CDF 163 - Relationships in Today's Families

1. Chapter 9
Friendship, Intimacy,
and Singlehood

2. 9-2
Friends and lovers are alike in many ways
Love is different from friendship because:
• Love runs deeper and stronger
• Love has higher stakes
• Love has more interpersonal difficulties

3. 9-3
Enjoyment
Acceptance
Trust
Respect
Mutual assistance
Confiding
Understanding
Spontaneity

4. 9-4
• Due to increased geographical and social mobility
Friendships emerge as people move to new situations
Increased acceptance of friends from the different sex
Internet, texting, and other forms of communication
affect the ability to communicate and maintain
friendships
Can be superficial to an extent
Is affected by culture

5. 9-5
• Moving to a more advanced stage of a relationship
• Staying faithful or staying together during difficult times
Commitment: Cognitive attachment to another
person that develops over time
• Entails high levels of self-disclosure
• Increases as closeness grows and deepens as a relationship
matures
Intimacy: Sharing feelings and providing
emotional support
• Expressed by touching, kissing, being affectionate, or
through sexual interactions
Passion: Linked to physiological arousal

6. 9-6
• No commitment, intimacy, or passion
Non-love
• Only intimacy, but no passion or commitment
Liking
• Only passion, but no intimacy or commitment
Infatuation
• Only commitment, but no passion or intimacy
Empty love

7. 9-7
• Commitment on the basis of passion, with no time for
true intimacy
Fatuous love
• Both commitment and intimacy, but no passion
Companionate love
• Both intimacy and passion, but no commitment
Romantic love
• Complete love, containing all three dimensions
• Goal of most couples
Consummate love

8. 9-8
Emotional response to real or perceived threat
• Functional: Encourages thinking about intimate relationship and
looking for positive ways to develop a stronger relationship
• Hurtful: Creates suspicion about a relationship
Cause based on gender differences
• Men: If the partner is sexually involved
• Women: If the partner is emotionally involved
Signals the need to:
• Talk about the relationship
• Explore ways to make the relationship grow

9. 9-9
According to result of a survey by Pew Research Center in 2016:
• Online dating has lost much of its stigma, and a majority of
Americans now say online dating is a good way to meet people
• Online dating has jumped among adults under age 25, as well as
those in their late 50s and early 60s
• One-third of the people who have used online dating have never
actually gone on a date with someone they met on these sites
• One in five online daters has asked someone else for help with his
or her profiles
• Five percent of Americans who are in a marriage or committed
relationship say they met their significant other online

10. 9-10
Difference in perspective
• Women usually increase intimacy with higher levels of self-
disclosure about themselves
• Men usually increase intimacy through doing activities together
Relationships are enhanced by:
• Open communication in appropriate doses, at appropriate times,
and with good intentions
• Finding a productive way of resolving differences
• Negotiating a workable compromise

11. 9-11
Intimate experience: Feeling of closeness or sharing
with another person
• May or may not be perceived similarly
Intimate relationships: Sharing intimate experiences in
several areas over time
• Difficult to have multiple intimate relationships
No relationship provides intimate experiences in all
areas all the time

12. 9-12
Communication
• Sharing emotions and beliefs
• Listening and speaking
• Communicating openly with one’s partner
Couple closeness: Degree to which a couple has an
emotional connection
• Helping each other
• Expressing feelings of emotional closeness
• Spending time together
• Giving top priority to the relationship

13. 9-13
Couple flexibility: Capacity to change and adapt as
situations arise
• Sharing leadership roles
• Changing rules about who does what as situations change
Personality compatibility
• Understanding and appreciating differences
Conflict resolution
• Talking openly with each other
• Understanding each other’s opinions and feelings

14. 9-14
Source: Olson, D., Olson-Sigg, A., & Larson, P. The Couple Checkup. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008.

15. 9-15
Destructive intimacy games: Concealing the real motive
and manipulating the partner into doing or giving what one
wants
• Create distance and dissatisfaction
Zero-sum game: Results in one person winning what the
other person loses
• Score of the game remains zero

16. 9-16
Enhance a relationship
Focus on the positive aspects of a relationship
Give to the partner in a positive manner
Foster reciprocity in relationships
Help develop positive cycles
Develop more positive feelings toward each other

17. 9-17
Common games
• I don’t care, you decide
• The ties that bind
Limit destructive games by:
• Naming the game
• Making implicit rules explicit
• Identifying strategies and counterstrategies
• Discussing the disguised objectives

18. 9-18
Characteristic Relevant Questions
Name of game What name describes the game?
Players Who were the players or opponents? Who were the spectators?
Who were the referees?
Playing field Where was the game played? When was the game played?
Objectives What were the short-term objectives? What were the long-term
objectives?
Rules What were the rules? Were they implicit or explicit?
Strategies How was the game played? What strategies did the offense use?
What were the long-term objectives? What counterstrategies did the
defense use?
Communication style Did the participants express themselves verbally, nonverbally, or
both?
Rewards and penalties What were the rewards? What were the penalties?
Outcomes How effective was the game in the short term? In the long term?
How enjoyable was the game? Was there a winner and a loser?

19. 9-19
Focuses on how children develop attachment to caregivers in
infancy
Attachment follows a developmental trajectory in a person’s life
in the following order:
• Parents
• Peers
• Close friends
• Romantic partners
• Spouse
Sex: Part of attachment
in adulthood

20. 9-20
Failure to marry was undesirable
Unmarried people stayed dependent on the families
with whom they lived until they married
Attitudes improved over the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries

21. 9-21
Many singles are enjoying lives without partners and are living
healthy and happy lives
Advice to singles who seek to cope with loneliness:
• Appraise one’s strengths
• Develop a friendship network
• Tell people how one really feels
• Do not expect too much from relationships
• Be independent
• Rejoin one’s family
• Find something that is interesting

22. Chapter 9
Friendship, Intimacy,
and Singlehood