Escalating a relationship

We’ve talked a lot in the past about how to peacefully and maturely de-escalate a relationship, but this episode focuses on the opposite. Deciding to escalate a relationship, or become more entangled, can be scary for some people and there are different emotional, social, and logistical aspects of it that deserve to be considered.

Escalating a relationship could look like:

• Making more intentional long-term plans together. 

• Spending more regular time together.

• Saying “I love you.” 

• Adding sex to an otherwise nonsexual relationship. 

• Adding a check-in or a RADAR. 

• Making your relationship more visible to others.

• Attaching more of your identity to it.

Consequences of escalation

Escalating a relationship when it is perhaps not the right time to can result in things such as:

• Putting pressure on a relationship.

• Leading to its ending earlier.

• Creating new conflicts in a relationship that was previously relaxed.

• Making it harder to de-escalate later.

• Trading an awesome FWB relationship.

These are all things to keep in mind when determining if now is the right time to escalate a relationship.

Common expectation conflicts

There are advantages and challenges that come with escalating a relationship. Some of the most common conflicts that arise around discussing expectations are:

1. Sex: How often? What kind? With others? 

2. Money: How does our spending line up? Does it matter? How expensive are dates? Do we entwine finances?

3. Outward Appearance: Do we present differently to others? More couply? Plus ones? PDA? Outness?

4. Life Decisions: Children? Adopting Pets? Buying furniture? Lease? Moving to a new city? How involved are we in each other’s life choices? 

5. What do we provide each other?

Tools

Some ways to mitigate any conflict around escalating a relationship:

• RADAR is good, especially if you are entwining a lot more.

• Discuss each of the expectations above (and keep and eye out for any secret ones that slip in later!).

• Pull up the Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord (optionally, check out episode 339 to learn more about it) and go through each bubble and discuss:

  1. Talk about what you both expect/hope for in each one. If you are PERFECTLY aligned, keep going. If you differ at all (or just want to discuss more) write down a quick note, like “Public Displays of affection: Social media and Work” or “Family events/obligations.”

• Go through each item on your list and ask each other these questions: 

  1. What is your expectation about this and why is that important? 

  2. Have you had experiences of this being met or not being met in the past? Work on understanding the purpose behind them first before trying to agree on them.

  3. NOTE: You may find certain areas that you just need more time before you can figure them out. That’s ok, too! This is a work in progress.

• Validate and understand each other and evaluate:

  1. Do we feel more aligned now? 

  2. Is this an area where we need our expectations to match? Or is it possible to have different expectations of each other? 

  3. Hopefully this does not happen, but it’s possible that one or both of you have hit a deal-breaker for this type of relationship. That can be discouraging, but you’ve already had another type of relationship so maybe you’ve just discovered that your previous relationship situation was the right one.

• Make some agreements on what to try and set a time to revisit and see how they are going. This is an ongoing process that all relationships will benefit from but you may want to do it a little more frequently at first.