards wildly misplaced as a result of their past experiences.
Thus, I present my relationship roadmap – an outline of what one should look for in themselves and their partner somewhere in their first year or so of a serious romantic relationship.
This is by no means an exhaustive answer – I am certainly not the final verdict on love or relationships.
A model like this is useful as a jumping off point, an adjunct to your own feelings, experiences and preferences. To that end, a lot of common rhetoric and universal wisdoms about relationships have been recontextualised, so that they may better be understood as healthy ideals to strive for.
If something doesn’t sound applicable or like a strong priority, just toss it and replace it with something you do like or that works better for you and your partner. It’s just a model, after all.
Two Categories
There is, broadly speaking, one distinction to make regarding a vast majority of relationship skills, values and milestones. We identify this as the following classification of the internal versus the external:
- Internal – Your own standards and attitudes when it comes to what you find important and valuable. Think of this category as similar to what you’d find on Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs – beginning with fundamentals like safety and security and ending with fulfilment and self-actualisation.
- External – These are the determinations you make as a couple which comprise more than the sum of you as individuals. Things like support, growth, relationship dynamics and roles that allow both of you to benefit from being inside this particular relationship, that simply would not be possible alone.
Additionally, the external includes any component of a relationship that develops with time, such as knowledge of each other, intimacy and the eventual progression of things like living conditions, life aspirations and other big-picture decisions. Because these components can’t be shortcut or jumped to without the appropriate foundations, it can be useful to think of them as relationship equity – you put the hours and effort in, and out comes commensurate returns.
We will go into more detail on each in the following paragraphs, but first – there is some perspective that is worth keeping in mind as you think about all this.
Some Perspective
A roadmap is, simply put, a list of milestones and the relative timeframe during which these milestones are likely to be completed or achieved.
Relationships are not consistent in this way – what can feel normal for one couple can be entirely unthinkable for another. An easy example is children – some couples are interested in popping out a few kids a year or two into being together, a timeline that might be entirely unpalatable to other couples, assuming they want kids at all.
As a result of this, there is no one-size-fits-all answer for when any relationship development makes sense. Rather, we should look at what is normal for other couples as a way to potentially spot red flags and to set ourselves up for success.
We would be skeptical if a friend said they were moving in with their partner after just a week of knowing each other, not because this is somehow illegal or dangerous, but because we know that typical relationships become strained by cohabitation, and the values required to navigate these types of stresses – trust, compromise, knowledge of your partner and what you might need to make allowances for – simply aren’t likely to be present in a week-old relationship.
Remember, the goal isn’t to hit a massive bucket list of milestones that you’ve decided need to happen in sequence, it’s to build a sustainable connection with another human that allows milestones to develop organically from shared values and desires.
Comparing yourself to what is ‘normal’ or ‘typical’ only helps if it allows you to better make decisions of your own or develop values that are conducive to your relationship goals.
Additionally, because relationships inherently involve two people, not just yourself, these milestones and concepts only matter as much as your relationship with your partner allows them to. Being healthy and having good intentions is wonderful, but you can’t prop up a relationship with a partner that is unwilling or unable to meet you in those efforts.
Relationships take a considerable amount of effort, work and introspection to be actively good at, rather than just passable.
If it is your goal (and the goal of your partner) to have a healthy, strong, trusting relationship that makes the both of you better than you would be by yourself, both people need to invest 100% of the effort they are capable of. Relationships are not 50/50, they are 100/100. You cannot expect to half-invest into something and get the best possible result. Simply coasting along will get you what you put in – an underwhelming relationship without initiative or effort.
Finally, it is my opinion that whatever definition of love that one uses – whether it be a description of particular feelings, sentiments or milestones – a mandatory component of love is the genuine intention to put another person’s interests ahead of your own.
When we remove the unhealthy forms of self-sacrifice from consideration, and confirm that we are healthy, independent people, and we would still make sacrifices and concessions for our partner without even thinking of the cost or consequences, then we have love.
It is a very, very oxymoronic concept – relationships have a lot to do with holding one’s own boundaries and being able to act in one’s own self-interests – but it is genuine altruism for one’s partner that is borderline mandatory for the best, healthiest and most successful relationships.
Think about any strong examples from media or real life of the most successful and healthy loves you have observed. Then, consider examples of failed and unsuccessful relationships. You will undoubtedly find that this common thread does or doesn’t exist in correlation with the health of the relationship – two people acting in the best interests of the other without interest in transactionality, justification or keeping score.
