Relationships

Love, Marriage, and Family

Intimate relationships
-Friendships
-Love
-Sexuality

Marital and Non-marital Lifestyles
-Single Life
-LGBT cohabitation
-Marriage

Parenthood
-Divorce

Love:
Sternberg's Triangular Subtheory of Love is composed of three components: intimacy, passion and commitment. The different types of relationships are on a continuum and change with time. The degree to which each of these components is present determines what kind of love they feel, the triangular theory can be used to view patterns of loving.

• Intimacy: emotional element
• involves self-disclosure
• connection, warmth, trust
• Passion: motivational element
• inner drives
• physiological arousal and sexual desire
• Commitment: cognitive element
• decision to love and stay with the person you love

Patterns of Loving:

Views about sexuality:

30% Reproductive: Sex only for reproductive purposes within a marriage

25% Recreational: Whatever feels good and does not hurt anyone is OK

45% Relational: Sex should be accompanied by love or affection, but not necessarily marriage

Marital and non-Marital Lifestyles:

• Single Life: 
• Proportion of young adults in the US who have not yet married has increased dramatically
• Less opportunity for young adults to explore a variety of relationships before settling on one
• More people are single by choice, especially women who are now self-supporting
• Reasons for staying single
• career opportunities
• travel
• sexual and lifestyle freedom
• desire for self fulfillment and self sufficiency
• Gay and Lesbian Relationships:
• Long term gay and lesbian relationships are more common in societies that tolerate, acceot, or support them
• Same "ingredients" for long-term satisfaction in the relationship are the same as those of heterosexual relationships
• psychological adjustment
• personality traits
• perceptions of equality
• ways of resolving conflict
• satisfaction with social support
• Homosexual relationships are just as healthy as heterosexual ones
• Factors that predicted the quality and stability of the relationship in gay/lesbian relationships fared equal to or better than heterosexual couples in all of the areas except for social support
• Same sex marriage has been legalized in several countries, still a controversial topic in U.S.
• Co-Habitation:
• An unmarried, committed couple involved in a sexual relationship that live together
• Has increased among all racial/ethnic groups and educational levels in the U.S.
• More than half of all U.S. couples who marry have lived together; about half of all cohabiting couples eventually marry
• Lends itself to delay in marriage
• People who cohabitate tend to have unconventional attitudes about family life and are less likely than most other people to select partners like themselves in age, race or ethnicity, and previous marital status
• Marriage:

• Typical "marrying age" has increased in industrial countries
• 26 for women
• 28 for men
• Changes: 
• sexual habits/behaviors
• living arrangements
• rights and responsibilities
• attachments
• loyalties
• Redefines the connection to their own family, balance intimacy with autonomy and establish a fulfilling sexual relationship.
• The benefits of marriage include:
• intimacy, sexual expression and companionship
• economic security, division of labor
• emotional growth, sources of new identities
• many of the important benefits are no longer found only within marriage
• Divorce:

• Increasing divorce statistics
• Average marriage that ends in divorce lasts 7-8 years
• Reasons for marriage failure: incompatibility and lack of emotional support, including lack of career support
• Decline may be due to higher education, therefore later age of getting married
• If the couples economic resources are about equal, the greater the likelihood of discussing divorce
• Less people staying together "for the children"
• Adults with divorced parents are more likely to divorce

Factors in success or failure of marriage:

• Happiness with the relationship
• Emotional support
• Communication and conflict management skills
• Age at marriage
• Spousal abuse
• Expectations from the marriage
• What people feel holds their marriage together (rewards, barriers)