Module 4: Discussion Board
Prompt:
What type of advice do you think is most important to consider with someone who wants to maintain a relationship? How might your advice change or be the ‘same based on the type of relationship (friendship, romantic, long stance, proximal, rends-wit-benefits) that people wish to maintain?
Based on your own experiences and what you’ve read about relational maintenance, give 3 pieces of advice for someone who wants to be better at maintaining relationships.
Module 4 discussion: Relationship
The “relationship” is one of the most complex stages of life, as it reflects our inner feelings for our loved ones and it shows the connection and bond with each other. Each relationship reflects different types of love and various feelings but we discover a new phase of love through the first intimate touch or first kiss of our youth which creates a new rush of current and gives us Goosebumps in our bodies (Guerrero et al. 2021, p.275). But maintaining a relationship is not as easy as the feelings, because we have to invest ourselves more and make some adjustments in every relationship. In a sexual relationship, the emotional investment of partners is the most crucial thing to maintain the relationship as it shows his or her interest in that person.
Love relationships have various stages and each stage needs different involvements to maintain the relationship. If I consider the long-distance relationship as my demonstration, my experiences suggest that communicating with your partner is the most important key to surviving your relationship for a long time. Once I was involved with a mariner and due to his job, our distances drifted apart. Even lack of communication between ourselves also made the relationship hard to maintain. The relationship became the main reason for my emotional breakdown and left my heart broken (Guerrero et al. 2021, p.275). My second opinion would be about the concept of “friends with benefits” and the related sexual feelings. The concept of “friends with benefits” often leads us to have feelings for each other and end up being heartbroken.
In my early life of the ’20s, again I was involved with one of my friends in a sexual relationship and it was based on mutual consideration of both sides. Slowly my sexual pleasure with him led me to have feelings for him but I was too afraid to confess my feelings, as I thought that it might ruin our relationship (Guerrero et al. 2021, p.275). But I took the courageous step to confess my feelings and then I discovered that he also started to feel for me. Although our ending was not particularly good.
Another experience made me realize how much true love can have an impact on sexual intimacy with a romantic partner. It also has left a rush in my veins and a desire to be with him more and more. My third suggestion would be to reflect the partner’s emotional investment equally in the relationship to explore more love for a long time.
Reference
Guerrero, L. K., Andersen, P. A., & Afifi, W. A. (2021). Close encounters: Communication in relationships (6th ed.). Sage.
