Internal and External Influences That May Affect the Balance of a Relationship - Essay Example

What do you see as the internal and external influences that may affect the balance of a relationship? 1. Introduction “Stable object relations result in our ability to form stable relationships, to trust others, and to persist with positive relationships during times of conflict” (Hutchison 2003, p.188). Persons in intimate relationship tend to act in response to their relationships sensitively and these widespread positive or negative affects can shape how a person recognizes and subsequently reports his or her partner’s communicative behaviour. The balance in a relationship is essential to preserve the physical, emotional, and energetic harmony between people and therefore any shift in the balance of the relationship has substantial depressing consequences. Our research will focus on the factors that affect the balance of relationship, the relationship between a married couple, and actions that should be taken to reinstate this balance. 2. Balance of Relationship “A relationship is the complete synchronization between two people where a true bond forms and deep intimacy can be experienced” (Nathan 2005, p.3). It is a physical, emotional, and energetic harmony between people that go beyond distance. All we put into a relationship harmony either supports, develops, builds, fortified, or, on the contrary, weakens it with tension and distress (Nathan 2005, p.4). According to Broome and Llewelyn (1995), the shift in the balance of the relationship between partners may also have harsh repercussions on the sexual relationship. For instance, a male partner may shift from wage earner and partner to that of another child to be cared for (p.397). A couple may also go through sexual issues such as sexual dysfunction, contraception, infertility, sterilization, affairs, STDs, and HIV/AIDS (Harvey et.al. 2004, p.589). The circumstances under which one feels dedicated to a specific relationship is reliant on the degree to which one finds personal and relationship growth, perceived self-concept support, and mutual perceived understanding in light of available alternative relationships (Cahn 1987, p. 3 taken from Thibaut and Kelley (1959)). Relationships last when an overall balance is maintained and they end when one or both partners sense the relationship has gotten out of balance and does not have the capacity to come again. This can be due to an imbalance of taking and giving, an imbalance in basic life force, in spiritual evolution, money, sex, power, housework, childcare, communication, or any other elements that play out in the arena of relationship (Anodea 1999, p.204). 2.1 The Case of Husband and Wife B A couple whose marital difficulties came when the wife began to feel positive changes in her self-concept when she realized that the gratifications that came from being more independent far outweighed the more child-like gratifications that stemmed from her financial dependence on her husband. Wife B and husband B had been married for 10 years. They had a girl aged 6 and a boy aged 8. Wife B recently got her degree in law and her husband is maintenance supervisor in a local firm. Since wife B began to start working in a reputable law firm, she began to feel and act in a more self-confident, capable and assertive way. Their marriage began to become increasingly complicated as husband B had become very critical of wife B predominantly in her role of homemaker and mother. Husband B also started spending longer hours at work than he had in the past, and would often come home after their children were in bed. Husband B’s self-concept and sense of gender identity was closely tied up with his image of his wife. His masculine identity was partially dependent on his own characteristics, but was also dependent of wife’s characteristics and the nature of the relationship as well. Even though he consciously supported her wife’s career, he was threatened by the idea that she would soon be able to contribute to the financial support of the family, and he would be displaced in his role of sole provider. He feared that his wife would see him as less worthwhile person. He was also threatened by the more active role that his wife was now taking in the family decision-making process, because his image of himself as masculine was also dependent of his ability to exercise greater power than she in making decisions. The marriage had been a traditional one and had been a reasonably satisfying for both partners. Wife B had tended to idealize her husband and see him as having more valuable characteristics than she has. Husband B had felt gratified by her wife’s idealization of him. Any problems that had arisen had been worked out through mutual discussion and accommodation. However, wife B had become increasingly aware that she was usually the person who ‘gave in’ whenever there was a difference of opinion. In short, their perception of the marriage in terms of the relationship balances, both the positivity and leadership balances were inequalities. The husband was perceived as having more characteristics and playing more of a leadership role than the wife was. On the other hand, the satisfaction balance was equality. When wife B began to experience more self-esteem and began to act in a more assertive way because of her career, the husband began to perceive wife B as equal to him in masculine traits. Wife B shared this perception. 