There might be love, there might be commitment, and there might even be a solid friendship but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that there will be desire in a long-term romantic relationship. Although love and desire are two separate entities that may conflict sometimes, they really do coincide in a relationship. Love is defined, as an intense feeling of deep affection while desire, on the other hand is defined as a strong wish or want for something. An essential component of maintaining desire in a romantic relationship is communal strength. Communal strength is defined, as an individual’s motivation to meet their partners needs. Experimental, observational, qualitative, and quantitative studies using this measure of communal strength have …show more content…
Kogan et al., (2010) demonstrates the benefits of sacrifice for people who are highly motivated to respond to a specific romantic partners needs through quantitative and qualitative studies. Sacrifices are greatly involved in communal strength and it has been shown that the more willing people are to make sacrifices, the more likely they are to maintain the desire in their relationships and stay with their partner over time (Kogan et al., 2010). It was predicted that individuals who were more motivated to respond to their romantic partners needs in a communal manner enjoyed more emotional and relational benefits. This study selected sixty-nine romantic couples. The participants ranged in age eighteen to sixty years and had been dating for six months to thirty years; forty-eight percent of the couples were cohabitating. Participants were recruited through the use of both paper flyers and online flyers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sixty-nine couples were to complete an initial survey that recorded their daily experiences and after agreeing to continue to take part in the study, the participants were emailed an additional initial online survey that was to be completed before the couple arrived at the lab for training. The lab training was implemented to describe an overview of how they would be asked to complete a ten-minute online survey for fourteen consecutive nights. Results showed that the higher individuals were in communal strength toward their romantic partner, the more they experienced positive emotions during the daily sacrifices, felt appreciated for their efforts, and reported high relationship satisfaction on days when they made sacrifices (Kogan et al., 2010). The results confirmed that daily sacrifices in a communal relationship lead to a heightened sense of desire and
I have learned that, interpersonal relationships are difficult to maintain. I often ask myself why, relationships require so much work. Why do I, stay in a relationship where the bad outweighs the good? The social exchange perspective argues, according to Monge & Contractor, as cited by West & Turner that “People calculate the overall worth of a particular relationship by subtracting its cost from the rewards it provides.”
... friendship, but brings forth a new meaning to devotion, fidelity, and the needs of emotional endurance.
Intimacy and love are important factors to interpersonal relationship but as a foundation to not governing and controlling society. Consider a situation of three-person group, or also known as a triad, intimacy and love is not successful majority of time (Freidkin 05/20/10). Take for example, a family of three, a father, mother, son or daughter, has unconditionally love for each other. However, as the teenager grows up, he or she may not always agree with the parents' decisions about their life; and/or vice versa, in which the parents may not like the teenager's lifestyle. This shows that we tend to hold other with high regards and respect when we love another. Also, when we love others, we want the best for them and help them make better decisions to have better relations with the party. In relation to society, intimacy and love are not ideal features because they are too personal; not everyone will let others control their lives and surroundings willingly for strangers. For those who have conflicting beliefs with higher personnel will feel that some choice...
... like…togetherness or something”. Their definition of love contains key intimacy characteristics with definitions like “integral part of whom you are”, “deep connection”, “happiness”, and “togetherness”. This individual touches upon love in a much more meaningful and emotional closeness compared to the previous individual who’d described it in a more physical and excitable manner. This form of love follows passion, and plays a role in the future commitment of two individuals. Like passion, this concept is also a stepping stone towards allowing young adults to complete their task of intimacy vs. isolation. Intimacy greatly influences romantic relationships, and is a concept that many young adults preoccupy themselves with during their development.
There are many communities in this world, with some that function rather well, and some that do very poorly at this. There are many varying factors that go into the reasoning for this. Communities all over have different ways of achieving success, one of which is the way some look at the self sacrifice of individuals. Though some communities are able to achieve some degree of success without individual sacrifice, it is those who use it that are able to prosper to the larger extent.
