Chapter 5 - Friendship, love & commitment

FRIENDSHIP: The foundation for love and commitment. All the same characteristics as without the fascination but runs deeper and stronger with more potential for distress, conflict and mutual criticism.

List characteristics of a true friend on board: accept, trust, respect confide, spontaneous, understanding

GENDER DIFFERENCES:

MEN: more emotional distance WOMEN: Spend more time

Have more friends Share more private things

Feels sex as a way to express love Don't fall in love as fast

IMPORTANCE OF LOVE:

Our culture is obsessed with Love (music, videos, novels)

·  Essential to life

·  Binds us as partner, parents, friends

·  Creates bonds that enable us to endure hardship

·  Gives us meaning

WHAT IS LOVE?

Listen to music and record words describing LOVE.

Read description of love.

MYTHS OF LOVE:

·  If you love, you should marry.

·  There is one and only for you.

·  You can only love one person at a time.

·  You will marry your first real love.

·  Love is natural and easy.

·  Once in love you have it made (love sustains itself)

·  Young people can't love.

DEFINITIONS OF LOVE:

•  Trust

•  Caring

•  Honesty

•  Friendship

•  Respect

•  Concern for the other’s well being

•  Loyalty

•  Commitment

•  Acceptance

•  Supportiveness

•  Wanting to be with the other

•  Interest in the other

LOVE =

•  CARING FOR THE OTHER

•  NEEDING THE OTHER

•  TRUSTING THE OTHER

•  TOLERATING THE OTHER

DEFINITIONS OF COMMITMENT: to a person or marriage, for better or worse, long or short time?

•  Loyalty

•  Responsibility

•  Living up to your word

•  Faithfulness

•  Trust

•  Being there for them in good/bad times

•  Devotion

•  Reliability

•  Giving your best effort

•  Supportiveness

•  Perseverance

•  Concern about the other’s well-being

Language of Love

KEY TO LOVE LANGUAGE

LOVE WHEEL THEORY

•  Rapport (sense of ease, understanding, shared background)

•  Self-Revelation (disclosure of intimate feelings)

•  Mutual Dependency (need each other to share things with)

•  Fulfillment of Intimacy Needs (need for someone to love)

WHEEL THEORY OF LOVE CHART

STYLES OF LOVE

•  EROS: love of beauty, delight in tactile, sensual & immediate.

•  LUDUS: playful love, a game, not serious.

•  STORGE: companionate love, peaceful

•  MANIA: obsessive love, madness, ecstasy only last a while.

•  AGAPE: altruistic love, selfless, nurturing & caring

•  PRAGMA: practical love, logically meets their criteria.

LOVE VS INFATUATION

INFATUATION LOVE

Happens quickly Grows slowly

Short lived Long lasting

Physical thrills Love entire person

Jealousy Want the person to grow

Many arguments Willing to compromise

Twitterpated Improves performance

Loss of appetite More kind and thoughtful to all

Insecure in relationship Trust

Rush to marry Ability to wait

Less ambition, idealistic More energy, realistic

TRIANGULAR THEORY

Decision

Commitment

TRIANGULAR THEORY

•  LIKING (intimacy only)

•  ROMANTIC LOVE (intimacy & passion)

•  INFATUATION (passion only)

•  FATUOUS LOVE (passion & commitment)

•  EMPTY LOVE (decision/commitment only)

•  COMPANIONATE LOVE (intimacy & commitment)

•  CONSUMMATE LOVE (intimacy, passion, & commitment)

•  NONLOVE (absence of intimacy, passion, & commitment)

ATTACHMENT THEORY:

•  All love relationships are important. But the degree and quality of attachments we experience in early life influences our later relationships.

•  Ainsworth’s study of infant attachments showed 66% were secure.

Infant attachment vrs Romantic love

•  Object of attachment is responsive & sensitive

•  Infant happy around them

•  Talks to them

•  Feelings of oneness.

