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In my 20s, I had a slew of friends I would hang out with. Some were childhood friends, some were college friends, and some were friends I met at work. As I aged into my 30s and 40s, some of those friendships fizzled out naturally due to people moving, getting married, having kids, changing careers, or no longer sharing the same interests and ideas of fun…….Continue reading….
Source: Very Well Mind
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Early adolescent relationships are characterized by companionship, reciprocity, and sexual experiences. As emerging adults mature, they begin to develop attachment and caring qualities in their relationships, including love, bonding, security, and support for partners. Earlier relationships also tend to be shorter and exhibit greater involvement with social networks.
Later relationships are often marked by shrinking social networks, as the couple dedicates more time to each other than to associates Later relationships also tend to exhibit higher levels of commitment. Most psychologists and relationship counselors predict a decline of intimacy and passion over time, replaced by a greater emphasis on companionate love (differing from adolescent companionate love in the caring, committed, and partner-focused qualities).
However, couple studies have found no decline in intimacy nor in the importance of sex, intimacy, and passionate love to those in longer or later-life relationships. Older people tend to be more satisfied in their relationships, but face greater barriers to entering new relationships than do younger or middle-aged people.
Older women in particular face social, demographic, and personal barriers; men aged 65 and older are nearly twice as likely as women to be married, and widowers are nearly three times as likely to be dating 18 months following their partner’s loss compared to widows.
The term significant other gained popularity during the 1990s, reflecting the growing acceptance of ‘non-heteronormative’ relationships. It can be used to avoid making an assumption about the gender or relational status (e.g. married, cohabitating, civil union) of a person’s intimate partner. Cohabiting relationships continue to rise, with many partners considering cohabitation to be nearly as serious as, or a substitute for, marriage.
Although nontraditional relationships continue to rise, marriage still makes up the majority of relationships except among emerging adults. It is also still considered by many to occupy a place of greater importance among family and social structures. In ancient times, parent–child relationships were often marked by fear, either of rebellion or abandonment, resulting in the strict filial roles in, for example, ancient Rome and China.
Freud conceived of the Oedipal complex, the supposed obsession that young boys have towards their mothers and the accompanying fear and rivalry with their fathers, and the Electra complex, in which the young girl feels that her mother has castrated her and therefore becomes obsessed with her father. Freud’s ideas influenced thought on parent–child relationships for decades.
Another early conception of parent–child relationships was that love only existed as a biological drive for survival and comfort on the child’s part. In 1958, however, Harry Harlow’s study ” The Hot Wire Mother” comparing rhesus’ reactions to wire surrogate “mothers” and cloth “mothers” demonstrated that affection was wanted by any caregiver and not only the surrogate mothers.
The study laid the groundwork for Mary Ainsworth’s attachment theory, showing how the infants used their cloth “mothers” as a secure base from which to explore . In a series of studies using the strange situation, a scenario in which an infant is separated from then reunited with the parent, Ainsworth defined three styles of parent-child relationship.
- Securely attached infants miss the parent, greet them happily upon return, and show normal exploration and lack of fear when the parent is present.
- Insecure avoidant infants show little distress upon separation and ignore the caregiver when they return. They explore little when the parent is present. Infants also tend to be emotionally unavailable.
- Insecure ambivalent infants are highly distressed by separation, but continue to be distressed upon the parent’s return; these infants also explore little and display fear even when the parent is present.
- Some psychologists have suggested a fourth attachment style, disorganized, so called because the infants’ behavior appeared disorganized or disoriented.
Secure attachments are linked to better social and academic outcomes and greater moral internalization as research proposes the idea that parent-child relationships play a key role in the developing morality of young children. Secure attachments are also linked to less delinquency for children, and have been found to predict later relationship success.
For most of the late nineteenth through the twentieth century, the perception of adolescent-parent relationships was that of a time of upheaval. G. Stanley Hall popularized the “Sturm und drang”, or storm and stress, model of adolescence. Psychological research has painted a much tamer picture. Although adolescents are more risk-seeking and emerging adults have higher suicide rates.
They are largely less volatile and have much better relationships with their parents than the storm and stress model would suggest Early adolescence often marks a decline in parent-child relationship quality, which then re-stabilizes through adolescence, and relationships are sometimes better in late adolescence than prior to its onset.
With the increasing average age at marriage and more youths attending college and living with parents past their teens, the concept of a new period called emerging adulthood gained popularity. This is considered a period of uncertainty and experimentation between adolescence and adulthood. During this stage, interpersonal relationships are considered to be more self-focused, and relationships with parents may still be influential.
Abusive relationships involve either maltreatment or violence such as physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional maltreatment. Abusive relationships within the family are very prevalent in the United States and usually involve women or children as victims. Common individual factors for abusers include low self-esteem, poor impulse control, external locus of control, drug use, alcohol abuse, and negative affectivity.
There are also external factors such as stress, poverty, and loss which contribute to likelihood of abuse. Codependency initially focused on a codependent partner enabling substance abuse, but it has become more broadly defined to describe a dysfunctional relationship with extreme dependence on or preoccupation with another person. There are some who even refer to codependency as an addiction to the relationship.
Generally, narcissists show less empathy in relationships and view love pragmatically or as a game involving others’ emotions. Narcissists are usually part of the personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). In relationships, they tend to affect the other person as they attempt to use them to enhance their self-esteem. Specific types of NPD make a person incapable of having an interpersonal relationship due to their being cunning, envious, and contemptuous.
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