6 Challenging Moments in the Life Cycle of a Couple

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Allie and Jake are in their first year of living together. Honestly, it’s been rougher than they expected—arguments about where to put furniture, who cooks dinner, and how much individual time they each need.

Mark and Tom have been together for nine years. Both are feeling a bit bored; they are doing less together, and what used to be little pet peeves are all too often turning into big ones.

Henry and Deena have been married for 35 years. Henry retired from his job a year ago. While he stayed busy with home projects for the first six months, he’s now slowed down and spends much of this time watching TV. Deena’s frustrated; this is not what she imagined his retirement to be like.

Just as you know, a 2-year-old has different needs and presents different challenges than an 8-year-old, and the 8-year-old is going to be a lot different than an 18-year-old; so, too, are the different stages in the lifecycle of a couple’s relationship. Here are some of the most common stages with their challenges and dangers:

1. The first year.

Challenges: This is Allie and Jake. The challenge here is setting up routines and creating an everyday, compatible lifestyle for both. Living together differs from dating, where you could have your own space, retreat, and regroup before seeing each other again. Now, differences come to the surface; couples need to learn to create win-win compromises.

Dangers: While most couples get through this stage in the first year or two, this first year has a high divorce rate. Couples find they are not as compatible as they thought and can’t reach those win-win compromises.

2. Birth of a child.

Challenges: The couple is no longer a couple; there’s little sleep for a year or two. While there are good family times, life is hectic; there’s the stress of balancing work and parenting, worries about money, or disagreements about parenting.

Dangers: Each falls into their silos, feel the loss of intimacy, have to struggle to keep their heads above water and stay connected.

3. The 7-year itch.

Challenges: Most couples in the U.S. get divorced around eight years. Like Mark and Tom, one or both feel restless, have less in common, and squabble more. The problem is that they’ve changed since year one. The lifestyle and routines they’ve created no longer fit who they are now because the other person did a good job filling whatever they needed at the beginning of the relationship. The challenge is upgrading the relationship to fit both partner’s needs now.

Dangers: Some couples divorce because their solution is simply starting over again. Seven years into their new relationship, they may find themselves in the same situation. Others don’t divorce but are distracted by work—or child-centered and put the ties on the back burner.

4. Midlife.

Challenges: The children start leaving home, and the child-centered couple finds they only know each other as parents, not partners. And, to add fuel to the fire, they realize that time is running out, that they have only 20 good years left, and take a hard look at whether they want to keep doing what they have been doing for the past 20 in terms of work, relationship, lifestyle. Issues that were swept under the rug during the 7-year itch resurface. One partner is tired of doing the heavy lifting or compromising and is fed up. Again, the challenge is updating the relationship contract.

Dangers: Divorce is now or never—36% of those over 50 divorce. If they don’t divorce, they may live parallel lives, each doing their own thing, perhaps having affairs or separating for some time.

5. Retirement.

Challenges: Henry’s pattern is common, especially for men: They enjoy being out of the work grind for six months or even a couple of years. But after a few months and a year, the chores are done, playing golf or fishing gets boring, and Henry has lost the work identity he once had and lacks a sense of purpose. And Deena isn’t happy either—her space now feels invaded, or she expected they would do more as a couple.

Dangers: While some couples shift to grandparenting or volunteering, depression is common, possible divorce for those who didn’t divorce during the midlife crisis or falling into a stale relationship where they are not arguing but are bored and killing time.

6. Older age.

Challenges: Even if Allie and Jake, Mark and Tom, Henry and Deena make it through all these hurdles, older age is going to bring new ones, many that are largely out of their control: Physical and cognitive issues, questions about how long they can live on their own, decisions about moving or assisted living, and of course, just dealing individually and together with these difficult decisions and unexpected events.

Dangers: The disconnected couple is even more disconnected but feels stuck with each other. Or, one is the caretaker of the other, a heavy burden and high burnout. And then, there is anxiety about an unknown future and anticipatory grief.

The Takeaway

On one level, this is simply the path of life with all its challenges and opportunities, its ups and downs. On the other hand, the moral of the story is that just as you need to anticipate and be a different parent to help your child move to adulthood successfully, you need to anticipate the challenges of the upcoming stages so you can adapt. More importantly, as these challenges arise, you need not sweep problems under the rug but instead be open and honest to find ways to shape the relationship to fit who you both are in the present.

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The biggest danger is that you don’t; the biggest opportunity is creating a long, caring relationship and the life you both want and need.

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