A Close Examinition of a Relationship in the Romantic Comety, As Good as it Gets

I this essay I intend to demonstrate my understanding of the Relational Approach and its underlying theory.

IV. Brief Preview of Following Main Topics: I will discuss Hamilton concepts on the keys to building and maintaining relationships,

After reading your story, it is a reoccurring situation that has been brought to the attention of many relational theorists. Studies have shown romantic relationships are challenged and go through various stages of relational maintenance that may not always be positive. However, the conceptualization of negativity in romantic relationships is often dismissed. As a society, there has been the glorification of love and how romantic relationships should play out. Whether it is through the representations featured in literature, film, music or other media platforms, the concepts of soul mates, “love conquers all”, and the idea of “meant to be” are ideologies that have led people to believe in an idealized and perfected construct of what love in romantic relationships is. Society has convinced itself through the portrayals of love that “mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationships” are a “normal part of living” (Klosterman, 3). People spend lifetimes searching for love and once found they will do all they can to hold onto it because love is perceived as the solution to people’s problems and the key to true happiness. However, this conceptualization of love leads people to fabricate relationships based on “fake love” (Klosterman, 3). The idea that love and attraction toward a romantic partner is a never ending leads to the ideology relationships are immortal to termination. Simply, romantic love is considered to be untouchable, but this is a disillusioned perception. There is

Relationships can be complicated and often times identifying where a couple is at on a relationship continuum is challenging. The ABCDE model of romantic relationships explains the process of how a relationship develops over time and provides one with additional understanding. The A stands for attraction, B for the building of a relationship, C for the continuation, D for the deterioration, and E signifying the end (Nevid, Rathus, & Rathus, 2014). Within this paper, this writer will share a fictional case vignette involving the ABCDE relationship stages and also discuss the stages and characteristics associated within.

My eyes were filled with tears. My heart was shattered into a million pieces. I laid a bundle of flowers down at the bed of my one true love. I silently cried as I traced the letters engraved into the cool stone. Why did I let this happen?

I can’t begin to express my feelings right now. The only adjectives that come to mind are sad, mad, happy, relieved, and confused. I am all of these things rolled into one. I will explain, but just know I respect you enough to give you the space needed to take a step back. It will allow the both of us to do some soul searching. I think this is best for the both of us mentally. I don’t want things to be awkward when I see you, I would like to eventually work through this time of transition. Will it be easy? I don’t know. We need time to figure that out.

A soft, hissing and crackling emerges from the flame. The flavor of the smoke calming me as I stare out on to the cold deserted street below. My neighborhood still as the dead after a day of activity. Now only I and a few passing cars enjoyed the peace and tranquility. The cold quiet night, like many I have spent smoking at my window, reached my skin and over time caused my extremities to numb. As if to mute the pain. Mind and body alike at last. The tree moved slowly in the wind had seemed to dance to an old and forgotten waltz in companionship with the smoke from my cigar. Memory is a dark entity, one which has cursed me with recollections of my vengeful past. Memories of her. Her to which I pledged heart and soul, body and mind too some many a night ago. Her beauty without measure and her smile without fault haunt me. Her words carved into my being like words etched into the cold stone. Leaving me scarred. I inhaled more, as if to smoke the mere thought of her out of my head like a hunter would an animal he hunted. Love is something abstract, a concept of which I am of the misfortune to not be able to comprehend. Pity those that long for companionship and find themselves enslaved by it while retaining a belief in love's purity and never polluting form. However, those should be pitied more if they can't see the beauty in imperfection and that which is misunderstood. My last inhale left s my lungs, filling my view with only a slight orange glow cast by the lit cigar end

It was a warm summer day. I was on my way to visit my best friend in South Florida. I had planned on stopping in my old town of Flowery Branch, Georgia and take my ex-girlfriend Courtney and her family to dinner. I haven’t seen Courtney in almost five years but we have talked everyday. This was a girl whom I had seen myself growing old with and her the same. We dated for 2 years before I moved a couple states away. I had feared one day our love would fade but life made it clear that despite our time apart the love only grew.

