Close Relationships

Close Relationships Being attracted to people can be exhilarating or frustrating, depending on how the initial encounters develop. How important is a good relationship to you? Sev- eral years ago, researchers asked 300 students to weigh the importance of having a satisfying romantic relationship against the importance of other life goals (such as getting a good education, having a successful career, or contributing to a better society) and found that 73% said they would sacrifice most other goals before giving up a good relationship.

Intimate relationships often involve three basic components: (1) feelings of attachment, affection, and love; (2) fulfillment of psychological needs; and (3) interdependence between partners, each of whom has a meaningful influence on the other. Although people have many significant relationships in their lives that contain one or more of these components, social psychologists have concentrated much of their research on friends, dating partners, lovers, and married couples.

Not all intimate relationships contain all three ingredients. A summer romance is emotionally intense, but in the fall, both partners resume their separate lives. An “empty shell” marriage revolves around coordinated daily activities, but emotional attachment is weak, and psychological needs go unmet. Clearly, relationships come in different shapes and sizes. Some are sexual; others are not. Some involve partners of the same sex; others involve partners of the opposite sex. A tender- facilitated hookup might last a night, a week, or a month; some partners commit to a future life together. Feelings run the gamut from joyful to painful and from lov- ing to hateful, with emotional intensity ranging all the way from mild to megawatt.