VI. Maintaining Romantic Relationships

1. Practice Relational Maintenance (Laura Stafford, Dan Canary):

(a) maintain positivity (make communication enjoyable, provide compliments, be romantic, fun and interesting; BUT don’t look for problems or complain; don’t openly criticize or ridicule your partner, don’t ask for favors or gifts); (b) Practice openness (talk periodically about your relationship, encourage disclosure, constructively share relationship feeling, wants and needs; BUT: don’t avoid relationship talks; avoid becoming defensive; don’t gossip about your partner with others). (c) Give assurances (tell your partner how committed you are to the relationship; tell him or her you believe in the future; do things to demonstrate your love; BUT don’t flirt with others, don’t warn your partner not to count for long-term relationship; don’t avoid pledging love or fidelity); (d) Share activities (schedule some time for your partner; find interest in your partner’s hobbies; invite him or her to join your leisure activities; BUT don’t make yourself too busy; don’t discourage his or her hobbies; don’t specifically exclude your partner from what you do). (e) Share tasks (share home responsibilities; ask how you can help out; handle work before your partner asks you to; BUT don’t strategically avoid doing the work; don’t avoid asking your partner how you can help; don’t expect your partner to run errands and do chores for you. (f) Gain approval from your social networks (Felmlee) (tell your partner how you like his or her friends and family; invite them to share your time; sacrifice your own needs and desires to meet those of your partner’s friends and family (give partner time with his or her family, if needed); BUT don’t criticize partner’s family; don’t avoid encounters with partner’s family; don’t demand that partner choose between you and his or her family).

2. Strategies to Deal with Relationship Crises

DISCUSSION STARTER 3: Think about your most recent romantic crisis. Which approach—voice, loyalty, exit, or neglect—best captures how you dealt with the situation? What happened as a result of your strategy? Now imagine that a similar crisis happens again in the future. Could you use the voice strategy to deal with it? If so, what would you say?

Caryl Rusbult: Strategies are active or passive; constructive or destructive. Active and constructive strategies are the best.

1. Voice Strategy: let your partner know how you feel about a problem as soon as it arises and ask for his or her perspective; name the problem and address the root cause; consider whether and how the problem can be addressed (make sure you define SMART goals)

2. Loyalty Strategy: takes place when people take a passive constructive approach. Without discussing the problem you do work to improve the situation for the future.

3. Exit Strategy: takes place when people take a passive destructive approach, discussing ways to end the relationship.

4. Neglect Strategy: taking a passive destructive approach, ignoring the problem by distancing from your partner.

3. Deciding Whether to Maintain

There are four factors in the decision as to whether one should maintain or give up the relationship: (a) the degree to which both of you consider yourselves being in love; (b) equity; (c) similarity; (d) network support.

You ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you still in love with your partner?

2. Is your relationship equitable?

3. Do you and your partner share values and personality traits?

4. Do your family and friends support your relationship?

Use of Algebraic Model (Michael’s Sound Bite 10-3): Use the algebraic model discussed above to decide whether costs of maintaining the relationship outweigh the benefits.