I have dated many people throughout middle school and a few during high school, but Alexander Valle was my first real love. Aside from being my first love he was also my first committed boyfriend in a way. We are not together anymore and I do not know how he feels about me anymore, but I still love him. Maybe not in a romantic way anymore but I know he still has a place in my heart. I watch over him from a distance, I make sure he is not getting into anything bad, and I still protect his name as if we were still dating. Something I learned from this relationship was to love and take care of what you love because they can leave at any given moment. I do not wish we were still together, but I do wish that he finds someone that treats him the way I never could.

The sun’s light rays shined down on the earth outside, growing warmer as it rose above in the sky. Inside Layton’s chambers, where it was dark and cool, he lay working himself to sleep, gorging on the now free pouring life from the girl frail between his arms. He was starving by the time he left Ava, but he didn’t realize until now it wasn’t for blood. He didn’t understand what exactly as he tightened his grip around the flesh, the need constricting his breathing and scorching through his veins through to his heart, his eyes, where it all burned.

As I walk into the Homeward Animal Shelter for my dog walking shift, I think of the reason I began my weekly volunteering. I want to give love, in any way I can, to the animals who have been left by the ones they love. These animals that I spend an hour and a half with every Sunday need to know that someone loves them. That they have not been forgotten about and it gets better. After spending the summer with my aunt and uncle, I learned that. As I watched their newest rescue dog Snoop open up to me after 3 years and watching his mile stones. For a dog that was abandoned by his family and left on the street, bounced between the shelter and temporary homes, he has finally found permanent love in our family.

Love is a very mysterious thing. People can have a love-at-first-sight type of situation or they can slowly, over time fall for someone. There have always been some meaningful quotes about love. Such as, “everybody has a soulmate” or “love will lead you to the person you’re meant to be with.” I always thought love wasn’t real, and that people could never commit their lives to another person. Love was scary to me because i thought it would make my life worse, when in fact, it made my life complete. The first time we met, the first date, the first kiss, and the day he proposed are all signs of what life is.

According to evolutionary psychologist Richard Dawkin, he proposes that the psychology behind love lyes all in the evolutionary need to be in a group setting and to, frankly, propitiate the human species (Dawkins et al., 2016). For Dawkins, the need to engage in love type behavior is similar to Erikson in the sense that we are avoiding isolation, but Richard’s hypothesis revolves more around the benefit of being in a group. The idea is the more isolated one is (in neanderthal ages) more likely that person is to perish. Additionally, Dawkins suggests that love is an evolutionary hardwiring that helps us propitiate the human species.

I looked outside, I admired the stars and how carefree they were, just floating in the sky, shining moving along carelessly as if nothing could go wrong. I love how they can be so at peace with each other. I was envious of it. I always come out onto the porch in the night when I have spare time. I like to sit and just admire in awe at how beautiful and peaceful the earth is, and yet it created such reckless bests to accompany it. I took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, taking everything in. Loving every little thing. Every moment. I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined flying, high above the trees, the clouds and out into space, floating without care among the stars. I had only been outside for around ten to fifteen minutes before I jumped startled by the Big Bang that came from the house followed by silence, and then bellowing laughter. I chuckled lowly when I realized it was just my brother tripping over a shoe, as he got up noticeably embarrassed and dusted off his shirt trying to find any dignity that he had left. I watched him as he ran up the stairs face tomato red, as if he was going to cry. I waited a moment before walking up the stairs to find him in the corner of his room. I walked over to him and sat beside him on the floor. Not having said anything, we both sat there.

Later in 2004, LaSalle (171-188) defined the development of romantic relationships as having four main stages. First comes orientation, which infers starting the relationship by giving away some basic information about one’s personality. As in this stage the two parties do not share much common information the communication might be abrupt and might not be very