Benefits of long-term relationships
Please no plagiarism and make sure you are able to access all resource on your own before you bid. One of the references must come from Broderick and Blewitt (2015). I need this completed by 01/27/18 at 3pm. Respond to at least two of my colleagues using one or more of the following approaches:
· Offer and support one strategy or counseling approach that might be used to provide services to an adult facing the relationship challenges identified by a colleague.
· Expand on a colleague’s identified benefits and challenges by including considerations of the impacts of culture, gender, and sexual orientation.
(A. Wit)
Finding a life partner is a priority in societies around the world. In the United States, nearly 90% of adults will marry at least once, and this does not include other long-term committed relationships in which partners do not marry (Gladding, 2015). Intimacy with a mate improves well-being and life-fulfillment while relationship conflict can be a major source of distress. Couple therapy is expected to achieve tremendous growth over the next decade given the benefits and challenges of long-term relationships (Gurman, Lebow, & Synder, 2015).
Motivations for pair bonding
Intimacy and love play a primary role in adult identity development (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Pair bonding in adulthood mimics, in many ways, the attachment to a primary caregiver during infancy and childhood (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Partners in committed relationships can offer each other emotional and practical support similar to the support they received from their parents (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Human beings are drawn towards connection with others. Biologically, the species depends on pair bonding for reproduction, and infants and young children depend on caregivers to provide basic needs. Despite the development of independence, adults can achieve more when they couple than they can alone.
Benefits of long-term relationships
Benefits of pair bonding include personal growth, self-awareness, improved emotional well-being, improved physical health, longer life, security, stable employment, and better relationships with children (Gladding, 2015). From an emotional perspective, partnership increases feelings of joy and self-worth which influence the motivation to physically care for one’s health and the health of others. Individuals that report “being in love” have high oxytocin and dopamine levels which are related to the body’s regulation of rewards and motivation (Fletcher, Simpson, Campbell, & Overall, 2015). From a practical standpoint, long-term relationships insulate partners from financial troubles, serious illness, caregiving for other family members, or other stressors by distributing burden. Division of labor allows for more leisure time and opportunity to spend time with children or other family members.
Challenges of long-term relationships
While committed relationships are the primary source of intimacy and support for adults, the breakdown of relationships has significant cost (Gurman, Lebow, & Snyder, 2015). Relationship distress can cause anxiety, depression, substance abuse, chronic medical ailments, and health risk behaviors (Gurman, Lebow, & Snyder, 2015). Additionally, children who experience adult relationship distress are at high risk for anxiety, depression, conduct problems, and illness (Gurman, Lebow, & Snyder, 2015). Troubled romantic relationships may be considered a health risk. The body’s stress response is activated during relationship conflict. When a person feels threatened they can experience rapid heartbeat, racing thoughts, and weakness of limbs. Alternately, there are also health risks of being alone such as lower life expectancy, increased depression, and increased vulnerability to illness (Fletcher, Simpson, Campbell, & Overall, 2015). Beyond the physical and mental implications, there are practical repressions of relationship dissolution. Divorce or separation often results in decreased financial resources, legal proceedings, and possible job loss due to the need for childcare.
Seeking couples counseling
After exploring the benefits of long-term relationships and the implications of relationship conflict is easy to see why couples seek counseling. There are merits of couple enrichment and conflict resolution therapy. Proactive therapies such as pre-marital counseling and marriage education/enrichment programs enhance communication skills, conflict resolution skills, financial and parenting dialog, problem-solving skills, role perceptions, and personality differences (Gladding, 2015). Couples seeking treatment for relationships distress may benefit from various approaches including behavioral therapies, cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotionally-focused therapy, Gottman couple therapy, or solution-focused therapy. Research shows that couples therapy works (Gladding, 2015). Success is not measured simply by nature of an intact relationship, but rather by the well-being of the individuals. Given the importance of intimacy in life satisfaction, relationship improvement is a good investment.
Summary
Being in a committed, long-term relationship can influence fulfillment, life-expectancy, quality of life, and overall wellbeing. There are many benefits to pair bonding when compared to the costs of being alone. Couples may seek counseling across the span of their relationship from pre-marital counseling to divorce counseling. Most approaches focus on how the relationship is functioning, how the partners feel about the functioning, reducing negative reciprocity, and building positive interactions (Gladding, 2015). As the field of marriage and couple therapy expands, interventions for relationship enhancement and dissolution prevention can expect to grow.
References
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2015). The life span: Human development for helping professionals (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education
Fletcher, G., Simpson, J., Campbell, L., & Overall, N., (2015)Pair-bonding, romantic love, and evolution: the curious case of homo sapiens. Perspective on Psychological Science. 1(10), 20-36.
Gladding, S. T. (2015). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Gurman, A. S., Lebow, J. L.., & Snyder, D. (2015). Clinical handbook of couple therapy (5th ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
(S. Mor)
The first thing that comes to mind when I read about pair bonding is the old saying there is someone out there for everyone. Pair bonding equates to finding your soul mate or perfect match, which the majority of times is not what we find in the majority of marriages. Marriage sometimes is fueled by a deep desire or fear of being alone, physical attraction is strong in the beginning, but when reality slaps you in the face and the burning love wears off; the divorce rate grows higher and higher daily. People have a desire to form relationships that are valuable and adaptable (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015).
