Chapter 8: Love and Communication in Intimate Relationships

Consummate Love: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment

- Love that we dream about but do not expect in all out love relationships. - Can achieve but hard to sustain.

Extrarelational Sex in Exclusive Marriages and Partnerships

- Marriages and committed partnerships that assume emotional and sexual exclusivity, mutuality and sharing are emphasized. - Extrarelational sex is assumed to be destructive of marriage and partnerships. Happens without the knowledge or permission of the other partner. - Sexual accessibility implies emotional accessibility.

Love Without Sex: Celibacy and Asexuality

- May be a choice, result of life circumstances, low interest in sex, concern over acquiring STIs. - Consider: What is the normal level of sexual desire?

emotional betrayal

Falling in love with another person or deep emotional attachment. Involves time and loyalty to another person other than the primary partner.

caring

Making of another person's needs as important as your own. I thou.

romantic love

feelings of love are related to the lover's interest and reciprocation

polyamory

multiple loves; willing to engage in consensual non-monogamy in long-term and loving relationships

proximity

nearness in physical space

eye contact

watching how people look at each other

Love as Attachment

- Attachment theory is used to understand how adult relationships develop, what can go wrong and what to do when things go wrong. - Romantic love and infant caregiver attachment have similar emotional dynamics. - Attachments affects the way we processionals information, interact with others and view the world. Influence our ability to love and to see ourselves as lovable. Core elements of love appear to be the same for children as for adults, to feel emotionally safe and secure. Need to have the capacity to be vulnerable and open and accepting of others' giving that makes us lovable and human. - Styles of attachment developed in childhood continue through adulthood- secure, anxious/ambivalent, avoidant. Structure of adult attachment is best understood in terms of avoidance and anxiety. Attachment style developed in infancy combines with sexual desire and caring behaviors to give rise to romantic love. Individual's past does not determine the future course of relationships.

Jealously

- Aversive response that occurs because of a partner's real, imagined, or likely involvement with a third person. Set boundaries for the behaviors that are acceptable in relationships. - Many think that jealously proves the existence of love. Proves only that the other person can be made jealous. Measuring insecurity or immaturity. - Painful emotion associated with anger, hurt, and loss. Can help cement or destroy a relationship. Could guard exclusiveness. Can be linked to violence in marriages and dating relationships.

anxious/ambivalent attachments

- Believe that other people did not get as close as they themselves wanted. Worried that their partners didn't really love them or would leave them. - Merge with another person. Easy to fall in love. Obsessive and marked by a desire for union, high degrees of sexual attraction, and jealousy. - Feelings of vulnerability and rejection, often need sexual frequency.

Nonlove: Absence of intimacy, passion, and commitment

- Can take on the form of attachment for financial reasons, fear, or the fulfillment of neurotic needs.

Nonverbal Communication

- Communicating through body movements, head positions, facial expressions, physical distance, and so on. - Proximity, eye contact, touching,

Conflict and Intimacy

- Conflict is the process in which people perceive that incompatible goals and interference from others is hindering them from achieving their goals.

The Cultural Context

- Consist of the language that is used and the values, beliefs, and customs associated with it.

The Social Context

- Consist of the roles we play in society as member of different groups.

The Psychological Dimension of Jealousy

- Could be considered as scar of childhood trauma or symptom of a psychological problem. It can also enrich relationships and spark passion by increasing the attention people pay to their partner. - Sex differences and expression of jealously. Men more than women are upset by a partner's sexual non-exclusiveness, whereas women more than men are upset by a partner's emotional non exclusiveness. - Gender differences can be partly explained in the evolutionarily model.

Fatuous Love: Passion and Commitment

- Deceptive. Love is whirlwind love. Begins the day two people meet and results in cohabitation or engagement and even marriage. - Hardly know what happened. Passion and commitment can fade.

The Psychological Context

- Determines how people communicate.

Friendship and Love

- Differences: Love relationships are more rewarding and vulnerable. Lovers have more fascination and sense of exclusiveness with their partners. Love is greater for distress, conflict, and criticism and runs deeper and stronger. - Similarities: Levels of acceptance, trust, respect, confiding, understanding, spontaneity, and mutual acceptance. Levels of satisfaction and happiness with the relationship. - Friendship appears to be the foundation for strong love relationships. Both have shared interests and values, acceptance, trust, understanding, and enjoyment. - Understand the degree of emotional closeness they find acceptable in their partners' friendship. Boundaries should be clarified and opinions shared. Friends are their primary partners through life.

Sexual Conflicts

- Disagreements about sex

secure attachments

- Easy to get close to other people. Felt comfortable depending on others and having other depend on them. Do not worry about being abandoned or having someone to close to them. - Usually think people like them. See people as well intentioned and good hearted. Love experiences are happy, friendly, and trusting. Accepted and supported their partners.

