Stage One: Symbiosis: Why the Honeymoon Phase Is Supposed to End
Saturday, May 31, 2025
“I thought we were perfect together... until you started having your own opinions.”
Every love story begins in a fog of fusion.
Your playlists sync. Your favorite foods align.
You both hate cilantro with evangelical certainty.
You finish each other’s sentences—and sometimes their therapy intake forms. You’re not just in love—you’re merged.
Welcome to Symbiosis: the first stage in the Bader-Pearson model of couple development. It’s romantic, disorienting, addictive—and absolutely essential. But it’s also a stage that isn’t supposed to last.
Let’s explore why.
What Is Symbiosis?
According to Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson (1988), symbiosis is the developmental stage where couples experience intense connection and emotional fusion. Think of it as the relational equivalent of an infant bonding with a parent: it’s about safety, sameness, and shared everything.
In this stage:
You idealize your partner
Differences are minimized or ignored
Conflict feels threatening
Intimacy is effortless—until it isn’t
And it’s lovely. Until it becomes... developmentally inappropriate.
Symbiosis is necessary. But if you stay there, you end up in a marriage where difference becomes betrayal.
Why Symbiosis Feels So Good (And So Dangerous)
This stage is often mislabeled as “true love.” Our culture—especially films and Instagram carousel therapy—glorifies early fusion as the goal rather than the launchpad.
Think about it:
Rom-coms end at the beginning of the relationship
Wedding vows often imply eternal sameness (“from this day forward…”)
Pop psychology says “Find your person,” not “Become a person next to your person”
But real intimacy doesn’t live in fusion. It begins when you step out of it.
“Mature intimacy requires two separate selves. If you never separate, you never connect as adults.” – Schnarch, Passionate Marriage (1997)
Clinical Signs a Couple Is Stuck in Symbiosis
Therapists: if your couple is “happy” but anxious, sweet but stagnant, or avoids conflict like it’s asbestos, you may be looking at stalled symbiosis.
Common signs:
One partner feels pressure to always agree
Disagreements escalate quickly or are avoided entirely
Identity confusion: “I don’t know what I want anymore”
Excessive fear of being alone, even for a few hours
Erotic flattening: too close to be curious
In Bowenian terms, this is low differentiation of self—fusion disguised as closeness.
Why Symbiosis Isn’t Sustainable
Symbiosis works until life demands more of you:
Parenting reveals different styles
Career choices create logistical or emotional distance
Aging parents bring up old wounds
Differing beliefs emerge around money, politics, or meaning
Suddenly, that soothing sameness starts to suffocate. Or implode.
Here’s the clinical pivot:
Most couples don’t interpret this shift as growth. They read it as loss.
They say:
“We’re not as close as we used to be.”
“We never fight, but we also don’t talk.”
“I don’t know who I am in this marriage anymore.”
But what’s actually happening is a normal emergence of differentiation. And if they panic and retreat back into fusion—or flee the relationship—they miss the next stage: real intimacy.
Moving Beyond Symbiosis: What Therapists Can Do
If you're a clinician, here's how to help couples move forward:
Normalize the shift from sameness to difference.
“You’re not falling apart—you’re waking up.”Frame conflict as developmental.
Teach that differentiation begins when sameness cracks.Challenge idealization gently.
“What parts of your partner do you not understand yet?”Model differentiation in the room.
Hold different truths at once without forcing resolution.Use Bader’s language of stages.
Let them know: “You’re moving into a more mature stage—not a worse one.”
For Couples: How to Know You’re Ready to Grow
Ask yourselves:
When was the last time we disagreed productively?
Can we spend time apart without anxiety or resentment?
Do I feel like a whole person in this relationship?
Do we value each other’s differences—or just tolerate them?
If the answers make you uncomfortable, congratulations. That’s differentiation knocking.
Final Thought: The Honeymoon Ends So the Real Relationship Can Begin
Symbiosis is beautiful. It’s where attachment begins. But it’s not the destination.
The real work of love—the kind that survives parenting, pandemics, perimenopause, and refinancing—begins when you stop being two halves of a whole and start being two wholes who choose each other again and again.
“Symbiosis gives us the illusion of intimacy. Differentiation gives us the capacity for it.” – Ellyn Bader
So let the honeymoon end. Let the differences emerge. That’s not your relationship breaking. That’s your relationship growing up.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES
Bader, E., & Pearson, P. (1988). In quest of the mythical mate: A developmental approach to diagnosis and treatment in couples therapy. Brunner/Mazel.
Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Jason Aronson.
Schnarch, D. (1997). Passionate marriage: Sex, love, and intimacy in emotionally committed relationships. W. W. Norton & Company.
Skowron, E. A., & Friedlander, M. L. (1998). The differentiation of self inventory: Development and initial validation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45(3), 235–246. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.45.3.235