Love and Communication Devante Lindsey, Stephanie Linares, Ericka Limiac, Quinn Le, Jason Lai

● Friendship and love helps control our physical and mental well-being by the relieving the stress that one would have and it sometimes helps with our emotions. ○ The levels of satisfaction and happiness is key with any relationship. ● Friendship is the main foundation for every relationship one may be in such as a love friendship or a best friend relationship. ○ But it needs to start with the levels of acceptance, trust, and respect. ● The most important for every relationship is the communication with one another. Friendship and Love

● Marriage was once an acceptance for sexual intercourse; but with the phrase of “friends with benefits”, people have sexually intercourse outisde of marraige. ● People who are less permissive in their sexual attitudes tend to accept sexual involvement and people who are less committed to a relationship are less likely to be sexually involved. ● Men and women tend to have different perspective on love and sex. ● Gay men are likely to separate love and sex, but value more on the love. ● Lesbian men tend to engage in sex less often than gay male couples or hetero couples. ● Celibacy abstention from sexual activity ○ may have a better appreciation of the nature of friendship and long-term partnership ● Asexual means that the person is not attracted to either sex.. Love and Sexuality

Jealousy Jealousy is the aversive response that occurs because of a partner's real, imaginary, or likely involvement with a 3rd person. Men are more upset by their partner's sexual infidelity, while women are more upset by their partner's emotional infidelity. Can be unreasonable, can be fears, fantasies or realistic

Jealousy Work on the underlying causes of our insecurity, then we can deal effectively with our irrational jealousy. Jealousy may not be irrational. When relationship boundaries are violated, the relationship with the third party may be modified or ended.

Jealousy However there are no set rules for dealing with jealousy. There are no simple answers. Committed relationships are not always sexually exclusive. Extradyadic Involvement, is sexual or romantic relationships outside of a primary couple. They exist in several forms.

Making Love Last: Passion to Intimacy ❖ passionate or romantic love may change to a quieter and/or more lasting love ❖ love is the most important element of humanity yet it comes and goes ❖ Intimate Love- the kind of love that last and is based on commitment, caring, and self-disclosure ➢ knows he or she can count on each other ➢ excitement comes from the achievement of the other goals as well as from the relationship

Making Love Last Cont. ❖ Commitment- important component of intimate love and is a determination, based on conscious choice, to continue a relationship or a marriage ❖ commitment involves a promise of a shared future, a promise to be together, no matter what ❖ Caring- making another person’s needs as important as your own ❖ A philosopher, named Martin Buber, feels caring requires a “I-Thou” relationship

Making Love Last Cont. ❖ I-Thou relationship is when each person in the relationship is treated as a Thou ❖ Thou is a person whose life is valued as an end in itself ➢ basically it’s someone who isn’t just being used ❖ Self-disclosure- the revealing of personal information that others would not ordinarily know because of its riskiness ➢ basically its trust ❖ Self-disclosure deepens others’ understanding of us

Making Love Last Cont. ❖ It also deepens our own understanding ❖ Without it we would remain opaque and hidden ❖ These three principles, commitment, caring, and self- disclosure, help transform love ❖ Perhaps the most important thing for maintaining love is a person’s words and actions ❖ For all these principles to really take affect a person needs clear communication, which in turn can take the guesswork out of relationships, subdue jealousy, increase satisfaction, and cause therapist to retire early

The Nature of Communication Communication- transactional process by which we use symbols, such as words, gestures, movements to establish human contact, exchange information and reinforce or change our own attitudes and behaviors and those of others.

3 Contexts of Communication 1.The Cultural Context 2.The Social Context 3.The Psychological Context

The Cultural Context Traditionally, we view sexuality negatively. Children and adolescents learned not to talk about sex. Ex: Censorship in media

The Social Context Refers to the roles we play in society and members of different groups. -Men and Women = Masculine and Feminine Roles. -Traditional marital roles

Psychological Context How people communicate. Personality characteristics affect how we communicate, change, or manage conflict. Ex: sensitivity, low or high self esteem

Nonverbal Communication -Proximity: Nearness in physical space and time. Ex: Where we sit or stand -Eye contact: How two people look at each other. Ex: when they can’t take their eyes off of each other, they probably have a strong attraction to one another. -Touching: The most basic of all senses. Can signal intimacy. Ex: touch of love, touch of violation

Developing Communication Skills Good communication is the basis for a healthy, intimate relationship and good sex. So why is it so difficult for couples to talk about sex?

Obstacles to Sexual Discussions ➢ Sex is taboo, it usually was never discussed to us growing up ➢ We don’t want to be identified as “sexually obsessive” ➢ Talking about sex can put the relationship at risk ➢ Lack of sex education

Keys to Good Communication ➢ Self-Disclosure: being able to disclose feelings and personal thoughts can enhance relationships ➢ Trust: self-disclosure requires trust because it makes us vulnerable. ➢ Feedback:ongoing process of restating, checking the accuracy of, questioning, and clarifying messages. Constructive feedback is the most important feedback.

Conflict & Intimacy ➢ Conflict- process in which people perceive incompatible goals and interference from others in achieving their goals. ➢ Conflict in a relationship is a sign of growth, depending on how the issue is dealt with. ➢ Conflict resolution

-Speed Dating -Blind Dates DATING

-Love Contract Workplace Romance

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