Extrarelational Sex

- Extradyadic sex, extramarital sex, adultery, cheating, or infidelity. - Having a romantic or sexual relationship outside the current relationship that violates the sexual exclusivity expectation. - Transgression and associated with betrayal. - Three categories: extrarelational as sexual intercourse, extrarelational as other sexual activities, OR extrarelational as emotional betrayal. - Sexual personality characteristics and relationship factors were most relevant to predicting sexual exclusiveness.

avoidant attachments

- Felt discomfort in being close to other people. Distrustful and fearful of being dependent. - Romance seldom lasts. Their partners wanted more closeness than they did. - Feared intimacy and experienced emotional highs and lows and jealousy. Lower sexual frequency.

How Do I Love Thee? Approaches and Attitudes Related to Lowe

- For most love and sex are linked to intimate relationships. Love reflects positive factors and sex reflects emotional and physical elements. Love and sex do not have to be connected.

Liking: Intimacy Only

- Forms the basis for close friendships but is not passionate or committed. - Can go to enduring kind of love. BF and GF may come and go but remain good friends.

Sexual Communication in Established Relationships

- Gender differences in partner communication

Sexual Communication

- Important in developing and maintain sexual relationships.

The Components of Love

- Intimacy is the warm, close, bonding feelings we get when we love someone. - 10 signs of intimacy: welfare, happiness, high regard, count on partner, understand, sharing yourself and possessions, emotional support (giving and receiving), communicate, and value presence. - Passion: elements of romance, attraction, and sexuality in the relationship. - Commitment: short term and long term. Short refers to an individual's decisions that he or she loves someone. Long term refers to commitment or the maintenance of love.

Making Love Last: From Passion to Intimacy

- Intimate love

intimate love

- Kind of love that lasts - Each person knows he or she can count on the other - Excitement comes from the achievement of other goals and from the relationship - Important to transform passionate intensity into intimate love. - Love is based on commitment, caring, and self-disclosure

Infatuation: Passion Only

- Love at first sight. Love that idealizes its object. Don't see the other as a real person with normal human foibles. - Marked by sudden passion and physical and emotional arousal. Obsessive and all-consuming (no time for anything else). - Asymmetrical; passion or obsession is not returned equally. Can mean more distress in the relationship.

Love

- Love binds together partners, parents, children, and friends. Powerful force in intimate relationships of almost all individuals. - Love is a feeling and an activity. Loving relationship includes affection and anger, excitement and boredom, stability and change, bonds and freedom. - Communication is the threat that connects sexuality and intimacy. Sexuality serves as a barometer for the quality of the relationship.

Love and Sexuality

- Love legitimizes sexuality outside of marriage. Use individualistic norms to legitimize sexual behavior. Sexual standards have become more of a personal responsibility than an institutional. - Connection between love and sex. - Love is an important determinant of sexual satisfaction. Two important factors of sexual satisfaction: level of intimacy in the relationship and length of time the couple has been together. - People in relationships who share power equals are more likely to be sexually involved. More sexual activity in countries with higher gender equality. Gender equality > more causal sex, sexual partners, younger ages for first sex, greater tolerance or approval of premarital sex. Highest at gender equality is Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium. - Environmental factors involving the physical and cultural setting play a role on sexual activity. Physical - presence of parents, friends, roommates, children. Cultural - values. Subculture (university environment, social club, singles world.

Unrequited Love

- Love that is one-sided or not openly reciprocated or understood. - Would be lovers can have positive and negative feelings about their failed relationships. Rejectors can feel negative. - Rejectors feel that they have not lead the person, and feel guilty fo hurting them. Would be lovers feel the attraction was mutual, led on, and rejection was not clearly communicated.

Empty Love: Commitment Only

- Love that lacks intimacy or passion and involves staying together for appearances.

Men, Women, Sex, and Love

- Men are more likely to separate sex from affection, separate love from sex. Men find it desirable and of sexual interests and intensity IF women are assertive, forceful, and aggressive (women find it the opposite). Women engages in sex if it inspires trust and confidence. - Theory of gender differences in love. Sees this as instinctual or psychological. But, demographics and cultural differences override gender differences. Good women = virgin, sexually naive, and passive. Bad women - sexually experienced, independent, and passionate. - Society remains ambivalent about sexually active and experienced women. - Heterosexual and gay men would engage in causal sex if women were equally interested. Gay men are more likely to separate love and sex. Place less emphasis on sexual exclusiveness in their relationships and they negotiate sexually open relationships. Lesbian women tend to engage in sex less.

Romantic Love: Intimacy and Passion

- More intense than liking because of physical or emotional attraction. - Can begin as friendship that intensifies into passion, or with passion that also develops intimacy. Commitment can develop.