2.2 The Gender Gap The term ‘gender gap’ is applied to dissimilarities in conceptualization and divergence in accomplishments among males and females. Observed variation between men and women according to Maass (2006), are not biologically determined or due to some universal psychological developmental processes. The gender variations are produced by the practice and maintenance of gender inequality (p.194). The concept of ‘gender’ she added is shaped, defined, and maintained through social influence and social interaction and typically, as evident demonstration, it is thought of in terms of behaviour, such as masculine or feminine behaviour patterns. In addition to the obvious behavioural elements, cognitive factors, such as beliefs, attitudes, values, and expectations, play important functions in the development and preservation of gender-related notions, leading to gender stereotypes (p.195). When a wife is acting as if they had the equal relationship of peers, where each one can liberally offer help to the other, the husband unconsciously does not share that view. He in fact feels put down by a subordinate having the courage to advise he needs help. Women likely to disregard the power issue in relationships and feel ‘hurt’ when their partner does not. Men tend to discount the condition of the relationship, and leave most of the work to the female partner. Men know that their wives cannot stand the home to be disorganized and will do the washing up themselves. In the same way, many men know that wives cannot stand too much estrangement in the relationship and will commence the expressive work of communicating. The least powerful member frequently carries out the emotional and the active tasks of preserving the quality of the relationship. In a relationship where the man is the less powerful partner, he tracks the relationship and brings up the problems, talking more about emotions than the wife does (Rabin 1996, p.104). 2.3 Communication and Equal Power It is in the field of communication that the core respect or lack of respect, for partners’ equal rights is revealed. Subsequently, it is also in this field that therapist can have a crucial impact. The difficulty to overcome was male lack of expression of feelings through circumventing intimate conversations. Even the most vocal of men had trouble being verbal about their feelings. Distinctively challenging was lack of self-disclosure of their problem, qualms, vulnerabilities, and insecurities were not simply exposed by men. Men’s training to conceal their limitation from others is part of their training in power. Powerful individuals do not talk about their struggle to less powerful persons. Thus, equal partner men were especially eager to do it, apparently sensing that their wives’ need for this kind of sharing was important to meet. Equal power seems to rest in the bridging of this fundamental gap. Wives are enthusiastic to invest, not criticize, to assist their partners. Moreover, their male partners are prepared to learn from a woman, a shift in the power hierarchy itself. Equal power makes men more willing to try change and women more forceful about their request. Thus, partners who suffered more intricacy in achieving equality were preoccupied with the lack of emotional sharing (Rabin 1996, p.105). 3. Conclusion and Action The Home Office working party on marriage in consultation with the Department of Health and Social Services characterize ‘an era of new concern about marriage’ in 1979 (Crowe et. al. 2000). Significant factors affecting those who divorced includes educational attainment, employment, earnings, and health. Particularly in educational attainment, it was found that the divorced reflect the general population, although when women divorces without children were weigh against men in the same circumstances the women are likely to have stayed at school longer than men are. Essentially, for both men and women, the issues of caring for the children and the management of limited finances outlined the basis for much anxiety and many ongoing arguments. Furthermore, the concept of individualism stresses the autonomy of the individual who then has a privilege to choose to put his or her own desires beyond the needs of others. Correspondingly, the spread of feminism and the rethinking of women’s role and place within society have given an influential boost to ideas of individual development and autonomy for both men and women. One of this is the notion of parenting that can be shared between the genders and the notion that women are intrinsically more able to care for, to value and care for men and their offspring (Crowe et. al. 2000, p.12). More often than not, the bewilderment felt by couples