Taking care of a relationship means dealing with problems that threaten their safety and well-being and being ready to support your partner at any time. This is quite simple to do, until the passion has cooled down. Family therapist Steven Stosny explains how to stay committed to each other after this.
Intimacy between partners blossoms when passion subsides. In the same way, the stage of conscious care and commitment in a relationship comes to replace weakening intimacy. Recognition of each other, the desire to share (information, impressions), mutual acceptance — all that characterizes the initial stage of the rapprochement of lovers — cannot last forever. At some point, this problem is solved.
You’ve heard each other’s stories, felt the pain, and shared the joy your partner has experienced in the past. Agreeing to share pain and joy in the future is already a matter of mutual obligations, devotion. Devotion assumes that there is a clear connection between partners, similar to an invisible lifeline, which will insure in case of anything, but does not interfere with the independent development of each. If necessary, you can maintain this connection at a distance, enduring long separations. You are connected even when you disagree with each other, even when you quarrel.
Cohesion and isolation
People who value their privacy highly may perceive such a connection as a threat. Everyone has their own boundaries of personal space. They are determined by temperament, early attachment experience, number of family members, and emotional management skills.
An introvert is likely to need more space for privacy. Due to the strong excitation of the cerebral cortex, introverts avoid its excessive stimulation. They need to be alone for at least a short time to recover, to «recharge their batteries.» Extroverts, on the contrary, are looking for additional external stimuli to stimulate the brain. Therefore, it is difficult for them to be without a relationship for a long time, isolation depresses them, and social activity nourishes them.
The need for privacy also depends on how many people live in the house.
This contradiction between an introvert who perceives a private, secluded life as a blessing, and an extrovert who interprets loneliness as a curse, complicates their relationship, and only sympathy and mutual understanding can relieve tension.
The need for privacy also depends on how many people live in the house. Therefore, when discussing the characteristics of living together, couples need to take into account the number of members of their current family, and in addition, the number of children in the homes where they grew up.
Proximity regulation
Adjusting the degree of intimacy in an ongoing relationship is not easy. After the first, romantic phase is over, partners rarely manage to agree on how close or how far they should be.
For each of us, the desired degree of intimacy:
- varies greatly from week to week, from day to day, even at every moment in time,
- may be cyclical
- depends on the level of stress: it is especially important for some to feel the closeness of a partner in a stressful situation, while others, on the contrary, need to move away for a while.
Our ability to manage distance shows how successful we are at building relationships.
Commitment to a relationship means partners openly discuss their wants and needs.
Unfortunately, the following three unfavorable styles of regulation are quite common:
- Using anger as a regulator: phrases like “leave me alone!” or one of the partners looking for a reason to quarrel and get the opportunity to emotionally withdraw for a while.
- Blaming a partner to justify the need for distance: “You push all the time!” or «You’re very boring.»
- Interpretation of an attempt to regulate the distance in a relationship as rejection and rejection.
Commitment to a relationship requires that partners: first, recognize and respect each other’s different needs for both intimacy and privacy (there is nothing illegal in asking for one or the other), and second, openly discuss their wants and needs.
Partners need to learn to say to each other: “I love you, I really need you, I feel good with you, but at the moment I need to be alone for a while. I hope this won’t be a problem for you.» “I respect your need for personal space, but at this moment I really need to feel connected with you, I need your closeness and support. I hope this won’t be a problem for you.»
Meeting understanding, sympathy and at the same time perseverance, the partner most likely wants to do the best thing for a loved one. This is how loyalty is shown in a relationship.
About the author: Steven Stosny is a psychologist, family therapist, professor at the University of Maryland (USA), and author of several books, including co-author (with Patricia Love) of Honey, We Need to Talk About Our Relationship… How to Do It Without Fighting ( Sofia, 2008).