Welcome to Relationships Topic 1: Love, Romance & Reality

ongratulations on reading this. Most people do more training for their driver's licence than for the most important relationship in their lives - and we wonder why there's such a road toll on the street of love!

"Happily ever after" sounds like an exaggerated claim from a fairy story, but a good relationship is one of the best sources of personal happiness. One study found married people are nearly twice as likely as single people to feel good about their lives generally, and that this happy attitude positively affected their work, friendships and parenthood (1).  [Quotations are listed at the end of each topic. See page 1i  for References].

If that sounds vague and hard to measure, consider a British study that found suicide rates per 100,000 people were:

• 9 for married people
• 17 for unmarried people
• 204 for people who had suffered unresolved relationship breakdown

Relationships can be blissful, or dangerous if you don't understand what you're doing.

Studying relationships even makes sense financially when the costs of divorce are so huge. One study estimated that every Australian pays over $300 tax dollars each year towards the costs of divorce, compared to a mere 16 cents invested in marriage education. But by reading these booklets, you're taking a positive step and investing in your future happiness.

here did you get your ideas and beliefs about love? Your parents have probably been the most important influence on your opinions and behaviour. If they have a happy and stable relationship, you've probably inherited reliable information (and, statistically, a better chance at a happy marriage). But one popular educator likes to ask audiences, "How many of you would get married if you knew you'd be as happy as your parents?" Out of an audience of 400, usually only a dozen people put up their hands. Many of us need to learn skills and attitudes our parents can't teach us.

The media is probably the second-biggest influence on your thinking. Movies and sit-coms explore every possible relationship situation and, while we laugh them off, they influence our attitudes in subtle ways. But how expert are their writers about psychology? The Hollywood area has the world's highest income levels but also the highest divorce rate - 78% of first marriages fail.

Many stars are so good at relationships that they marry 4 or 5 times plus affairs! And yet Hollywood claims to be the dream factory, exporting its failed ideas about love to the world (2).

Although this course explores marriage relationships, its principles are also relevant to other relationship situations.

It does not specifically address arranged marriages, polygamy, de facto relationships or same-sex relationships, but all relationships have major common aims - fun, belonging, surviving hard times, communicating, resolving conflict and growing closer.

We hope as you read and respond to this series, you will learn something about yourself, the people close to you and how you can interact together to achieve lasting and fulfilling relationships.

Now let's get down to basics.

What a silly question! Everyone knows about Romeo and Juliet, Napoleon and Josephine, Homer and Marge. Myths of romance are still globally popular, fuelling some 40% of book sales and 90% of songs: "What's love got to do with it?", "What is love anyway?", "It Must've Been Love (But It's Over Now)"... Everyone knows love is, er... you know...

Actually our ideas about love can be vague. You might "love" your grandmother, your spouse, your favourite ice cream and your dog. Most media portrayals emphasise sex and emotion, probably because it's easier to show action and feeling on the big screen. But surely a balanced definition of love involves the total person:

• thinking (stable friendship, logical commitment, common interests)
• emotions (romantic feelings, intimacy, passion)
• physical (sexual chemistry, body language, actions)
• spiritual (deepest beliefs, hopes, ethics, connection to God as source of love).

Let's start with romantic love (because many relationships do). It excites, fascinates and obsesses, propelling people out of the everyday on a magic carpet ride to a whole new world. Romantic love can be positive. It can motivate kindness, bring wonderful feelings that you matter and that life is good, and can make you aware of your spiritual side beyond humdrum life. It can also grow into a deeper and more realistic love. Yet there are dangers in romance. It can blind us to reality and cause an unwise choice of a partner. It can be mere escapism that does not stand up in real life. Its ending can cause pain and discouragement.

What makes romantic love so powerful? In their must-read book Really Relating (3),  David Jansen and Margaret Newman outline some of the forces that exist in the subconscious mind, that part of us that lies beneath the surface of our consciousness like an iceberg - and often causes Titanic disasters.