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
Marital satisfaction and other related contacts (e.g., marital adjustment, marital quality, and marital happiness) are studied widely by family researchers. However, there is no consensus regarding their definition and measurement. Some scholars have argued that these constmcts are not synonymous (e.g., Heyman, Sayers, & Bellack, 1994;
One member usually gives up their last name to take their partner’s name, finances and other resources are often shared, and each partner may sometimes even give up a loved hobby to spend more time with the other person. These sacrifices can lead to the “loss in sense of self”. In many marriages, partners may promise “unconditional love” which is simply not true according to Fredrickson. In this quote, Fredrickson illustrates what marriage actually is “Even so, that special bond and the commitments people often build around it are better taken as the products of love- the results of many smaller moments in which love infuses you- rather than as love per se” (Fredrickson 108). According to this, love is those shorter moments in which we experience it instead of the actual marriage, which occurs because of these moments.
Perel explains how the culture we live in now withholds different expectations for love in individualistic societies. (Perel, 0:53) This connects to what we learned in the love chapter. We learned that in western cultures, there is an overall focus on “attraction and matching” and the expectation that they will live “happily ever after” with their partner. (Clark, 2015a) These are the expectations Perel is referring to which individualistic societies now rely on in forming their concept for what love should be like in relationships. These expectations however, may also be impacted by interdependency and our compassion level. For example, comparison level “describes the value of the outcomes that we believe we deserve in our dealings with others.” (Miller, 2012, Interdependency, p.176) Our prior events that we have experienced may serve to explain why individuals have these high expectations, especially since the current culture we live. Perel mentions that couples commonly tend to bring up the fact that they want more sex (Perel, 10:37), which in the sexuality chapter we learned that sexual desire and frequency has different factors that are taken into account. For example, comparison level is overall an important aspect to consider here and rather than “evaluating how often they have sex or the degree to which they disagree about sex,” couples should instead
Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 32.1, TRANSLATIONAL APPLIED SOCIOLOGY (2009): 158-83. JSTOR.Web. 11 May 2014. Chalmers, Jennifer H. "Romantic Love: Is It a Realistic Goal for Marriage Therapy?" Romantic Love: Is It a Realistic Goal for Marriage Therapy?
...n integrated model of couple therapy. In P. David, Pair bonding & repair: Essays on intimacy & couple therapy (pp.52-64). Class handout from Applied Couple Therapy, Antioch University Seattle.
A lot has changed in the past few decades, not to mention centuries. Perhaps you’ve heard your grandparents, or any adult in general, talking about how much the world is changing. In the past few decades, commitment has gone on a rollercoaster. At times it’s going uphill-marriage rates are up, divorce rates are down, and people are happy in their relationships. At other times, it has been quite the opposite. In A Brave New World, they show a glimpse of a possible future society; the novel serves as a warning to help the world slow down when it comes to technology and love. The expression of love has evolved throughout time due to the decrease of chivalry and the increase in divorce rates because of the change of “steps” in a relationship.
Being in a relationship, we build particular kind of feelings, which are based on trust, friendship and true love. However, a relationship can give us many feelings which we can’t get from friends or family. A good offers you all the wonderful things of friendship, but with a special closeness and intimacy. A good relationship will teach you to work as a team, and hopefully both people being to...
Three articles were chosen based on love and marriage and analyzed to the book. In one of the articles “What Married Woman Want” by Stan Guthrie interviews a sociologist Brad Wilcox on his study of married women. The article reads that women are the happiest in their marriage when they receive emotional engagement from their husband. In Chapman’s book he states that women and men have a primary love language that fulfills their love tank. The five love languages Chapman discloses are: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, and Quality Time. Guthrie however argues that as long as women are provided with love, affectionate, and empathy she is the happiest. I found it interesting to read that she had stated that women prefer their husband’s emotional engagement rather than acts of service “We have to recognize that for the average American marriage, it matters a lot more whether the husband is emotionally in tune with his wife than whether he's doing, say, half the dishes or half the laundry” (Stan Guthrie, What Ma...