Why We Stay Together and Why Things Fall Apart

Why We Stay Together

Commitment
Often a relationship is maintained because of promises made. (Imagine that.) Couples involved in relationships with a high degree of satisfaction find a stronger bond of commitment than those couples who do not. Nothing new here, I know, but why don’t more couples understand this? Commitment can be divided into three types:

• Want to – own personal desire
• Ought to – moral obligation due to promises made (covenants)
• Have to – there’s no acceptable alternative

How can commitment be maintained? Identify the types of love that might be involved with this reason to stay together.

Convenience
Both partners may be involved in a business relationship, making this the foundation for their marital relationships. In this case it may be more convenient to stay together than to break up and go through the difficulties in finding another person to assume both roles. Neither person is fooling the other in this, and in such cases there is seldom any difficulty. The problem, though, is that they are living parallel lives. Sometimes this relationship can be out of balance where one partner is in it for love and the other is in it for convenience.

Children
Children are sometimes (unfortunately) brought into a relationship to save it. In some cases they do. Parents stay together because they feel it’s in the best interest of the children. In other cases, children provide a socially acceptable excuse to mask the real reason – convenience, financial advantage, fear of being alone, and so on.

Fear
Fear of being in the outside word, of being alone, facing other singles or going back to the singles game, or even making it on one paycheck is a reason why people stay together. As a result they preserve their relationship an alternative to these other options. Sometimes the fear may be of social criticism that they couldn’t keep the relationship together. Sometimes fear results from the consequences of violating a religious or familial tenet.


Emotional Attachment
Often a relationship is maintained because you love each other and want to preserve your relationship. Alternative couplings are not as enjoyable or attractive as the one you’re currently engaged in. Needs might be based on love, but others might not be so positive, such as the need to dominate, or that the relationship provides some type of ego gratification.

Inertia
Sometimes relationships stay together out of the simple principle of inertia, the tendency for a body at rest to remain at rest and a body in motion to remain in motion. Many people simply go along with the program, and it hardly occurs to them to consider changing their status – it’s too much trouble.

Inertia is greatly aided by the media. It easy for individual to remain stagnant in their relationships and search out vicarious form of satisfaction in film, literature, and any more, the internet. In these instances, the actor or characters do all the things the viewer would do if he or she were not so resistant to change.


Why Things Fall Apart

Work-related Problems
Research shows that husbands whose wives worked were less satisfied with their own jobs and lives than were men whose wives did not work. This personal dissatisfaction will naturally lead to negative effects. If the role of “breadwinner” is threatened as it has been defined in the relationship, the relationship is in trouble.

Excessive Intimacy Claims
In most relationships the members make intimacy claims on each other. Such claims may include expectations that the partner will sympathize or empathize, attend to self-disclosures with total absorption, or share the other’s preferences with equal intensity. These intimacy claims often restrict personal freedom and may take the form of possessiveness. To be always responsive, always sympathetic, always loving, always attentive is more than many can manage. In some relationships, the intimacy claims and demands are so great that the partner’s identity may be in danger of being destroyed.

Financial Difficulties
Money is so important in relationships because of its close connection with power. The breadwinner wields the most power within the relationship. This person has the final say on large purchases or even a measly allowance. This power can spread from money matters to relational matters very quickly. Men and women look at money differently due to inherent relational or content dimensions. Anyone who’s ever built a house together can attest to this.

Relationship Changes
Changes in behavior may create difficulties. If you once devoted lots of time to your partner and to the relationship and now are totally absorbed with business or school, your relationship is going to face significant repercussions. The person who develops an addiction to chemicals, alcohol, the internet or even Pokemon will likewise present the relationship with a serious problem.

Sex-Related Problems
Few relationships are free of sexual differences and problems. Most people seem to resign themselves to living with the problem rather than doing something about it. Although sexual frequency is not related to relationship breakdown, sexual satisfaction is. It’s the quality, not the quantity, of a sexual relationship that is crucial. When the quality is poor, outside affairs may be sought and these contribute significantly to breaking up.