This list includes:

• sexual desire, a biological drive which is great fun, but no proof of genuine love or compatibility;
• the need to pair, a drive that reproduces life in all living things;
• the need to be closely bonded, a basic human need that develops from our childhood attachment to parents;
• the need for intimacy, to know another and yourself, physically, intellectually and spiritually;
• the desire to feel whole and "completed" by someone else;
• the desire to feel "in love", an expectation created by cultural myths and media stories;
• the wish to love someone, often without asking whether you're making a good choice;
• fantasies about your ideal "dream lover", which your imagination attaches to someone despite what the real person is like;
• the wish for a self-esteem boost from someone appreciating you. The old song says, "You're nobody till somebody loves you", but letting someone else tell you who you are can set you up for manipulation and disappointment;
• the desire for the elusive and unattainable, similar to a dog chasing a car and then not knowing what to do when it catches it;
• addiction: romance gives a "high", causes withdrawal cravings, and can cause dependence.

In short, anything on this list can feel like genuine love but is not - or is, at best, only part of the real thing. This explains why so many intelligent people look back on their romantic decisions and wonder who temporarily removed their brain!

The challenge is that romantic love doesn't last long. (Maybe that's why Shakespeare has Romeo and Juliet die before everyday reality sets in.) For every song or movie that praises passionate love, there is another talking about losing it: "You've lost that loving feeling", "You don't bring me flowers any more" (notice both those songs blame the other person!).

When the initial passion fades, you have at least three choices. One, you can swear you'll never fall in love again and run away to join the Foreign Legion. Two, you can try to find someone else who will make you feel that way again, but this is not easy and probably won't last either. The third option is to welcome the arrival of reality into the relationship, and see it as a challenge to personal growth. When you realise your partner is not an angelic supermodel with the ability to know and meet your every need - and neither are you - then you can start to notice what good qualities really are there, and to build on those. This can be the start of much more realistic love.

ost love relationships start with intensity of passion, and then mature into milder and more seasoned stages.

Note: This doesn't mean they have to become drab and routine, starting out like a lacy negligee and turning into flannelette pyjamas.

The developmental model of marriage accepts that every relationship is different, but here is one way (4), to describe the stages couples go through.

1. Courtship or Romance. Oh the thrills, the chemistry, the desire to show your "best self" and ignore your dark side, the blindness to faults and problems in your lover and yourself.
   
   
2. Reality Bites. "How can you do that if you love me? We can't keep up the perfect act any more. Do I like the real you I'm starting to see? Will you like the real me if I show you?"

3. Conflict. "I want my needs met. I thought it'd be better than this. If only you'd change."
   
   The conflict can be open, angry warfare or hidden, underhanded manipulation and icy cold logic. This is the stage where many people walk out. Many couples believe conflict means its all over, but the wise or lucky ones see conflict as a challenge, and find ways to resolve their conflicts. (We'll cover conflict resolution in Topic 6).
   
   Others hope that if they ignore conflict, it won't affect them. But those who learn to handle conflict will pass this test and progress to the next level.

4. Resolution. To make it here, the couple has learned communication skills and grown as people. They're friends who have been through a lot together. They are confident that if more problems arise, they have strategies and experience at handling them. They can now enjoy the rewards of security, trust, fun, and comfort. They can also be deeply and truly romantic and sexy.

Other writers (5),  describe these stages differently or in more detail, for example:

AND SO

e've discussed "love" as a thrilling infatuation, and how that can mature into love as reality-based friendship and commitment with plenty of passion and fun.
Time for your response (we don't want to do all the talking):

• Did any of this ring true about your relationship or others' relationships?
  
• What stage do you think you're up to? (Don't beat yourself up about this. Try to understand it.)
  
• What changes will it take to get you to resolution stage? How long?
  
• Does your partner agree?
  
• Where would you like to be in 1 year or 10 years from now?

Hopefully this gives you something to talk about. We'll leave the last word to an ancient writer who defined love this way.

"Love is very patient and kind. It's not insecurely jealous or boastful, it's not proud or rude or self-seeking. It doesn't enjoy evil, but thrives on truth. It is always protective, trusting, hopeful and persevering. Love is eternal."
(The Apostle Paul, The New Testament: 1 Corinthians 13:4-6).

REFERENCES:

1. The Journal of Marriage and the Family, cited in "Marriage Partnership", Fall 1994, Illinois
   
2. As John Smith, of Care & Communication Concern, said in a television commercial.
   
3. Random House Australia, 1989
   
4. Adapted from Jansen and Newman, pp.16-18
   
5. See for example, Susan Campbell (1980) The Couple's Journey, Impact Publishers, California; or Ellyn Bader and Peter T. Pearson (1988) In Quest of the Mythical Mate: A Developmental Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment in Couples Therapy, Brunner/Mazel, New York. Material from Doug Sotheren lecture, used by permission.