in permanent relationships are linked to the argument about gender and to the shifting roles of men and women. Misapprehension frequently takes place when the female wants to speak about feelings while the man may more enthusiastically turn to problem solving. Communication problems as well as aggressive interactions may also have their origins in unacknowledged gender disparities. Most couple therapist according to Crowe et. al. (2000) essentially use a combination of techniques since using a single approach for all cases is too inflexible and may divest some couples of the sort of interventions, which could help them (p.34). The psychodynamic-behavioural approach in which the basic principal cause of marital trouble is assumed as the partner’s contradictory internal schemas of themselves and each other. In this case, intervention is focussed both at helping them to appreciate these and to enhance the direct, reality-based communication which will enrich negotiation and disconfirm many of the defective schemas which cause the inconvenience. However, one very effective way of facilitating this decision-making process is to ask the couple to talk directly together in the session while the therapist helps the communication process without biasing the outcome. This ‘behavioural-systems marital therapy’ approach where the therapist is in the central position, guiding the couple to communicate and negotiate more efficiently. The couple must negotiate as far as possible on minute, often insignificant, daily issues since these are less intimidating to the couple than many of the more critical problems that they face and finding a solution to such negligible issues, couples are setting the foundation for successful dialogue on the major ones and even partially solving them as they go. This is imperative since the couple’s sexual relationship is in some way a microcosm of their broad relationship, the insignificant issues they argue and compromise about in the sessions are also often symbolic of the larger issues that separate them (Crowe et. al. 2000, p.40). In relation to wife and husband B, the larger issue is the role of wife B as a homemaker and a mother. Since our intervention is at the level of negotiation about much smaller areas, we hope to give them the tools to be able to deal the major issues later in therapy or even at home in between sessions. In addition, since we will going to use a decentred position in therapy, most of the time we will prepare the couple for continuing this way without the therapist intervention, both between sessions and after the therapy is over. This way, we are providing them with a model of self-help under direction, which should be transportable to the home situation. The predominant goal of our therapy is to improve interaction between the partners, which generally implies increasing their flexibility and repertoire of alternative ways of interacting. As a result, some symptoms or behavioural problems in the individual might progress as well and the symptoms themselves might be resolve or remain the same but no longer be seen by the couple as a serious problem. The topic that couples can talk about may be a momentous aspect of the goals of therapy. Excessively dwelling on the past can cause inconvenience, both because of the cyclic character of the interaction and because it thwart the couple talking about more beneficial matters. Normally, the goal of our therapy should be to augment the repertoire and variety of subjects, which the couple can talk about unreservedly. Overall it matters less what couples talk about than how they discuss it, giving due consideration to each other’s views and wishes. However, some major issues should not be left out, and one crucial point to discuss early in therapy is their standpoint on the future of the relationship. (Crowe et. al. 2000, p.45) Work Cited List Anodea Judith, 1999, Wheels of Life: A Journey Through the Chakras, Published by Llewellyn Worldwide, ISBN: 0875423205 Broome Annabel and Llewelyn Susan P., 1995, Health Psychology: Process and Applications, Published by Nelson Thornes, ISBN: 0412551209 Cahn Dudley D., 1987, Letting Go: A Practical Theory of Relationship Disengagement and Reengagement, Published by SUNY Press, ISBN: 0887064523 Crowe Michael, Ridley Jane, and Skynner Robin, 2000, Therapy with Couples: A Behavioural-systems Approach to Couple, Published by Blackwell Publishing, ISBN: 0632053798 Harvey John H., Wenzel Amy, and Sprecher Susan, 2004, The Handbook of Sexuality in Close Relationships, Published 2004 Routledge US, ISBN: 0805856684 Hutchison Elizabeth D., 2003, Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course, Published by SAGE, ISBN: 0761987657   Maass Vera Sonja, 2006, Women's Group Therapy: Creative Challenges and Options, Published by Springer Publishing Company, ISBN: 0826173845 Rabin Claire Low, 1996, Equal Partners - Good Friends: Empowering Couples Through Therapy, Published 1996 Routledge, ISBN: 0415116155 Saha Nathan, 2005, The Art of Making Relationships, Published by iUniverse, ISBN: 0595354491 Read More