Romantic Relationships

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Romantic Relationships

• Coming Together 7302

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• Chances are great that everyone in this class is,
  has been, or will be involved in a romantic
  relationship we all are, have been or will be
  involved in a breakup of a romantic relationship

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• Most relationships are bound by a cultural script
• What is the cultural script for your
  relationship?
• What is our personal script for a relationship?
• These are associated with relational schemata

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Opening the Door

• Intimate Relationships
• Involve friendships/professional as well as
  romantic relationships
• Intimate relationships involve basic emotions
  such as love, compassion and caring
• In intimate relationships we reveal more and
  share secrets

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How do we come together?

• Similarity
• We are attracted to people who look like us,
  dress like us, like the same things and have the
  same value system
• Complementarity
• Sometimes we are attracted to people because they
  are different from the way we are, however, by
  far, most people are attracted because of
  similarity

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• Reciprocal Liking
• We seem to be attracted to people who like us
• Physical Beauty
• We seem to be attracted to people who we think
  are attractive, at least initially
• If people like us, though, we think they are more
  attractive as time goes by

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Filtering TheoryStephen Duck

• Sociological or incidental cues
• We must have the opportunity to observe each
  other
• Other pre-interaction cues
• We actually scrutinize the object of our interest
• Interaction cues
• We converse, exchange turns, make eye contact

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Filtering Theory

• Cognitive cues
• All our observations combine so that we form
  impressions of the other person
• What type of person the other is
• What his/her value system might be
• His/her political, religious, beliefs
• And so on!

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Relational Stages - Mark Knapp

• Initiating
• Make contact
• First impressions
• You can exit the relationship at this point, but
  you can also become intrigued with the other
  person

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Experimenting

• Finding out about each other
• Explore the possibilities of a relationship
• Spend time with each other
• What does this person like? Dislike?
• Small talk (a way of auditioning for a
  relationship)

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Intensifying

• You open up to each other
• You spend large amounts of time together
• You self-disclose
• You tease each other
• You develop informal nicknames
• Yours are?

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Integrating

• Attitudes become more similar and the level of
  coupleness increases
• The couple receives invitations addressed to both
  of them
• They see themselves as a unit with a shared
  history
• What are we doing this weekend?

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Bonding

• Announce commitment to the world
• Engagement, marriage
• Making a public statement of permanent attachment

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Differentiating

• Re-establish their own identity
• Courtship emphasized we now emphasize I
• Differentiation can be positive
• Individuals need to keep a sense of self within
  the boundaries of the relationship

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Differentiating

• While Knapp refers to differentiation as one of
  the coming apart stages, it is in reality an
  inevitable stage of any relationship that has
  bonded
• Often it arises when there is a source of tension
  or stress

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Differentiating

• This stage can be successful if a healthy balance
  is maintained between individuality and
  commitment to the relationship

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Circumscribing

• Stepping apart for each other just a little bit
• Dont communicate with the same quality and
  quantity of messages as they once did
• Withdraw from each other to avoid conflict

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Stagnating

• Things become routine, a hollow shell with no
  life
• Going through the motions
• Expecting nothing from the relationship

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Avoiding

• Partners begin to feel too uncomfortable with
  each other, and create more distance by avoiding
  each other
• They spend time apart
• Psychologically avoid each other
• Clear that the relationship is about to end
• Pretending to be asleep when he/she comes home

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Terminating

• Partners seek to end the relationship
• Depending on the relationship, termination may be
  a very short stage or it may be a bitter, long
  drawn out battle
• The relationship may end over lunch, a note left
  in the bedroom or a legal document calling for
  the dissolution of the marriage

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Two ways to end

• Sudden death of the relationship
• Passing away
• Murray Davis, Intimate Relations

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Gender Differences in Expressing Care

• Women tend to create and express closeness
  through personal, self-disclosive talk
• Men rely on instrumental displays of affection,
  solving problems, physical intimacy
• Misunderstandings can occur between masculine and
  feminine individuals because of differences in
  expressing and experiencing caring

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• I love you. I told you that I loved you when I
  married you, so you can assume that I still love
  you until I tell you different. If something
  changes I will tell you.