Comapnionate Love: Intimacy and Commitment

- Needed to a committed friendship. Begins as romantic love, but the passion diminishes and intimacy increases > companionate love.

Consensual Nonexclusive Marriages and Partnerships

- Nonexclusive partnerships: intimate but nonsexual friendships with others are encouraged, outside sexual relationships are allowed, group partners or multiple relationships.

Obstacles to Sexual Discussions

- Rarely have models for talking openly and honestly about sexuality. - Talking about sexual mattes denies us as being interested in sex because it is tabooed. talking about sex will threaten our relationship.

commitment

- Reflects a determination to continue a relationship or marriage in face of bad times and good times. - Based on conscious choices. Promise.

Conflict Resolution

- Reflects and contributes to relationship happiness.

Styles of Love

- Relationship styles. Eros, Mania, Ludus, Storge, Agape, Pragma . Can be mixtures. Find a partner who shares the same style and definition of love. Can be between love styles and sexual attitudes OR gender differences and love styles. - Eros (Greek god of love and son of Aphrodite, Cupid). Love of beauty. Erotic lovers are passionate and delight in the tactile, sensual, and the immediate. Attracted to beauty, love to feel and touch the body. Love burns brightly but dies. - Mania (madness, obsessive and possessive love). Sleeplessness and days by pain and anxiety. Affection brings ecstasy and disappears. Love is roller-coaster. Satisfactions last for a moment and need to be renewed. - Ludus (playful love). Love is a game. Love is ludicrous. Encounters are casual carefree and careless. Nothing serious. Thrive on attention and take risks. - Storge (natural affection). Love between companions. Love without fevers tumult, follow. Peaceful and enchanting. Friendship and deepens into love. - Agape (brotherly love). Traditional Christian love that is chaste. patient, undemanding, and altruistic. No reciprocation. Abstract and ideal. Easier to love all mankind. - Pragma (business). Practical love. Businesslike in their approach to look for someone who meets their needs. Use logic and sees if they are compatible with them. Feelings may develop if they find the person.

The Triangular Theory of Love

- Robert Sternberg. - Dynamic quality of love relationships. Love is composed of three elements: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Each can be enlarged or diminished and it will affect the quality of the relationship. Combined in different wats to produce a different type of love, like romantic love, infatuation, empty love, and liking.

Keys to Good Communication

- Self-disclosure for mutual understanding. - Trust is the belief in the reliability and integrity of a person. - Feedback is an ongoing process of restating, checking the accuracy of questioning, and clarifying messages.

Rebound Sex

- Sexual experiences in the aftermaths of a romantic relationship breakup. Revenge sex. - Motivations where need to boost self-esteem, ease pain and loneliness, and to get over the break up. Anger and distress.

The Geometry of Love

- Shape of love triangle depends on the intensity of the love and the balance of the parts. Varying areas and shape represents a wide variety of kinds of relationships. - Intense love relationships leads to triangles with greater area. Can be balanced or unbalanced, so can love triangles. - Greater the match between the triangles fo the two partners, more likely each is to experience satisfaction. Shape and size of each person's triangle indicate how well each is matched to the other.

Managing Jealousy

- Source of jealousy lies within ourselves not within the relationship. feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. - If we can work on the underlying causes of our insecurity, then we can deal with our irrational jealously. - When relationship boundaries have been violated then the cause of jealously lies within the relationship. Modify the third party relationship.

Developing Communication Skills

- Talking about sex

Sexual Communication in Begging Relationships

- The Halo Effect: Assumption that attractive or charismatic people possess more desirable social characteristics than are present. Physical attractiveness. - Interests and Opening Lines: Men make the move. - The First Move and Beyond: transition from a potentially sexual relationship to one that is sexual. - Directing Sexual Activity: Practice safer sex and discuss birth control and communicate about what we like.

The Nature of Communication

- Transactional process by which we use symbols to establish human contact, exchange information, and reinforce or change our attitudes and behaviors and those of others.

asexuality

- lack of sexual attraction - Sexual orientation. Self-identified asexual.

touching

- touch is the basic of all senses

Kinds of Love

COMBO of intimacy, passion, and commitment. - Liking (intimacy only) - Infatuation (passion only) NO INTIMACY - Romantic love (intimacy and passion) - Companionate love (intimacy and commitment) - Fatuous love (passion and commitment) - Consummate love (intimacy, passion, and commitment) - Empty love (decision/commitment only) NOT LOVE AT ALL - Nonlove (absence of intimacy, passion, and commitment)

self-disclosure

Revelation of personal information that others would not ordinarily know because of its riskiness.

attachment

a close, enduring emotional bond that finds its roots in infancy

open relationships

partners may mutually agree to have sexual contact with others

swingers

practice of extra dyadic sex with members of another couple

infant-caregiver attachment

the attachment bonds formation and quality depend on the attachment object's responsive and sensitivity