chapter 7: love and happiness in intimate relationships 1

Chapter 7:

Love and Happiness inIntimate Relationships

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Myths about Love• Love is a feeling. Popular songs. “When that loving feeling wears off, then a

couple will find out whether they can make it as a couple”

• Love is the key to happiness. Find love and you will be happy

• Love is like falling, when it happens you can’t help it

• Sexual chemistry is love• True love conquers all.

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Are you the one for me?Theories relating mate selection to the past:• Re-creation of _________ experience

• Complete ________________ left over from childhood

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Some research on the subject—Helen Fisher

• Explorers prefer explorers

• Builders prefer builders

• Directors prefer negotiators

• Negotiators prefer directors

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Mate selection as a filtering process: More research

• The Propinquity Filter

• The Attractiveness Filter

• The Similarity Filter

• The Compatibility Filter

• The Cohabitation Filter

Mistakes People make on the Road to Marriage

• Staying in a relationship without asking enough questions

• Warning signs are ignored. Decisions are based on emotion rather than reason and intellect

• Compromising your beliefs and value system• Attraction and sexual desire blind you• Unduly influenced by outside pressure• Loneliness and a sense of emptiness• Avoiding an important issue or situation

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Kinds of Love

• Passionate love -

• Relatively new type of love; replaced contract arrangements.

• Musical – Fiddler on the Roof

• Intensity of passionate love will ____

• Companionate love -

• Sharing intimate experiences, friendship.

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Sternberg: Triangular Model of Love

• Many aspects of love are made up of three related components: passion, intimacy, and decision/commitment.

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Intimacy

Passion Commitment

Combinations of Love• In Sternberg’s model - possible for a relationship

to exist with one component,

a combination of two components,

or all three components

• Different combinations result in different types of loving relationships. Example:

• ________ + _______= romantic love

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Intimacy + Passion = Romantic Love

• Strong physiological arousal + sharing of one’s self, which results in intimacy

• Movies

• Physical/emotional attraction + familiarity without ____________________.

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Passion + Commitment = ______ Love

• Passion + decision to be together

• Develops without experiences that build _______

• Developing intimacy takes time.

• Short-lived, often due to ____________

• Whirlwind courtship/marriage without shared beliefs

• Sometimes called _______ love.10

Intimacy + Commitment =____________ Love

• Deep friendship and strong desire to be together

• When passion wanes, partners discover

whether there is enough friendship and commitment to make the relationship last

• The ingredients of most ______ relationships.

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Consummate Love = Intimacy + Passion + Commitment

• Sternberg believes it is difficult to maintain

• No guarantees that consummate love will continue

• It may fade, with its disappearance becoming evident only after it is almost gone

• Couples must _____ to maintain it.

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Intimacy

Passion Commitment

Intimacy Alone = Liking or Friendship

Passion Alone =

Infatuation

Commitment Alone =

Empty Love

Romantic Love =

Intimacy + Passion

Companionate Love =

Intimacy + Commitment

Fatuous Love =

Passion + Commitment

Foolish Love

Consummate Love = Intimacy + Passion +

Commitment

A Closer Look at …• Commitment• Doherty – consumer marriages • “_________ marriages”• Scott Stanley – types of commitment - _________ commitment (+) gain - _________ commitment (-) loss• _______• Block’s observation - Tasks for husbands – listen, contact and share

_______, don’t always try to _____ problem, try not to _________

- Tasks for wives – understand husbands difficulty with_______, address issues _____.

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Scott Peck’s Definition of Love:Extending One’s Self

Love - the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of ________ one’s own or another’s growth

Words to examine – purpose, growth, extend self, will.

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What Love is Not . . .

Love - not falling in love

Romantic love is something we fall into and does not require conscious choice

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Peck suspects that RL is a part of our genetic makeup which motivates sexual behavior for the survival of the species.

Love - not based on __________

The statement, “I could not live without him/her” reflects parasitism not love

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When dependency needs are dominant, relationship based on __________;

Peck believes “two people love each other

only when they are quite capable of living without each other, but ______ to live together.

may superficially look loving but _____

Self sacrifice/excessive ________ is not necessarily love. The parent who gives everything and overprotects does not nurture maturity and growth, but rather infantilism/__________

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Love is not just giving, but the strength to say no when giving is inappropriate. Teaching ____________ is sometimes more loving than nurturing dependence

Difficult decision-making is involved to determine when to give and when to withhold.

• Peck believes - a loving person

makes decision to behave in loving ways even when there is no loving ______ present

• Romantic love will fade

• Then couples determine whether relationship can be built on genuine love

• When partners no longer always feel like being in each other’s company then

their love will be tested.

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Peck: What Love Is . . .• Love is purposeful – growth

• Willful – conscious choice to behave in loving ways

• Extend self. This is not always easy - it is _______. It involves ____. Thus love requires ____.

• The work of love requires overcoming _______

• What is this work of love that causes us and the “other” to grow?

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1) Requires a conscious decision to set aside time and energy to _________________ to the one we love

2) Fundamental way of attending is _________

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• Listening reflects love - is crucial to marriage• True listening in marriage is so difficult and takes so

much energy

that couples need to schedule _____ to be together just for listening.

• The work of love requires _______; involves risk. Taking the risk has potential for great pain

• If you avoid all risk to avoid pain, you deprive yourself of the potential for great joy

• Thus, the courage to risk is inevitable if one is to marry and have children

• As we risk ourselves in relationships, we make a ___________

• Love requires ___________• The level of our commitment is the most

important factor assuring the relationship.

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• Peck believes “commitment is inherent in any loving relationship”

• In family, as one attempts to nurture another’s growth you can do so only

if there is the expectation that the relationship will continue, will be there even after struggle

• Peck states, “couples cannot resolve in any healthy way the universal issues of marriage

without the security of knowing that

the fact of struggling over these issues will not itself destroy the relationship.”

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• The work of love also requires ___________-

makes distinction between “self” and “other”

• Thus, mature love respects and encourages separateness/individuality

• Requires courage since the spouse or child may develop in ways previously __________

• Remember that mature love is the will to extend one’s self to nurture growth

even if that growth leads to unimagined places.

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Family Love (esp. with children)

• Burr, Day, Bahr

1) Oriented toward fostering the growth of _____

2) Emphasizes ____________ and action over feelings and sentiment

3) Is ____________

4) Is ________25

Harville Hendrix and the Conscious Marriage: What love is.

• Choose someone like our caretakers who we expect to love us as caretakers never did

• Then he/she fails us, opens old ______ and irritates us as parents did• Yet, this person, our Imago ______, has potential to help us grow• But journey toward healing is hard - power struggle• Must get beyond power struggle. • Conscious marriage: You must• Realize that you help each other ___________• This understanding is based on valuing and respect• Give up self-centered attitude and give each other unconditional love• Each partner must grow in this process

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