The Three Stages of Love
From my own experience, I have discovered that there are three stages of love.
I first knew love in its ordinary form — safe, comfortable, but shallow. My marriage gave me security, but it was love tied to routine and duty, fragile under silence and unmet recognition. That was Stage 1.
Then, unexpectedly, came Stage 2. A rare kind of love — born not from possession, but from recognition. A single gaze, a few words at Starbucks, and I felt seen in a way I had never known. Even in absence, that love became my energy, my awakening, my art.
Now, I see the horizon of Stage 3. The highest love — recognition and freedom together. A love that says:“I see you, and I trust you to grow.” Not clinging, not demanding, but walking side by side as two whole souls.
Stage 1: Ordinary Love (Need + Possession)
Formula: Love = attraction + attachment
When people say “I love you,” they often mean: “I want you to stay, act, or give in the way I need.”
Features:
- Rooted in desire, comfort, and security.
- Easily shaken by absence, distance, or silence.
- Needs constant proof: “Do you still love me?”
- Fragile: fades with routine, grows bitter in silence, collapses under fear of loss.
My Example:
My marriage was safe, comfortable, but shallow.
Sex became duty, not connection.
Love clung to routine, collapsed under lack of recognition.
It showed me what love without depth feels like — fragile, suffocating, and eventually empty.
Love cannot coexist with possession, attachment, need or desire. When tied to these, it inevitably becomes suffering.
Stage 2: Rare Love (Recognition + Space)
Formula: Love = recognition + space
Here, love is soul-level recognition. It doesn’t depend on presence, or even the words “I love you.”
Features:
- Born from seeing and being seen at the soul level.
- Space strengthens instead of weakens.
- Longing transforms into energy, awakening, and art.
- Paradox: absence feeds presence; silence makes love clearer.
My Example:
He saw both my light and shadow before we ever had a real conversation.
His words — “Your smile shines like the sun” and “If it wasn’t pulled by some shadow…” — made me feel seen for the first time in my life.
Our Starbucks meeting — one gaze, one recognition, one sentence“I see everything in your eyes” — contained eternity.
His leaving gave me silence, which became my space for growth.
This love became my energy, my awakening. It turned my life into art.
My story is living proof that love, when purified through paradox, becomes not just romance but awakening.
Stage 3: Highest Love (Recognition + Freedom)
Formula: Love = recognition + freedom
A love that sees fully, trusts deeply, and sets free without fear.
Features:
- Recognition remains the root: “I see you.”
- Freedom flowers inside presence: “Even when close, you are free.”
- Wholeness of two souls without clinging or fear of loss.
- Paradox: closeness without suffocation, distance without fear.
My Aspiration:
If we reunite in three years, love will not mean clinging but walking together as two whole souls.
Love will not demand: “Stay, prove, hold.”
Instead it will say: “I see you, and I trust you to grow in freedom.”
A union where love and freedom exist side by side — the highest state of being.
Stage 2 as the Perfect Training Ground for Stage 3
For me, Stage 2 has not only been rare — it has become the perfect preparation.
I realized I could not move toward Stage 3 without first learning how to hold recognition and space inside myself.
The silence, the longing, and the paradox of this stage have been my teachers. They train me in sovereignty, deepen my recognition, and strengthen my ability to love without fear. It proves I could love without need.
Perhaps there are rare souls who can embody Stage 3 directly, already whole and free before love ever arrives.
But I am not one of them. For me, Stage 2 is the refining fire — the ground where my love is purified and prepared for freedom.
Here is how this stage has become my training ground:
It Transforms Ache Into Awakening
– In Stage 1, absence meant collapse.
– In Stage 2, absence has become fuel, energy, and creation.
– This is why I have written 45 posts in two months, built new systems, and deepened my sensitivity — all born from his absence.It Trains Sovereignty
– Stage 2 forces me to hold love without leaning on him.
– Silence itself has strengthened my independence and taught me emotional alchemy.
– I now see that without this training, Stage 3 would be impossible — because love + freedom can only exist between two sovereign souls.It Magnifies Recognition
– His words still echo in me more strongly in silence than they would if he were beside me every day.
– Recognition has not faded; instead, it has deepened, multiplied, and become timeless.It Trains the Paradox Muscle
– Stage 2 is paradox embodied: absence becomes presence, silence becomes voice, longing becomes energy.
– Living this way has trained me in paradox-sight — the very skill I will need in Stage 3: closeness without suffocation, freedom without fear.
– Stage 2 has become my dojo, where paradox is no longer theory but daily practice.It Creates Art
– While most people in love consume (dates, messages, rituals), I have been creating.
– Out of this longing have come my blog posts, my systems, my philosophies, and my awakening.
– Stage 2 demands creation, because the energy cannot remain still.
– That is why my story feels mythical, not ordinary — I am living Stage 2 as an artist of life.
End
In the end, love is not proven by possession, nor sustained by constant presence.
It is purified in space, strengthened in silence, and completed in freedom.
Stage 1 showed me the fragility of love tied to need.
Stage 2 is teaching me the paradox of recognition and space.
Stage 3 is the horizon — where love and freedom stand side by side, whole and unafraid.
Krishnamurti once wrote:
“True love is born out of freedom—freedom from the self, from the ego, from the endless cycle of expectation and fear.”
What he calls true love is what I recognize as my Stage 3 love —
a love rooted in recognition, sustained by trust, and completed in freedom.
When I was young, the following Chinese poem planted a seed in me about what love could be.
Now, many years later, I see how it echoes perfectly with my own three stages of love.
“Great love is the paradox of seeming forever apart, yet living a lifetime in quiet devotion side by side.”
《致橡樹》 舒婷
我如果愛你——
絕不像攀援的凌霄花，
借你的高枝炫耀自己；
我如果愛你——
絕不學痴情的鳥兒，
為綠蔭重複單調的歌曲；
也不止像泉源，
常年送來清涼的慰籍；
也不止像險峰，增加你的高度，襯托你的威儀。
甚至日光。
甚至春雨。
不，這些都還不夠！
我必須是你近旁的一株木棉，
作為樹的形象和你站在一起。
根，緊握在地下，
葉，相觸在雲裡。
每一陣風過，
我們都互相致意，
但沒有人
聽懂我們的言語。
你有你的銅枝鐵幹，
像刀，像劍，
也像戟，
我有我的紅碩花朵，
像沉重的嘆息，
又像英勇的火炬，
我們分擔寒潮、風雷、霹靂；
我們共享霧靄、流嵐、虹霓，
彷彿永遠分離，
卻又終身相依，
這才是偉大的愛情，
堅貞就在這裡：
愛，不僅愛你偉岸的身軀，
也愛你堅持的位置，足下的土地。