Expressing Affection: a Vocabulary of Loving Messages

Self-disclosure is an important part of any close relationship. Without sharing our own fears and weaknesses, we can

These continuing opposing qualities in our relationship ultimately created an imbalance in our relationship that could never be made balanced again. Before I knew it, my husband had become the person of lesser interest in our relationship. The principle of lesser interest occurs when one partner in a relationship is more emotionally involved than the other and that the less involved partner can exploit the more involved partner in various ways. “A significant gap in emotional involvement could lead to a situation of one partner’s taking the other for granted, or an even more extreme situation of exploitation. When relationships of this type result in marriage, the results were expected to be unsatisfactory (Waller, 1938). This suggests that it might be better if romantic relationships with unequal emotional involvement dissolve before getting to the point of marriage” (see also Sprecher, Schmeeckle, Felmlee, 2006, p.1256). In my marriage, I always felt as if I had to walk on a tight rope and I’, sure that you can see why. At its worst I was made to feel as if I were a child that couldn’t do anything right. As I sit here and write this paper, I see so clearly just how it evolved to this. The assertiveness that I was so attracted to morphed into an arrogance that made him an unbearable, controlling egomaniac. It is so easy to see now how becoming the person of lesser interest would be the next logical step.

Towards the beginning of the article the communication of affection in relationships was discussed in great length. As reading through this, I was reminded of some concepts that I have studied previously regarding the five love languages. There is a book that describes these as being: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. This book is really interesting because it outlines that each person has a primary and secondary love language and it argues that those in relationships should be aware of the love language of the other person and use the love language on their partner and vice versa. When the article was talking about how that communication of affection is the main providing foundation for all intimate relationships and how this can determine satisfaction and security in

To disclose or not to disclose?, That question usually comes when you start a new relationship with a friend, a boy friend, a new job or any new relationship, but disclosing can also happen with people we have known for a long time or not. Scholars define self-disclosure as sharing information with others that they would not normally know or discover, but I feel like each person has his or her own way of defining what self closure is. To me, self disclosure is letting myself go and trusting the person I am disclosing to, it involves risk and vulnerability on my part sharing important information to someone. Therefore I go back to the question I posed before, do I trust this person or not, do I love this person to feel my vulnerability, do

American author and Professor at the University of Southern California, Leo F. Buscaglia; also known as the Dr. Love says, “A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself — to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.” Relationships are shared with the people we cherish or care about. Ways to express what and how we feel toward people we care about is achieved through interpersonal communication, verbal or nonverbal. If communication is ineffective in a relationship potential strain results. A way to notice tension in a relationship is by the examination of relational dialects. Relational dialectics are tensions that are embedded in interpersonal communication interactions. Three major primary tensions that will be discussed in this paper are dialectic of expression, dialect of integration, and the dialectic of certainty.

book “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman, the author writes about the importance of communicating with your spouse in a language that fulfills their love tank. Throughout the book he uses real life scenarios in couples to help them examine what their primary love language is through various acts and experiments. Love and marriage are the primary topics of the book, and the author illustrates how to understand their construction, and how they function in society. Love is needed in all areas to fulfill the needs of a human and to succeed in marriage. Society plays a big role on ideal marriages and how it should be based on the defined responsibilities and rights of husbands and wives.

In conclusion, self-disclosure is important in relationship. “These mutual disclosures have increased your vulnerability to being hurt or taken advantage of by the other person, and fact that you have invested so much of yourself may make it difficult to disrupt or to end the relationship” (Sole, 2011). As mentioned above, genders have many roles that are different but share some similarities. Rather being married or in a relationship, quality communication is the key to successful relationship. I hope one day that I will find a partner to share this information with one day.

Another myth about romantic is that a true soul mate ought to recognize what the partner is thinking or feeling without being told. Trust and disclosure go together in a romantic relationship progression. Specifically, the dialectical theory proposes that in the beginning of relationships, disclosure is vital as it is an indication of trust and affection in the relationship. The revelation of intimate details shows that a couple is going into a deeper relationship level (Click et al. 131). The myth that mind reading is required in love causes the assumption that partners ought not explain their rational assumptions or expectations since the other partner can read what they are thinking.

Your best and closest friends where not always your friends, at some point they were stragers. We take gradual steps toward building friends that become deeper and more intimate along the way. When we take these steps we are applying the Social Penetration Theory (SPT). SPT was developed by Irwin Alman and Dalmas Taylor and states that “the process of develping deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability”(p. 97). SPT expects self-disclosure to gain an equal response from the other person making it recipocal. The reciporciay can be strategicly thought out and planned to gain a certain result and can also be spontaneous. Spontaneous self-disclosure happens when one discloses personal

Love, it is one beautiful way people use to identify one’s fondness. But how does one exactly express their love? Individuals tend to portray their affection towards their loved ones excessively unaware of the aggression being shown during the process. However, people all have different perspectives about love and about the way it should be expressed in. One believe love should be expressed romantically, some physically, and some verbally.

After weeks of dating, the relationship moved into the intensifying stage, we were learning more about each other, discussing personal topics that you don’t share with just anyone (hidden stage of Johari window). During the intensifying stage of our relationship, varying degrees of self-disclosure are shared to see what will be reciprocated and testing the impressions someone is making. The hidden region covers the aspects that you know about yourself but others do not, you purposely try to hide certain qualities about yourself. John had a very large hidden region that he covered very well because I didn’t realize how much it would affect out relationship.

Let’s take one example of how an expression of love may have a very different meaning to the giver vs. the receiver. Many of us can remember how wonderful it was to have the complete attention of a parent when we were children, even

We tend to give love in the languages we have, this ends up being the languages that fill up our love tank. This is why a husband who does yard work, dishes, or car maintenance, is angry when his wife says that he no longer loves her or he feels better when she simply says thank you to him. Also, if a man’s wife wants flowers or small gestures that qualify as gift giving she may get upset and not understand why her husband will not do sweet, small gestures. Words of affirmation is also big, like if the husband gets angry when he does his chores like yard work or car maintenance and his wife never says good or appreciating things to him like he did an amazing job or something along the lines of saying thank you. But, if her language is primarily Acts of Service, she'll feel loved and honored since her husband does many things for her, and feels full in her love tank. These concepts of spending time with each other, physical touch, simple words of affirmation, special gifts, and nice acts of service would be self-explanatory, however Dr. Chapman's explanations and relatable stories really helped me understand what these concepts mean. When I see a friend, a parent, or one of my sisters acting a certain way, I know just try to figure out what their love language might be so I can understand what may be wrong with. This can help to build bonds between all these certain people. Gary Chapman captures the essence of how two people communicate is a concern. This book shows that the unconscious might have known what kind of love language I use and also helped me understand others love language. It’s the perfect book for couples that have difficulties in their relationship or marriage. The five love language will make you understand what it takes to do to make a relationship of any kind work. It is an

Individuals have different levels of disclosure and when combined with another individual’s disclosure level can have positive or negative outcomes. The decision to communicate can also cause uncertainty within relationships. Prior research was conducted to try and measure what exactly causes the uncertainty and negative results to show up in a relationship. Intimacy, security, problematic events, and irritations are all different elements that can be stronger or weaker in the relationship based on the disclosure (Theiss and Solomon 2006).

Self-disclosure is the voluntary sharing of personal history, preferences, attitudes, feelings, values, secrets, etc. with another person (Griffin, p. 97). As stated in the introduction Altman and Taylor look at relationships as an “onions.” The different layers are representative of different feelings of a person. When