Third-Party Relationships
You establish and maintain relationships to maximize your pleasure and minimize your pain. When this ceases to be the case, the relationship stands little chance of survival. These needs are so great that when they are not met within the relationship, their fulfillment is sought elsewhere. When a new relationship serves these needs better, the old relationship may deteriorate. When your need for affection or attention, once supplied by your significant other, is now supplied by someone else (or sometimes something else,) the primary relationship is in trouble.

Undefined Expectations
Expectations over who’s in charge are a frequent cause of relational difficulties. Often, conflicts over who does the dishes or who walks the dog mask resentment and hostility concerning some more serious unresolved expectation. At times the expectations each person has of the other may be unrealistic, and when reality enters the relationship, difficulties arise. For example, in a new relationship, the partners might think they will want to spend all their time together. When it’s discovered that neither one does, each resents the “lessening” of feeling in the other.

Traditional sex-role stereotypes also play into this type of deterioration. Deviations from the expected gender roles within a relationship may reduce the level of satisfaction of both partners involved.

Unrealistic Beliefs about Relationships
The way in which you think about relationships can influence the course of a relationship. Review the handout, “What do think about Relationships” and develop a scene with dialogue that best displays this type of deterioration.

Relational Stages

Contact
Perceptual contact - During this stage you decide, in four minutes or less, if you want to pursue a relationship with the individual. Physical appearance, all senses involved, though you may not be aware.

Interactional contact - The opening line, innocuous openers (Are you using that salt?) v. direct v. cute

Involvement
Testing
"Where do you work? What's your major? What religion are you? Is your daddy rich and your mama good lookin’?”

Intensifying
Self-Disclosure
Directness
Endurance - Subject the partner to negative behavior
Indirect Suggestion (What do you think our kids will look like?)
Public Presentation - “boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancée/lover/biker chick”
Separation - Does absence make the heart grow fonder?
Third Party
Triangle - Juvenile

Intimacy
Interpersonal Commitment - private commitment
Social Bonding - public commitment

The “Falling in Love” stage.

Types of Love
Eros - Erotic lover focuses on beauty and attractiveness. Unattainable standards, is often dissatisfied.

Ludus - Retains partner only as long as the partner is interesting or amusing.

Storge - Shares the same qualities as good friendship. Develops over a period of time, lacks passion and intensity(?).

Pragma - Looking for a useful relationship that makes life easier.

Mania - Needs constant affection and attention, fears dissolution of relationship, leads to dysfunctional and/or psychotic behavior such as stalking, oppressive behavior, abuse, or taking abuse.

Agape - Compassionate, egoless, self-giving, Christ-like love.

Deterioration
Intrapersonal/Interpersonal Dissatisfaction
• Original reasons for establishing the relationship have diminished.
• Psychological, social, or physical changes
• Sex or no sex
• Unhappiness with work
• Financial stresses

Communication in Relationship Deterioration
• Withdrawal, silence.
• Increased deception
• Increased negative evaluations
• Decreased verbal support, compliments

Repair
Recognize that there is a problem, get out of denial, define the problem with your partner. Be empathic, keep an open mind, and stay away from terms of finality or extreme such as always and never.

Use appropriate conflict resolution.

Pose possible solutions.

Affirm each other.

Integrate the solutions, in other words, keep your promises, your commitments.

Take risks.


Dissolution

Interpersonal/Intrapersonal Separation

Conflict Management

Myths
Conflict means the relationship has gone bad.
Conflict hurts the relationship.
Conflict reveals us as we do not want to be seen.

Content v. Relation Dimensions of Conflict
On what level is the conflict talking place? In most mature relationships conflict exists primarily on the content level symptomatic of deeper relationship dysfunctions.

Conflict Management

Avoidance v. Fighting Actively

Force v. Talk
Cell Phone Communication in Conflict

Gunnysacking v. Present Focus

Attack v. Acceptance
personal rejection
beltlining

Verbal Aggressiveness v. Argumentativeness
• be objective
• avoid attacking
• reaffirm opponent’s competence
• avoid interrupting
• stress equality and similarities
• express interest in opposing view
• avoid emotion
• never humiliate