There is something almost intangible that occurs when you and your partner are able to know one another so holistically that you may trust them to act on your behalf in the most intimate of ways and settings – it is simply just more than you would be able to achieve through acting on your own. This should be your fairy tale aspiration – we are social creatures, after all, and to be known and loved so thoroughly and completely is a concept worth fighting for.
Internal Qualities
Your own progress towards mental health and stability will have a lot to do with your internal progression in your relationship. For people with a history of bad relationships, or those starting from below a baseline of stability, it can be imperative that we find a relationship that allows us space and support to grow into healthy, independent people.
Your roadmap in this case is largely individual – your progress will be measured by how close you are to healing your own damage, distancing yourself from bad habits, vices and patterns of behaviour, and developing a set of values that you’d like to stand for in both your life and your relationship.
It might seem a bit contradictory to start a relationship roadmap with self-development, but a large majority of the issues that affect many relationships – insecurity, poor communication, co-dependence, conflict (and poor resolution thereof) – are all significantly improved by taking stock of your own mental health and improving your relationship with yourself.
This is no reason to procrastinate or delay a relationship if the opportunity presents itself – plenty of strong relationships have consisted of two broken people coming together to heal and grow themselves – but your heart must be in the right place.
Key to much of this is self-awareness and humility. It does nothing for you or your partner to pretend you are healthier than you are, much in the same way that it serves nobody to lie to your doctor about what ails you.
You don’t have to act perfectly or be perfectly healthy, but you do have to have the self-awareness to understand how your shortcomings can impact your relationship and your partner. If you tend to be self-absorbed or unable to be generous, that’s something to be aware of and work on – everything is a scale and there is always room and time to get better at such things.
Some Values to Consider
Beyond the mandatory components of self-improvement and awareness, here are a number of values I have seen to be valuable or enjoyable inside relationships, and some rough timelines for when they might appear inside a new relationship.
Generosity – Do you want to be the type of person that gives to others, and in particular, your partner? If so, what form does that take? Are you the person that values material gifts, sentimental gifts or expressions of generosity in some other way, such as doing chores that your partner doesn’t like.
If you ascribe to love languages, this is where your preferences (and more importantly, your partners) will come into play. True generosity is considering what your partner would like to receive, not what you would enjoy giving – although there is certainly room for both.
This is an easy quality to demonstrate early into a relationship – once some trust has been established and the terms of your relationship have solidified, you can begin to exhibit generosity as early as month or two in, with the assurance that your partner is not the type to take it for granted or rest on their own laurels simply because you are a giver.
Empathy – Do you care for the idea of knowing your partner just as intimately, if not more so, than some of their closest friends and relatives?
Empathy, whilst a collaborative effort, is really an expression of the effort you are willing to put into learning the verbal and non-verbal cues that indicate things about your partner. They will in part be able to communicate some of this to you themselves, but much of your knowledge will come from making studious observations about how your partner responds to all manner of situations, both inside and outside your relationship.
Empathy is a quality, but it is also very much a skill – we see people commonly able to seemingly read the minds of their partner and intuit their mood from the smallest possible cues. This quality begins to be relevant as soon as you decide to implement it – the only way to develop your empathy is a combination of practice, effort and time.
But, as with all good qualities, there is a requirement of sensible investment – do not fall into the habit of mind reading as a substitute for communication. Intuition about your partner’s feelings deserves to be incorporated as a way of strengthening your ability to provide for your partner or to support them, not to compensate for someone closed off or unwilling to communicate.
Communication – Are you capable of expressing your feelings in a straightforward, honest and compassionate manner? This is another foundational concept that should exist right from the start of your relationship.
It is borderline mandatory to be able to honestly perform an enquiry into your own feelings, and to then put that into words your partner is able to understand. Bonus points if you have a resolution or a way forward to glean from your assessment, but communication is as much about opening up a dialogue as it is expressing yourself.
Out of everything, this is something you should start doing from day one – sharing your intentions, feelings and an honest assessment of where you’re at emotionally and mentally is only ever a good practice to maintain – as long as your conclusions from such observations are just as healthy as your communication skills.
Support – Are you interested in being able to assist your partner in bearing their own struggles and productively coming out the other side? This is a nuanced skill – one that goes a little deeper than just being in the vicinity of someone else struggling.
