Taking a Look at Romantic Relationships

The human idea of love is quite possibly the most misunderstood in today’s society. Love can be between a man and woman, mother/father and their kids, or even really good friends. However, these relationships of love go through many interactions and stages to start and progress. Many psychological events must occur and be worked through in order to be successful. All relationships must endure the five perspectives of human behavior. These perspectives are biological, learning, social and cultural, cognitive, and psychodynamic influences.

The book is structured around the Relationship Attachment Model, which was created by the author 20 years ago. It “portrays the different forces that create bonds in relationship” and it consists of “five fundamental dynamics, which are the depth to which you know, trust, rely on, have a commitment to and have sexual involvement with” (22). Each of these dynamics provides a unique contribution to the development of a relationship. According to the author, the key of building relationships (by using RAM) is to “keep a balance among the five relationship dynamics”. Whenever the dynamics shift, a person might experiences the feelings of being “unsafe in a relationship, hurt, mistrust and confusion” (24). This model was clearly based on some of the core relational communication theories such as Uncertainty Reduction (URT) and Social Penetration (SPT), as well as it follows Knapp’s staircase model in advising at how one should progress on the staircase and implications of going too fast.

Unsatisfied with their partners results in divorce rates and infidelity. These have increased over the years, blemishing the institution of marriage. People may believe that compromises and self sacrifice in a marriage make it a failed institute but the same reasons make a marriage successful. A married man has a constant in his life- his partner. The security and companionship in the relationship helps him achieve happiness. The same sharing is now a pleasure, a way to prevent loneliness (Argyle; 1999). Marriage is known to cause greater satisfaction, greater self esteem and less distress. Evidence shows that married men and women are happier.

There are many different kinds of relationships, and all of them require a commitment and an understanding between people. There are ties of friendship, relationships with family, those that we have with co-workers, and there are relationships in which two people are romantically involved. Regardless of the type of relationship, the desires are the same, to have perfect harmony between all connected. However, since we are human, a perfect relationship usually does not exist. When relationships are broken, or venture upon rocky seas, there comes a time when a person must decide if the union is important enough to work on mending the relationship.

Kipnis introduces the term mutuality which is the ability to notice and meet the need of the partner. She believes that this can be achieved through daily communication between couples. However, mutuality may provoke mayhem as it demands people not only listen to others, but also willingly accept whatever aspects of their partners. As mutuality is mastered, couples will then have to move to advanced intimacy. Kipnis compares advance intimacy as opening up of each person on the examining table of relationship. It gives people a feeling of vulnerability as if all their interiors are taken away to be criticized by their partners. At the same time, such action of expressing one’s needs indicates that the partners have failed to achieve

Of course, physical affection plays a large role in connection to a partner, but the underlying glue for a strong relationship lies in the mindset behind it. Maria Fatima and M. Asir Ajmal, who both research clinical psychology, undertook a qualitative study and used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a research method. There is not any pre-existing theories or hypothesis surmised upon in using the IPA research method. However, there can be a great deal of bias because all of the information gathered can be subjective towards the interviewee. In Maria and Asir’s experiment, they interviewed a woman that was happily married and asked her direct questions about the influencers of a long marriage. The interview questions asked were formulated from what one needs as an individual, to how it can work in a relationship as well. “The interviewee stated, "Happiness and satisfaction go side by side. Satisfaction level determines your level of happiness and a satisfied life is a happy life".” (Maria 39). There were 16 categories to a life-long marriage that presented themselves within this research, and satisfaction was one of the most important. Each category could potentially be subjective to the one woman interviewed, and if the experiment is replicated, it could be possible for another person to have the same categories. One cannot aspire to share, forgive, or love,

Relationships are the things that make human beings, which brings sense to life if these relationships make you feel happy or takes the desire to live away if these relationships are like a stone at your neck. From relationships, the whole fate of the person is determined. If he or she has pleasant relationships at work, in his or her family, in private life, such a person is considered to be happy. If relationships are not the things that bring some joy into life, the person stops being satisfied and pleased with life. Today I will be analyzing my sister’s relationship. When she first met her boyfriend, she was very shy and was scared of him because he was popular and she was just a quiet

To what extent can a person's romantic relationship affect his or her friendships? In the book Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, there is both romantic relationships and friendships. In a perfect world the amount of time spent in a relationship and in a friendship would be exactly the same. However, it is not possible to exactly measure the time spent with each group. When evaluating friendships and romantic relationships, friendships should be prioritized over romantic relationships.