Influences and Motivations
Pair bonding gives us the security we need and the removal of feeling as if something is missing in our lives. The necessity of the attraction is equitable to hunger pains in our stomach which prompt us to eat. The closeness we feel in pair bonding initiates feelings of well-being, sexual relationships, and till-death-do-us-part relationships (Brandell, 2010). Research established pair bonding begins during infancy paving the way for the type of relationships we create in the adult stages in life (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). The attachments influence our behaviors creating motivations that fulfill us with needs including care giving, sexual, and security (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). The feelings of euphoria and completeness we yearn for in creating, maintaining, and completing life-long relationships provide a security in our lives where two is always better than one.
Benefits and Challenges in Long-Term Relationships
Long term relationships offer many benefits that people do not realize until the relationship has ended. Living a life of harmony, team mates, sharing and executing their hopes and dreams, creating the same goals, supporting each other in achieving separate goals, the security of never feeling alone, and the joys that come with pursuing a happily ever after. One of the greatest lessons my mother taught me during her marriage to my father which lasted 48 years until he passed, helped me understand an important element which helps keep a marriage on the right track. She expressed that without a doubt people normally marry because they feel they have fallen in love, which is essential; but it is also vital to like the person you will spend the rest of your life with. Love in a relationship may be present and it is possible to dislike the person you love for reasons that only you will know. However when you like and love your mate the relationship creates an abundance of ways that continually help you fall in love over and over through the life long term we are seeking. Marriages were in the past before the divorce rate became extremely high, created a bond where two individuals that “were tightly locked into it and could not easily get out of it by legal means, but they knew very well that the time was probably not far off when death was going to part them” ( Pinsof, 2002).
In relationships a decision everyday has to be made that they have willingly chosen to be in the union that they created with their mate. Challenges will occur with trials and tribulations which may cause you to question every choice that you have made in your life. The day to day challenges that try to infiltrate relationships will only become unbearable if you give power to the irritations and challenges you are facing. In a team it breeds success because the support comes from each person, where I am weak you are strong and vice versus. Doubt, suspicion, limited trust, and wrong advice create disadvantages that outweigh the bond which was created and should continuously grow in the relationship. Two people from different relationship backgrounds have to create their own formula for relationship success that is void of imitating the experiences they know from the relationships they watched from their caregiver. For example if I was raised in a two parent loving household with respect, love, and a solid foundation my idea of a relationship may not be the same as my partner. My partner may come from parents that have divorced multiple times with the presence of drama and abuse. Individuals that do not want to grow close to people live in avoidant stage, because their security is to not open up to anyone because they are unable to trust people (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Feelings of insecurity or doubts about receiving true love from their parent are created in people that exhibit anxious-ambivalent stage (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). People that have no problem letting their guards down, without the fear of losing their love interest live in a secure stage which creates a harmonious bond (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015).
Couples in Counseling
Couples seeking therapy in agreement helps them understand the commitment they each have to the union they created. Counseling before a union, during the course of the relationship, and even after when death or divorce presents itself allows individuals to cope and transition throughout the union. Several theories will be useful depending on the issues that need to be resolved or initiated in the relationship. Mates that are seeking an increase in affection or closeness the Gottman Method is useful, because it helps each individual to keep calm while gaining clarity about what they are trying to express (Gladding, 2015). Another theory I am fond of is Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy for many reasons, but mainly to help make the bond much tighter in the relationship (Gladding, 2015). The understanding also may be to initiate individual counseling in order to build each person’s confidence and self-esteem in order to solidify the bond that appears to be breaking down.
Summary
Pair bonding is a natural attraction that the majority of people seek to explore, include, and gain for the benefits of long-term security and love. The difference between pair bonding and marriage is the ability to connect with another person on a much deeper level than just a physical attraction that could reach its demise in a day, a year, or even 10 years. Pair bonding is forever and some may even include till death do us part or even in death we will never part.
Reference
Brandell, J. R. (2010). Contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on attachment. Psychoanalytic Social Work, 17(2), 132–157.
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2015). The life span: Human development for helping professionals (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Gladding, S. T. (2015). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Pinsof, W. M. (2002). The death of till death do us part: The transformation of pair-bonding in the 20th century. Family Process 41, (2), 135-157.
Readings
· Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2015). The life span: Human development for helping professionals (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
o Chapter 12, “Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood” (review pp. 438-476)
o Chapter 13, “Middle Adulthood: Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development” (pp. 478-525)
Belsky, J. (2010). Childhood experience and the development of reproductive strategies. Psicothema, 22(1), 28–34.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Brandell, J. R. (2010). Contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on attachment. Psychoanalytic Social Work, 17(2), 132–157.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Halrynjo, S. (2009). Men’s work-life conflict: Career, care and self-realization: Patterns of privileges and dilemmas. Gender, Work & Organization, 16(1), 98–125.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Kuchinke, K. P., Cornachione, E. B., Oh, S. Y., & Kang, H.-S. (2010). All work and no play? The meaning of work and work stress of mid-level managers in the United States, Brazil, and Korea. Human Resource Development International, 13(4), 393–408.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Newton, N., & Stewart, A. J. (2010). The middle ages: Changes in women’s personalities and social roles. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34(1),75–84.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
Rodriguez, P. D., & Ritchie, K. L. (2009). Relationship between coping styles and adult attachment styles. Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, 13, 131–141.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.
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