How we cope with suffering is highly personal, and the role that we may play in assisting others with their own suffering depends highly on how they prefer to be supported. Many people like to just have someone to vent to – a safe space for emotions to be projected and processed. Others like instead to have a productive dialogue – to have someone else find solutions with them that they may not have come to otherwise.
Every problem requires a bespoke method of support, and it can take time to determine how your partner both demonstrates that they are struggling, and to work out how to best navigate that.
Whether they want a bath run for them, a massage, a shoulder to cry on or simply to be given space, I wouldn’t expect to be able to properly support a person for a fair few months – it takes time to naturally learn and observe how people deal with various situations, and what impact you can have on them in the meantime.
At roughly the six month mark or thereabouts, I would expect someone to have a reasonable grasp on how to support their partner – how to influence their emotions in a positive and constructive manner.
I could not possibly hope to list every quality one could wish to achieve relative to themselves and their relationship. The above mentions are popular and likely useful, but as a general heuristic, consider the following: The more lofty and ethereal the quality you wish to develop, the stronger your foundation has to be – and as we are soon to discuss, building a foundation is largely a factor of time, nuanced communication and integrity towards each other.
To find yourself able to develop meaning or purpose from your relationship, as many do in the milestones of marriage, children and/or providing for and developing a family unit, for example, the foundation of your relationship has to be pretty damn strong. Conversely, simply practicing being a generous, nice person, requires significantly less investment from your partner – you can embody many of these kinds of qualities very healthily right from the start of your interactions together.
Simply consider what is good for you, what is good for your partner, and exactly how much intimacy, trust and compassion is required to feel safe in displaying those qualities, and you’ll likely be pretty close to understanding the right time for many of your internal milestones.
External Components
Now we turn to the external components of a relationship – the things that can only be developed collaboratively as a partnership outside simply one’s internal environment. To begin, it’s sensible to discuss the lifeblood of every relationship, the qualities that make up your foundation with your partner. It’s very, very challenging to develop anything additional without these elements in place – so it makes sense to start working on developing these straight away.
Foundations
There are a handful of mandatory elements that a relationship simply cannot exist without. These can be broadly noted as the following:
Trust – To borrow from some linguistic philosophy, in a perfect world where trust was guaranteed and everyone could speak their minds clearly and without reservation, the work we would ourselves have to do regarding interpretation, skepticism and cutting through ambiguity would be zero.
Unfortunately, we are not in a perfect world, and we ourselves are not perfect communicators. Having said that, we start working on the trust in a relationship as soon as our first interaction, and we never stop. Trust takes time and investment to build, and only ever increases as we continue to act with integrity and congruence in our actions relative to our words.
Someone highly trustworthy does not have to prove themselves through actions – we can trust that they will act in the same manner that they speak, and thus we can take them at their word in a way that we would not with someone that has demonstrated themselves untrustworthy.
Trust makes everything in a relationship more efficient – if we had 100% trust in the words of our partner when they spoke about their intentions and feelings, we would quickly find ourselves very confident and reassured. Alas, again, we are not perfect, and our future will rarely entirely line up with the exact manner in which we have described it.
It is striving towards perfection in this way that we should view as the goal for the entirety of our relationship, as our integrity magnifies everything else we do regarding our partner – all of our internal values and external components become that much more significant if we can simply trust our partner at face value to mean what they say and to act in a way that we know to be constructive and positive for us both.
Intimacy – Intimacy is an expression that usually describes a feeling of closeness – the sensation that we are intertwined with our partner in a deeply vulnerable and personal way.
Intimacy comes as a result of vulnerability over time, and the more significant the vulnerability and the longer that vulnerability is rewarded or positively affirmed, the deeper the level of intimacy.
The highest level of intimacy imaginable would be to be so intertwined with our partner that we exist as a single entity – completely known to the other person so much so that there would be no distinction between either of the two as separate beings. Now, personally, this sounds a touch extreme, but there are a number of people that find the idea of such a state very rewarding, and their goals for the intimacy in their relationship reflect that.
It is also important to note that intimacy flourishes in the absence of certain emotions – namely shame, perceived judgement, guilt and regret. Any retroactive inhibitions about sharing yourself or existing vulnerably is going to hamper your ability to develop intimacy, especially when those inhibitions occur because you perceive your partner to be judging you for your admissions.
