VII. Dark Side of Romantic Relationships

1. Dysfunctional Relationship Beliefs

- All disagreement is destructive: you don’t have to agree on everything.

- Mind reading is obligatory: your partner does not have to guess what you think and what you want;

- Considering partner incapable of change: if change is important for your partner’s life goals, he or she will change.

2. Jealousy

Jealousy is a protective reaction to a perceived threat of a valued relationship Guerrero and Anderson: jealousy is a combination of hurt, anger, and fear.

Bad-meaning people can exercise wedging: getting between your partner and you because they want to pursue one of you two.

Jealousy is traditionally dealt with in three ways: (a) self-reliance: giving yourself time to cool off, continuing with what you do; (b) self-bolstering: combating jealousy with positive affirmations about yourself; (c) selective ignoring: pretending that what made you jealous is not important. Our author Steve McCornack suggests we discuss the problem openly instead!

3. Betrayal

Betrayal is a set of harmful actions inflected by one person on another: (a) sexual infidelity; (b) emotional infidelity; (c) deception. Betrayal differs from natural disappointment in that it is intentional.

Developing an emotional attachment to someone else is often considered more threatening to the relationship than sexual infidelity for many people.

To deal with betrayal, people use the four strategies as shown above: voice, loyalty, neglect or exit. Voice: actively confront the problem, understand the conditions and work to change the situation; Loyalty: quietly stand by your partner, forgive and forget, trust in that love will heal the pain; Neglect: voice your anger, remind the partner of the transgression, withhold sex and other rewards; Ending: end the relationship altogether.

David Buss poses an important dilemma: what is more upsetting, developing an emotional attachment outside the relationship or being sexually unfaithful?

DISCUSSION STARTER 4: Think about Buss’s challenge. Which would you find more upsetting: discovering that your romantic partner had formed an emotional attachment outside of the relationship or that he or she had been sexually unfaithful? If your partner did betray you in one of these ways, how would you respond?

DISCUSSION STARTER 5: Recall a lie you discovered that was told by a romantic partner. What was the lie about? Did you try to repair your relationship, or end it? How did the nature of the lie influence your decision?

4. Dating Violence

- Violence escalates gradually over time, turning into actual physical abuse when the relationship is stable;

- Violence abusers initially mask their jealousy, anger and need for control making it difficult to see warning signs (see table).

- Violence is untreatable with providing love or support to the abusive partner.

Practice

I. Opening Story: Starting the Discussion

A. Michael’s Instructions: While not obligatory for reading, the opening story in each chapter sets the mood for the rest of the reading. Stephen chooses stories that relate to several concepts in the chapter and talks about these concepts in general terms.

B. Read the opening story and identify three concepts from the chapter that characterize the communication process in the situation.

C. Then: (a) think of similar examples in your life, (b) remember the actions that the hero of the story, you, and other people around you took when they faced the situation; (c) think of the ways these actions influenced everyone involved; (d) suggest the ways which your naïve knowledge of communication offered you as remedies for whatever did not work in communication in that particular instance; (e) discuss how your scientific knowledge of communication changes your perception, and list three things that you would do now if you faced a similar situation in the future

D. An essay on the opening story can be used as an extra credit opportunity. If you would like to get more points, write a six-paragraph essay answering the questions above in good paragraphs (1 opening sentence, 2-3 main idea sentences, 1 summary and transition sentence). Make note that although this assignment is long and fairly difficult, you will be given only 10 points for it. The reason for it is that the extra credit points must be extra hard to get.

ROMEO AND JULIET

Two households, both alike in dignity

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.

—ROMEO AND JULIET, PROLOGUE, 1–8

Consider the enduring appeal of Shakespeare’s greatest romance. Penned in 1595, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet has inspired artistic works as diverse as an 1870 Tchaikovsky orchestral piece, a 1935 ballet by Sergei Prokofiev, a 1957 Jerome Robbins musical (West Side Story), the 1979 Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit Romeo, and even a song on Dire Straits’s 1980 album Making Movies. Film directors have committed The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to celluloid no fewer than eight times, most recently in a version by Baz Luhrmann starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

I was 10 years old when I first saw Italian director Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 movie, and the film forever altered my view of love. The speed with which Romeo and Juliet’s passion overtook them, the futility of their scheme to escape the enmity of their families, and the fatal mistakes that led to their deaths burned dramatic and enduring romantic images into my mind. Although my parents were deeply in love, no one in my family ever talked about romantic love—what it is, where it comes from, how it’s maintained, and what happens when it dies. Instead, romantic love formed an unquestioned backdrop for our lives. Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet explained love for me through intense and poignant visual images. What is it about Shakespeare’s story of romance and despair that resonates with so many people throughout the ages? The saga taps into a number of beliefs many of us share about the nature of romantic love—that it strikes quickly; that communication between lovers flows easily and naturally; that love is dramatic, bigger than life, and at the same time tragic and painful. The very title “The Tragedy . . .” infuses love with a sense of disaster and intrigue that’s irresistible to anyone of romantic heart. But perhaps the most important belief conveyed by the story is that love must be intensely passionate to qualify as “real.” If Romeo and Juliet were so impassioned that they were willing to die for their love, we should be too.

But of course theater isn’t reality. Although The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet forced me to reflect for the first time on the nature of love, it also led me away from the truth. Love lived is rarely the same as love imagined. Real-life romance is much grittier—and ultimately more satisfying—than stylized, theatrical portrayals. As I stumbled through my first fledgling romances, I quickly learned that I knew very little about how to build and maintain real love, much less how to use communication to sustain my relationships through the inevitable problems and challenges. Eventually I came to realize that the quiet romance my parents shared—a nondramatic bond rooted in the joint sharing of everyday triumphs and tragedies—was true love and Romeo and Juliet merely fiction.