This literature review will first define romantic relationships and explore what exactly happens in the development of these relationships. From the research found, individual’s age or sex did not necessarily affect the differences in communication. Some research claimed that communication itself defined a romantic relationship; while other researchers said that a couple having the conversation of, “what are we?” was enough to define the relationship. Sometimes it was mutuality in a relationship that helped define it. Mutuality in relationships was often increased with positivity and compliments between partners (Doohan and Manusov 2004).

Romantic love is a very mysterious and profound emotion, in which many people can not sustain. There are three main components of a lasting romance: passion, commitment and lust. “A strong dose of all three components [of love] typifies, for many of us, an ideal relationship” (Triangular Theory of Love). If an appropriate balance is maintained a relationship can reach nirvana, referred to as consummate love. Intimacy creates a deep emotional bond due to a hormone in the human brain known as oxytocin, after this bond is created passion deepens and commitment is soon to follow. Romantic love would not exist without the presence of intimacy; the hormone arousal that goes along with sex leads to the

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.

Relationships between people have extremely various meanings. Two lovers can become best friends, for they share good communication, they share their laughs and even tears. Sometimes, sharing love and affection toward each other makes a special bond between two separate individuals. However, in some occasions it is the other way around with tears, anger, disappointment, betrayal, broken hearts, and etc. A relationship can be suffered from the misunderstanding, lack of communication, and a feeling of distance between two people. Lovers could be so passionate today, but who knows if they would break up tomorrow. Thus, the unpredictability in love is always one of those things that scare us, but it is also what draws us into love. It can

Love is one of the most enigmatic emotions known to human beings with an infinite amount of meanings based on personal interpretation. For some, love is quantifiable and loses meaning; after feeling love a certain amount of times, it eventually becomes unattainable. For others, love is limitless and is felt constantly throughout a lifetime. Moreover, there are various types of love: platonic love, familial love, universal love, self-love, and romantic love. Although numerous kinds of love exist, most value romantic love and express it in a relationship with a compatible partner. Romantic love differs from the other types of love because it is a source of deep emotional and spiritual fulfillment, and the ability to have a healthy, loving relationship

In this world, to live a life, everybody needs someone to always be there by their side. It is not possible to stay alone and be happy at the same time. We can lower our pain by sharing it, or increase our happiness if we can share our happiness with others. People stand with us, share our feelings, bond with us and become a part of our life. We can’t imagine the life without the people who matter the most to us. Some we meet with the needs, some meet with destiny and some stays from the very first day of our life. These connections and commitment of being there make relationships. There is different steps, ways and views of every relation. Trust, love and respect are three different ways to show the importance of our relationship.

When discussing love, people generally think about the love between a husband and wife, or the love between a couple in a romantic partnership, and that is one type of love that I will be discussing. In addition to romantic love, there are other types of love also. There is the love we have for our children, our families, and also the love that we have for our friends. All of these types of love share some of the same attributes, however, they have differences also. In reading and researching different types of love, I have found that romantic love and friendship seem to be the most similar in nature, although they have differences, they share a lot of the same attributes. I found that friendship and romantic love tend to have more similarities than differences. In this paper I will examine romantic love and friendship. I will discuss the definitions of the two, and what elements each of these have. I will discuss the different theories of love, and I will compare and contrast the similarities and differences between romantic love and friendship.