There is nothing wrong with understanding things you may have done or said to be regrettable, and there are certainly past actions that would be considered dealbreakers to some (previous infidelity being an immediate example), but if the decision has been made to develop intimacy because a level of trust and certainty has been established between partners, then there is no place for judgement or the compelling of guilt, shame and regret.
Consensus – Whilst not as all-encompassing as intimacy and trust, there is a degree of consensus that must be reached between partners to avoid obstacles for the future that are otherwise unsolvable.
These mostly exist in the form of binary choices or preferences that can be a source of disagreement – it doesn’t matter how much intimacy and trust exist, if one person wants children and the other doesn’t, there is no resolution that will not leave someone disappointed.
Reaching consensus is mostly a prerequisite for the rest of the relationship elements described in this essay to develop – there is little point investing in a person that disagrees with you on fundamental things like the nature of your potential relationship or your goals for the future.
This is not to say that one cannot make concessions for their partner, or that some relationships are not worth giving up certain ambitions for, simply that a consensus must eventually be reached, and that these are genuine sacrifices that can never be reversed – the relationship cannot exist if these issues are still in conflict.
Before a significant commitment occurs – typically a month or two into the dating/courtship process when you are looking to finalise the relationship terms and consider yourselves ‘official’, make sure your life trajectories match up and align, and that your significant values compliment each other.
For example, as someone that values practicality, ambition and intelligence, it would make little sense for me to enter a relationship with a complacent, unambitious and surface-level person. If you are interested in monogamy, you simply cannot date a polyamorous person. These conflicts cannot be navigated without concession, and it takes a very certain kind of person to be comfortable making such significant concessions without any resentment or ill-will.
These concepts form the barebones of any relationship – most things will evolve organically over months or years as an expression of personal preferences and an extrapolation of trust, intimacy and consensus in your relationship. If you are comfortable in your own and your partner’s ability to develop these three non-negotiables, you are more readily able to move onto other milestones and developments.
Relationship Equity
As described earlier, relationship equity refers to the milestones and components of a relationship that take time and familiarity to build up between you and your partner.
These are often personalised to your own timelines and preferences, but we can be aware of some broad patterns that let you judge if things are moving at an appropriate or relatively normal speed. A quick summary of what is considered conventional (at least in a modern, Western dating environment) is as follows, in chronological order:
*Author’s note – much of this timeline assumes a baseline of mental health and experience that allows someone to be relatively certain about their preferences. If you are lacking in experience or compromised in a way that damages your ability to know what you like or what you might want, some of these principles will apply out of order or with less certainty than the typical experience. As with everything in relationships, your mileage WILL vary.*
- A pair meets and romantic & sexual (if applicable) interest is established. This is a non-negotiable starting point for the rest of these milestones. If you are a typically romantic and sexual person – which is to say you are not looking to develop a relationship that doesn’t contain these elements – they need to be emphatically present right away. You cannot negotiate desire, either for you as a person or for a relationship outcome. It’s either an enthusiastic yes, or it’s a no. There is no room for lukewarm feelings or neutrality at this stage.
- You go on a number of dates/spend some time together. This takes place over the first few weeks of knowing each other in a romantic context, and serves to establish some baseline questions.
Do I still like this person romantically and sexually?
Do they have any dealbreakers that would cause me to exclude myself or themselves?
Do they have qualities I like/want/need in a partner, like a sense of humour, matching leisure preferences, complimentary communication styles, et cetera?
This phase is about investigation – the things you establish as a first impression set the tone for how you’ll act inside a more serious relationship and the kind of person you are.
Friction is common – it’s impossible to be 100% compatible, but that gives the two of you a chance to see other things about each other – conflict resolution skills, communication practices, emotional regulation, etc.
- After about four to eight weeks of steady dating (think one to three instances of contact a week with additional communication sprinkled in), it’s natural to want to define the relationship more explicitly.
Typically, sexual and romantic exclusivity comes with the definition of the relationship, but it is also common etiquette to stop seeing, dating or sleeping with others as soon as your intentions become clarified towards each other – there is certainly no reason to continue seeing other people if you are confident about a prospective partner and simply just waiting for your connection to mature before becoming official.
Regardless, for a principle of your relationship, such as labels or exclusivity or other things to be brought to consensus, it must be explicitly voiced and agreed to.
There is no place for ambiguity or assumption in this stage. Too many heartbreaks have come from misunderstandings about sleeping with others leading up to a defined relationship. To deviate from this timeline is by no means bad – plenty of relationships are made official prior to a four week timeline, but this is a healthy standard to rely on – any earlier and you risk entering commitment with someone you don’t know quite well enough to be certain of compatibility, as well as a weaker foundation.