1. Secure adult:

•  Easy to get close to. No fear of abandonment. Felt others liked them. Felt others were good hearted.

•  Most likely to have a lasting romantic love that is happy, trusting and supportive.

2. Anxious/Ambivalent Adults:

•  Wanted others to get closer.

•  Fear that lovers would leave them.

•  Wanted to merge completely with the other person.

•  Easy to fall in love but obsessive, jealous, emotional highs & lows.

3. Avoidant Adults:

•  Discomfort in closeness, distrustful & fear of dependence.

•  Partners wanted more closeness but they fear intimacy. Have jealousy and emotional highs and lows.

•  Most likely to break up and become Cyranos.

•  Short relationship.

UNREQUITED LOVE:

•  Common, 75% of people experience it.

•  Distressing for both – feel positive & negative feelings.

•  Rejector saw would be lover as self-deceptive & unreasonable

•  Would be lover saw rejector as inconsistent & mysterious.

Styles:

•  Cyrano style – hopeless

•  Giselle style – misreads the other

•  Don Quixote style –

wants to be in love

no matter who

JEALOUSY: Averse response to a real, imagined or likely involvement.

•  Does it prove love? Proves the other can get jealous. It is a yardstick for measuring insecurity.

•  It is irrational and very painful. Can destroy a relationship with violence or control. Violence is possible at any age (high school – adults).

•  Sometimes cements a relationship and keeps us safer. Boundaries need to be agreed upon by the couple.

•  The more special or exclusive, the more hurtful. But true love does not always involve jealousy.

•  If unfounded can be self defeating and damage can be irreparable.

Gender differences:

•  Women feel more jealous if both emotional and physical involvement.

•  Both react with anger but men more vocal, women internalize and get depressed.

•  Women appear to be more jealous because men have more opportunity to elicit jealousy.

Managing jealousy:

•  If it interferes with well-being or relationship. Need to communicate and compromise.

TRANSFORMATION FROM PASSION TO INTIMACY: Can be seen as a crisis. 50% of college students would seek a divorce if passion left.

•  Intimacy over time – deeper level.

•  Passion over time – less thrilling but more dependent & miss them.

•  Commitment over time – doesn’t diminish or alter.

Disappearance of Romance:

•  Something thrilling becomes less thrilling the more you do it. (Toboggan ride). But learn to be a “We” and look outward on the world.

•  Reemergence of Romantic love: Proceeds in a “U” shape.

How do we make it stay? Passion needs to transform to intimate love which is based on:

•  Commitment – A determination to continue.

•  Caring – Placing others needs before yours & valuing them for who they are. “I – Thou”. Sustain love with words & actions.

•  Self disclosure – The need to be loved for our uniqueness, not outer appearance. This is a key component of intimate love. Lack of self disclosure kills a relationship.

VOCABULARY

•  Agape: Altruistic love, selfless, nurturing & caring

•  Attachment theory of love: Attachments we experience in early life influence our later life.

•  Eros: Love of beauty, delight in tactile, sensual & immediate

•  Homogamy: the tendency to marry people like ourselves.

•  Jealousy: An averse response occurring because of significant other’s real, imagined, or likely involvement with another person.

6. Ludus: Playful love, a game, not serious.

7. Mania: Obsessive love, madness, ecstasy only lasts a while.

8. Peer Marriage: Marriage built on principles of equity, equality, and “deep friendship” between spouses.

9. Pragma: Practical love, logically meets their criteria.

10. Prototype: Concepts organized into a mental model.

11. Storge: Companionate love, peaceful

12. Triangular Theory of Love: Robert Steinberg’s theory emphasizing dynamic quality of love using intimacy, passion, commitment

13. Unrequited Love: Love that is not returned.

14. Wheel Theory of Love: Ira Reiss’s theory. Love consists of four interdependent processes: rapport, self revelation, mutual dependency, intimacy fulfillment.