1. Relationships

2. Do Now: Write down your definition of “love”
Do not put your name with your definition, but instead put below your definition “boy” or “girl” in parentheses

3. Foundations of Healthy Relationships
Relationship – A bond or connection you have with other people
Relationships effect your physical, mental, and social health
You should feel safe, secure, valued, and recognized in your relationships
Healthy Relationship – Based on shared values and interests and mutual respect
Both people benefit and feel comfortable
What are some characteristics of healthy relationships?

4. Family Relationships
Involve your immediate family and extended family; last your entire life
Can provide you with support (physical & emotional)
Can teach you values/morals
Can provide love, care, and encouragement

5. Friendships
Friendship – A significant relationship between 2 people that is based on caring, trust, and consideration
Share confidences, interests, hobbies, or other friends
Similar values
Influence your self-concept and behavior; help you resist negative influences

6. Gender Issues in Friendships
Women’s Friendships:
Emotional
Intimacy
Sharing
Expressions of feelings and self-disclosure
Men’s Friendships:
Activity Based
Barrier to intimacy
May find emotional intimacy easier with women

7. Peer Relationships Cliques Friendships
Small circle of friends usually with similar backgrounds or tastes who exclude people viewed as outsiders
Can be positive (sense of belonging) and negative (based on Stereotypes)
Friendships
Platonic Friendships
Friendship with a member of the opposite gender in which there is affection but the 2 people are not considered a couple
What are the benefits to having a platonic friendship?
Casual Friendships
Close Friendships

8. Dating
1920’s: Finding suitable marriage partners for companionship style marriages
Why do people date today?
Dating can be a learning experience
Learn about others; Learn about yourself
Not everyone dates:
Shyness
Other interests or time constraints
Family traditions or values

9. Dating Avoid risk in dating Common dating problems:
Staying in a relationship because you don’t know how to leave it
Clinging to a person who wishes to end the relationship
Set limits through communication

10. Marriage Reasons for selecting a partner: Love Mutual Attraction
Intelligence
Education
Pleasing personality

11. Concepts of Love & Marriage
Men have more traditional concepts of love and marriage
Men are more likely to not marry without love
Married men are physically and mentally healthier then unmarried men
Both men & women find marriage more satisfying than co-habilitation

12. Conflicts in Relationships
Communication
Division of Household Labor
Money
Employment
Power
Sex

13. Communication
Women create emotional intimacy through talk and self disclosure. This is how they connect with one another.
Most wives don’t count sex as communication or a method for establishing intimacy
Men do so through activity, e.g.; sex

14. Division of Labor
Second shift: women work outside home & perform the majority of housework and childcare.
Women do 2-3 x’s more housework & childcare.
Employed women do less housework
Chores tend to be divided along gender stereotypes

15. Household Labor Gay & Lesbian Couples share more equally
Social class important: working class couples are more likely to share
25-33% of wives believe their husbands are not doing a fair share
Greatest satisfaction: division of chores almost equal.

16. Household work increases for women and decreases for men:
When they are married
Have lower levels of education
Have children

17. Increases the chance of dissolution
Conflicts
Decreases stability & satisfaction
Increases the chance of dissolution
Married couples less likely to break up from lower levels of conflict except in early years.

18. Dissolving Relationships
Love relationships w/o marriage more likely to dissolve
50% of marriages end in divorce
Reasons for women: didn’t get emotional intimacy; husbands didn’t communicate
Reasons for men: didn’t get emotional support & physical affection
Dissatisfaction with sexual relationship
34% had affairs