- By this point, you would want a baseline of trust, mutual intentions and to have reached a solid consensus about future goals, preferences and ambitions. It makes no sense to officialise a relationship with these things still in flux.
You can start to develop a routine – activities and habits that you as a partnership like to indulge in, mutual decisions about the logistics of your relationship, and other interesting nuances of how you two fit into each other’s lives.
Sometime after this, usually a similar length to your courtship stage, you start to naturally integrate into the lives of each other – meeting friends and family, becoming a regular plus one to events, making decisions as a unit rather than separate individuals.
This is where much of the philosophy from earlier in this essay begins to come into effect – the two of you are committed now, and you are expected to demonstrate altruism and encourage a strong foundation for the both of you to move forward. Precedents and habits you set now will likely be how you go forward for the foreseeable future.
- For the first three to six months, your autonomy for your partner develops rapidly – there is so much to learn and discover about how your partner likes to be treated, or for things that the two of you like to be discovered.
There will never be as many improvements in the foundations of your relationship as the two of you are able to put together in this early stage. You should actively feel closer and better treated by your partner week by week as you continue to take notes on each other and refine your habits, values and treatment of each other.
It is natural in this period to fall in love with each other – saying the L word is very typical at around this point of the relationship. Who says it first is likely to be a matter of who feels the most strongly and the most secure in such a significant vulnerable admission.
Ideally, your relationship should be an environment where even if the other person is uncertain or unready to say it back, there is no shame or negative sentiment in expressing it one-sidedly.
You can learn how to support each other and how to make each other better at their personal aspirations – three to six months is typically plenty of time to witness at least one significant period of adversity, both personally and as a couple.
You get to develop as individuals and a couple, focusing on your precedents of communication, conflict resolution and learning to keep your partner’s best interests as a priority.
- For roughly the first four to twelve months of a relationship, you see what is referred to as the honeymoon period. This phase is described by the feelings that accompany it – these will be the most potent and holistically positive sensations you will feel for your partner for some time until a deep maturity of the relationship.
The timeline lengthens or shortens typically as a measure of compatibility, mental health/stability and depending on how much conflict occurs between partners.
It is easier to maintain a relationship whilst the butterflies are still present and whilst there is a degree of newness, excitement and mystery between the two of you. Once these new sensations begin to subside, your upkeep of the relationship becomes a choice, rather than a function of hormones and excitement.
It is at this point that you see whether your vetting process worked – whether the values that you sought out and defined as important earlier are present in this person you’re with now that the new and shiny aspect has worn off of your relationship. Both people must commit themselves to 100% effort – nothing good awaits otherwise.
- After the first year, your future opens up. From this point, it becomes down to the specific environment that the two of you have cultivated. Your goals and ambitions will determine the timeline and direction the two of you take – whether you move in together, travel, get engaged, have children or anything else is all up for discussion somewhere in a rough timeline of one to three years.
Any earlier than that, and there is typically just not enough time put into the foundation of your relationship to be confident that you are able to navigate the stresses of these next steps as well as continue to work on your own compatibility and intimacy.
People often fall out of desire to put effort in somewhere in this period – hence why the foundation and consensus you’ve built in the preceding year is so deeply critical.
After all this, you likely don’t need my advice anymore – if you’ve gotten this far you’re probably doing pretty damn well.
Conclusion
This is one man’s view of what makes sense inside a relationship. There are plenty of people that will never consider the nuances that I’ve outlined across this essay, and it’s perfectly likely that many of them are very happy in their relationships. But in the same way that we don’t run society on our freak outliers – we shouldn’t structure our relationships by hoping and praying for effortless compatibility.
Relationships are not a science, but they certainly do obey rules, the same way everything in life does. There are things to focus on and pitfalls to avoid. I believe that the pathway I’ve outlined above is one of the most consistent ways to holistically develop a relationship that improves the lives of both people involved – focusing on the very key components of things like emotional compatibility, shared values and conflict resolution.
This is not an easy or simple process. Being good at relationships is very challenging, and the discipline and emotional competency required does not come overnight. I heavily encourage people interested in making themselves more adept in these areas to seek out therapy – the skills one learns over a long period of mental health intervention are very closely aligned with those required to develop and maintain really strong relationships.
Best of luck to you all!
