Nine Stages of the Love

The Nine Stages of the Love Cycle

Isn’t love wonderful? Isn’t love terrible?

Isn’t it terrible how cyclical the Quest for wonderful love seems to be for you?

Yeah, I know…I can already hear you mumbling, “A Methodology for love? Give me a break…what kind of anal-retentive idiot thinks some systematic theory and approach about finding real love and a real relationship works, for God’s sake???”

Before I show you how to apply the Methodology to your own love life, let me see if I can quickly point to some compelling evidence that might, just maybe, sway your thinking and open your mind to an approach that might, just maybe, be better than all the ones you have been using all these years in your own Quest for Love.

Firstly, how many times, so far, have you been in love – or thought you were?

Think back to ALL your past relationships – not just your last, or current, one. Remember all of their names since the first one? OK, how about just the ones you’ve had sex with?

Based on my several million web site visitors, my own 10,000 Heroine applications and my tens of thousands of interviews with others about relationships, along with some other, VERY non-scientific personal experiences, I’ve concluded that there are NINE Stages in all of our quests for love – nine stages that we all go through – time after time.

You. Me. Them. All of us.

Some Stages really are magnificently wonderful. Some really are downright terrible.

Let’s find out which Stage YOU are in right this minute.

What was the average length of time you enjoyed the fantastic, incredible Stage Of Love that made the Quest worthwhile after all? What was the average amount of time you were left on the stage, falling out of love? How much time was spent on looking for love once again?

One of the regrettable parts of the whole process is how often we all seem to cycle between all the different Stages of Love – along with the consequential waste of time, energy and emotion.

How much of all three have you wasted, so far, in your own seemingly never-ending quest?

I know this may sound like an efficiency expert’s approach to love, but my goal with The Good-Man Methodology is to help you minimize future time, energy and emotional waste and accelerate your success at finding your own flavor of Happily Ever After while maximizing your own Happily Here & Now.

You got to admit that is a formidable goal…but, even if the Methodology was only 30% successful, might it be worth learning and incorporating into your own approach to the Quest? What if it was even more successful for you?

As you will see, I don’t consider all parts of all these cycles we go through to be a waste of time, energy and emotion. Just the opposite, as a matter of fact. Each one IS hopefully a learning and growing experience. However, you don’t want to end up having the same bad experiences more often than absolutely required.

Here’s a hint for you: the parts of the cycle that are really worthwhile are those that help you obtain and savor and appreciate all the Happily Here & Now you can grab on your way to Happily Ever After.

After all, one of the most important things I have learned, and one of the major points I hope you grow to believe and appreciate from reading this book, is that your Happily Ever After is made up of a series of day-in-day-out Happily Here & Now.

I believe that The Good-Man Methodology will help maximize both for you.

Right now, there are over 100 million single adults in the United States. Most of them, along with a LOT of married folks, are still looking for their own version of Happily Ever After – with varying degrees of luck. Virtually all of them are going through one of the following Nine Stages Of Love Quest right now. My guess is that you are too.

Think you are different?

•  Can you see which Stage you are in right this minute? Which Stage were you in six months ago?

•  How many times have you cycled through each of these Stages? Can you remember all their names?

•  How many times will you cycle through all these Nine Stages during the next five years?

Note: some readers may find the details of some of the following Stages too painful to read, depending on their most recent history. The purpose of the following is to remind you of each part of the Cycle we all go through time after time and to, hopefully, convince you there really IS a need for a Methodology.

Feel free to skip what you find too painful to read – either based on your own personal experience – or your opinion of my prose.

Ready?

Breathe deeply.

Excerpt from Efficient Love – The Good-Man Methodology. Copyright © 2003-2012 Robert Goodman.
All rights reserved. Used by expressed, written permission of author