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Tensions

• Dichotomies are tensions that affect
  relationships
• They are called relational dialectics

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• We sense tension when we are pulled in two
  directions at the same time

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• Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher, saw these
  tensions as the deep structure of all
  interpersonal experience

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Centripetal forces

• On the one hand, a centripetal or centralizing
  force, pulls us together with others

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Centrifugal

• On the other hand a centrifugal or decentralizing
  forces, pushes us apart

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• This isnt necessarily bad--it provides an
  opportunity for discussion, an occasion for
  people to work out their conflicting desires to
  connect with and differentiate from each other

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Autonomy-Connection

• For Baxter, this is the primary internal strain
  within relationships
• No relationship can exist by definition unless
  the parties sacrifice some individual autonomy
• Too much connection and individual identities are
  lost

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• Both masculine and feminine individuals desire
  autonomy and connection
• Feminine individuals are socialized for focus on
  relationships and are comfortable with greater
  levels of connection

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• Masculine individuals, socialized toward
  independence, typically want greater autonomy
• Differences can lead to problems in relationships
  when behaviors are interpreted from different
  perspectives

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• The external aspect of this is the pull between
  being isolated from the rest of the world and
  being involved in social networks--need time
  alone as a couple to solidify the relationship,
  but also need to be with others

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Response Strategies to Autonomy Connection

• Cyclic alternation
• . . .we kind of kept floundering around together.
  . .drifting toward each other and drifting apart
  again. . .kind of a cycle
• Very rare is the specifically negotiated
  alternation of autonomy connection

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Response Strategies to Autonomy Connection

• Selection
• This is a proactive approach
• We did want both autonomy and connection. We
  decided were going to give this a shot. We just
  kind of thought, if it doesnt work out , it
  doesnt work out. If it does all the better.

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Predictability/Novelty

• We need certainty, but a bit of
  novelty/spontaneity refreshes the relationship
• A dysfunctional condition known as schismogenesis
  can result from overly rigid, I.e., predictable
  interaction

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Ways to Cope

• Segmentation
• People like the spontaneity and excitement of not
  being able to predict what was going to occur in
  the interaction
• Some areas of the relationship, however,
  predictability is key

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One guy speaks

• I guess novelty and predictability in my mind
  cant be mixed because they are for different
  things. Predictability is the confidence that
  shes not going to leave tomorrow and go out with
  another guy. I wanted confidence in that. And
  for novelty, I just wanted spunk. I wanted out
  time together to be fun and exciting.

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Cyclic Alternation

• For many respondents this was driven by the
  school calendar
• Routines of classes, parties, studying, sports
  punctuated the academic term with the novelty of
  vacations and summers

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One Respondent Speaks

• Especially toward the end of the term when
  we was getting on our nerves, I would long for
  the break when we would have the time to do
  whatever we wanted to do. The vacations were
  like a shot in the arm for our relationship

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Selection Response

• Involves a concerted effort to enhance
  predictability or to enhance novelty
• Talking about explicitly about issues such as the
  state of the relationship

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Selection Continued

• Some parties achieved novelty through greater
  autonomous, individual activity
• One student says, The predictability is us the
  novelty is me. Thats why I decided to go back
  to school when our kids were old enough.

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Selection Continued

• Novelty by undertaking joint activities
• We were caught in a rut--get up, go to classes
  together, study together, sleep together, get up,
  go to classes. . .In the middle of the term we
  decided to bag the rut and do things on impulse
  that we felt like doing. We took off to the
  beach in the middle of the week. Wed go dancing
  and parting. Both of our grades have suffered
  for what we did, but we dont have any regrets.

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Openness/Closedness

• Openness we develop intimacy
• Closedness we protect ourselves
• Quality Relationships balance these needs
• Disclosure is a key element in developing deep
  and lasting relationships

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Turning Points

• Nonscripted interaction that can become a turning
  point in the relationship
• First kiss
• First argument
• Meeting the parents

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Working it Out

• We use secret tests to determine the depth of the
  relationship
• Endurance
• Separation
• Indirect hints
• Triangle tests
• Inquiry
• Presentation as a couple
• Testing the water through hints, jokes

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• All of these elements meld together as we develop
  and deepen our relationships.
• The ideas we have just discussed offer an
  understanding of what is happening in the most
  important of human endeavors
• Relationships are difficult, but they are worth
  it