Relationship dissolution - Summary of Lee's findings and compare with Duck's

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Summary of Lee's findings and compare with Duck's - use other research evidence.

Early research in the area of relationship dissolution tended to focus limitedly on the statistics of breakdowns rather than the actual process. More recently, psychologists have begun to look into the specific causes and characteristics of relationships that failed. One of the most well-known models of this topic is the five-staged model of dissolution by Lee (1984). Through a survey of 112 romantic breakups, Lee proposed five distinct stages leading to relationship ending. These proceed from Dissatisfaction to Exposure of this dissatisfaction, Negotiating, attempting Resolution of the problem and finally Termination of the relationship. Lee found that Exposure of dissatisfaction and Negotiating are the most exhaustive of the five stages. Couples went straight from the first to the last stage reported having less intimacy, even when the relationship was satisfactory, than those whose journey from D to T was prolonged.

Lee's stage model of dissolution is not the only one: Duck (1999) research also led to a stage model. In the first stage, called the breakdown phase, one of the partner gets unhappy about the relationship. Second stage, labelled the intrapsychic phase- the dissatisfied