10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR LESSON 4. MATURITY IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS 1.INTIMACY: SELECTING, ENTERING, AND EXITING RELATIONSHIPS 2.NEGOTIATING AN EQUITABLE RELATIONSHIP 3.NEGOTIATING SEXUAL INTIMACY 4.OVERCOMING GENDER BIAS IN RELATIONSHIPS 5.STRUCTURING WHOLESOME, BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIPS 6.A MODEL STYLE OF RELATING IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships EXERCISES RELATED TO MATURITY IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS When you finish this presentation, you will be asked to write and discuss the following items: 1.If you feel your attitudes toward both or either genders have changed as a result of studying this lesson, describe that change and explain what caused the change. 2.Imagine you, with current goals and life style, are suddenly in the body of the opposite gender: now, being the opposite gender, what about the way the opposite sex relates to you would you find unacceptable and want to change? Does this change your comprehension of the way the genders interact? 3.Ask yourself if you are now in a better position to serve as a healthy model of how to relate to both genders and to coach youth with respect to gender relations. 4.Taking the topics under the five sections just covered into consideration, if a youth had a concern related to one of these topics about gender and sexual relations, how would you coach him/her with respect to that topic? 5.Describe whether and how you are now better prepared to coach a youth with respect to an intimate relationship. Give hypothetical examples of coaching a youth with respect to their intimate relationship.

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships 1. INTIMACY: SELECTING, ENTERING, AND EXITING RELATIONSHIPS 1.Ability to enter close personal relationships, be mutually facilitating, respect each other’s freedom without having to either maintain distance or possess 2.Aware of your criteria for selecting an intimate partner and ability to change when criteria seem unhealthy 3.Restricting choices for intimate partners to those having symmetrical assets and/or characteristics 4.Ability to proceed with caution and wisdom before revising the status of a relationship to a deeper or more intimate or committed level 5.Willing to honestly state one’s intentions with respect to relationships and let chips fall where they may 6.Ability and willingness to inform the other when your criteria has changed and be receptive if and when they may do the same 7.Ability to gracefully accept the loss of a desired or the unavailability of a coveted relationship 8.Able to be free to let go of a relationship when it is no longer tenable

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships 2. NEGOTIATING AN EQUITABLE RELATIONSHIP 1.Lack of envy, jealousy, resentment, or denigration toward those having entered into a coveted relationship 2.Unwilling to: relate to another person as an object; relate on the basis of ulterior motives; choose a friend or intimate partner on the basis of what they can do for you, or how they could make you look or affect your status 3.When a relationship has become intimate, unwilling to let family or in-laws or other third parties cause conflict or polarize the relationship 4.Ability to clarify and stand by one’s position that the foundation the relationship should unequivocally based on is adhering to positive reciprocity with respect to choices, distribution of responsibilities, and resources and negative actions should be dealt with using problem solving and constructive correction and not negative reciprocity 5.Ability to act with charity toward the partner when they become disadvantaged or when they lose in some manner and ability to have humility when one has the advantage or won

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships 3. NEGOTIATING SEXUAL INTIMACY 1.Ability to communicate your deeper feelings of love for your mate before, during, and after having sex without expecting them to reciprocate or mirror exactly your expressions and showing appreciation for their expression of such feelings for you. 2.Communicating openly with your mate, in a genuine give and take, when you are ready for sex and what you want and feel during sex. 3.Without being threatened, becoming jealous, insecure, or feeling guilt of shame: 1.Ability to share, sensitively and diplomatically, with your mate your deepest and most secret sexual desires, fantasies, and criteria for fulfillment. 2.Ability to let your mate share with you their deepest and most secret sexual desires, fantasies, and criteria for fulfillment. 4.Ability to attempt to experiment freely with new or unfamiliar sexual techniques or acts but not insisting that the sex act conform exactly to your preferences. 5.Ability to talk about your true feelings about these agreed upon sexual activities before, during, and after the sex act with candor and without making your partner feel guilty or inferior. 6.Ability to negotiate compromises with respect to sexual activities.

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships 4. OVERCOMING GENDER BIAS IN RELATIONSHIPS 1.Ability to detect one’s gender biases and differential patterns of interaction with genders. 2.Awareness of your own gender self-concept and feelings related to it. 3.Efforts to gain insight into the origins of one’s positive and negative gender biases stemming from exposure to subcultural positive or negative gender biases, early interactions with family members of both genders, physical or psychological sexual experiences with either gender throughout one’s life history, and, especially, defining moments or formative influences resulting from experiences with an intimate partner as an adolescent or adult. 4.Ability to understand, be understanding and accommodating toward the structural and genetically determined differences between the genders and not spurn, take advantage of, or exploit physical differences and inequalities and structurally determined needs. 5.Ability to understand, accept, and promote equipotentiality for mental and psychological development by overcoming sex biases of anachronistic cultural structures. 6.Ability to understand and accept the hormonal differences between the genders and avoid denigration of behaviors that are to a large extent under the control of hormones and physiological triggers. 7.Ability to critique one’s conception of what the ideal manner of relating to either gender should be.

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships 5. STRUCTURING WHOLESOME, BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIPS 1.Promoting cultural and life history tolerance by accepting differences in values, beliefs and ethics while graciously explaining the possibility of other’s legitimately and sincerely holding different values, beliefs and ethics 2.In any relationship, avoiding assuming or requiring complementary roles that have to be: domineering or submissive; superior or inferior; suspicious or trusting; dependent upon or responsible for; the parent or the child; leader or follower; abuser or abused; sadistic or masochistic; exploitative or gullible; critic or defender; consistently take an unforgiving or longsuffering role 3.Ability to detect repetitive scenarios and long term patterns that are harmful to the relationship, openly address and discuss the pattern with one’s partner, and renegotiate the relationship or alter patterns with understanding, acceptance, and mutual support 4.Ability to un-begrudgingly make compromises; use negotiation and not having to win or be in control

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships 6. A MODEL STYLE OF RELATING IN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS 1.Ability and willingness to listen deeply and empathically to one’s partner and to make sure you have understood what they are trying to communicate. 2.Willingness to mutually facilitate one another with respect to personal goals or careers and equitably adapt to required changes.

10/23/2015 Copyright Edwin L Young, PhD Level 7: UNIVERSALISM (CONT.) Maturity in Intimate Relationships Exercises Related To Maturity In Intimate Relationships 1.If you feel your attitudes toward both or either genders have changed as a result of studying this lesson, describe that change and explain what caused the change. 2.Imagine you, with current goals and life style, are suddenly in the body of the opposite gender: now, being the opposite gender, what about the way the opposite sex relates to you would you find unacceptable and want to change? Does this change your comprehension of the way the genders interact? 3.Ask yourself if you are now in a better position to serve as a healthy model of how to relate to both genders and to coach youth with respect to gender relations. 4.Taking the topics under the five sections just covered into consideration, if a youth had a concern related to one of these topics about gender and sexual relations, how would you coach him/her with respect to that topic? 5.Describe whether and how you are now better prepared to coach a youth with respect to an intimate relationship. Give hypothetical examples of coaching a youth with respect to their intimate relationship.