Advice on Saving Relationships or Letting Them GoPosted on 07/05/2010
Every relationship, whether romantic, business, platonic, or adversarial, comes with a host of variables and benefits, highlights and pitfalls.
Sometimes, a relationship's usefulness ends and it's time to end it. People make these decisions all of the time (check out the divorce rate). Sometimes people hold on, nostalgic for the good times even though they're currently experiencing only emotional turmoil and even physical abuse in some cases.
This webisection gives hints about when it may be time to pull the trigger on a bad relationship.
Achieving Equality in RelationshipsPosted on 07/05/2010
Are couples who contribute equally in relationships happier? Is fairness of exchanges between couples the only, or even a valid, measure of happiness?
Equity theory, an offshoot borrowing heavily from various psychosocial exchange theories and first proposed by J. Stacey Adams in 1963, states that participants in a social exchange will measure the fairness of the exchange by comparing the quality and quantity of their inputs and yields with the inputs and yields of the other participant in the exchange. A social exchange is any interpersonal communication or “a situation in which the actions of one person provide the rewards or punishments for the actions of another person and vice versa.” (Homans, p. xviii)
Ideally, there should be parity in the value of the inputs and yields of each participant, in which positive outcomes reward, while negative outcomes constitute costs. According to social psychologist Elaine Walster, a relationship typified by fair exchanges is one in which the total expected outcomes are equal to the expected rewards obtained from the relationship minus the actual or perceived personal costs incurred (Walster, p. 3).
According to the principles of equity theory, participants subjectively judge the fairness of exchanges, whereas social exchange theories emphasize the importance of examining the motivational and material aspects of exchanges. People in relationships are allowed to define fairness in a number of ways, including against alternative outcomes in similar situations that might happen.
For instance, if I’m highly communicative, I expect to receive communication in a dialogue of a depth and substance comparable to my own, or at least receive evidence of deep listening skills that aren’t a parody (open and alert eyeballs painted on my friend’s eyelids), on which I place a value comparable to the value of my expression. Read more
Dealing with Your Friends’ FriendsPosted on 07/05/2010
Be respectful of people in your life until you find that your respect isn’t deserved. When respect isn’t immediate for people with whom you must work or associate, look for other qualities to respect and admire. If you can’t find those qualities, end the relationship with those people rather than stagnate and grow bitter. If a person is a friend of your friend, tell your friend of your lack of respect and assert your desire not to associate with their friend or be in their company. Be careful if your friend asks for descriptions or asks you to defend yourself. Phrase any descriptions as, “Look for your friend’s opinions on Subject A,” or “bring up Topic B and note the position your friend takes.”
Be careful because your friend may harbor the same philosophical positions that the disliked friend has but may be less brash and verbal about those positions, and you may find less to like in your friend.
Recognizing Relationship Drama
What do people mean when they say that drama is one of the reasons they're jumping ship on a relationship, or baggage?
The answer to this question matters only if you want to remain in the relationship with the person ending it. Understanding another's position may be helpful in saving a relationship or letting you come to the realization that pulling the plug is the right thing to do.
Some people need drama, thrive on it, consider it to be the evidence that others care about them enough to put up with their shit. Interpersonal relationship drama eases their boredom. These type of people artificially manufacture social drama and static through intentional misinterpretation of communications; they judgmentally emphasize irrelevant issues of personal values; they make irrational and moralistic conclusions; and they make simplistic and untrue assumptions about you and your positions on complicated issues. They test your loyalty, the strength of your conviction or commitment, or the depth of your desire to maintain the relationships (“if you don’t do this, we’re through” kind of ultimatums, or the “if you love me” challenges). They lie and are intentionally unclear just to anger you because it’s fun for them to see others flustered, or in an inferior position due to confusion about the meaning in a social interaction. They play vanity games to gain praise by dumping on themselves and their looks or intelligence, hoping their partners will counter with positive praise.
They operate on an “all or nothing” principle, which is a continual ultimatum that can succeed only in emotional destruction. They refuse to acknowledge gray areas, multiple levels of appreciation for people that don’t entail “owning” another’s strongest love emotions. They demand that their partners be defined by them or as a couples unit. They want too much from you, including your time, or nothing at all, and tell you that anything less makes them feel worthless or terrible or unsatisfied with what you have to offer. They are obvious in their oversensitivity.
Some people mire themselves in a negative dynamic state of flux, terminally uncertain about their emotions, their goals, their aspirations in life. They intentionally place themselves in novel situations just to test how they’ll feel, how they’ll respond in emotional situations, simply because they don’t know their own feelings and have a shallow self-knowledge. They operate from an equivocating emotional foundation, needing constant validation. These are high-maintenance, high-drama people.
These people bother the rest of us who enjoy conflict-free, mature, intelligent conversation with interesting people in which we might learn something new.
Negotiate an understanding like adults if the drama becomes too much to handle, though people sometimes revert to childishness when they feel hurt through others' criticism, and you have to be very careful not to be the parent. There’s a difference between being an adult and being a parent.
People who can’t communicate, hit, so watch for clenched fists, popping veins in the temple, and taut muscles in the arms. Being honest about differing viewpoints shouldn’t degrade into knock-down, drag out fights.
When being hit or hitting, you lose your ability to think clearly. Fear and anger and confusion and physical pain sets in, something like the fight or flight syndrome. Leave the room and the building if hitting is an unexpected response to news of your dissatisfaction in a relationship.
When to Change Yourself for the Sake of Keeping Your Partner and the Peace between You
Posted on 07/05/2010
Change yourself only if you believe the change will make you better, not because it will make someone else’s life happier or easier. That’s bonus, but not a primary consideration. Changing yourself can mean changing principles and standards that you value, and these should not be changed simply to achieve external validation from others. Like the slippery slope of compromise, one change may lead to changing who you are, your essence, until you become the molded pottery in your partner's hands.
If you find your partner asking you too frequently to change something about yourself, consider that at the beginning of every relationship, who you are doesn’t unfold all at once. Only as you unfold together do the superficial elements of your initial attraction become less important and you may discover that you are a mismatched couple who both must face your fear of confrontation and discussions of ending the relationship.
If your partner says that if you don’t change, he or she won’t like you enough to stay with you, remember that you entered the relationship for the things about your partner that you like and don’t want to change, and you hope that you can change the things you don’t like, or develop a tolerance for them. The issue is the ultimatum, the superficiality of a relationship in which one will leave if a change isn’t made, and the true original depth of love currently in the relationship that one of the partners isn’t willing to accept and compromise.
Acceptance comes in levels, just as most things in life. Degrees. The concept of “tolerance” is at the low end of the Acceptance Scale, while “adoration” and “synchronicity” are at the high end. Though the phrase, “opposites attract” is true in general, “similarities cement.” Most people look for characteristics in prospective life partners that they themselves possess, and the more alike, the better the fit. So, finding a woman who has many of the same values, goals, beliefs, and strengths that the seeker possesses, then it’s easier to accept a disagreeable personality dimensions. (Further about balance and compromise in my webisection about achieving equality in relationships. )
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Posted on 05/23/2010
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