The nature of family relationships shapes the atmosphere in the family. Character is unstable and changes over time.
What determines the change in family character? It depends directly on the relationship between husband and wife. What kind of relationship does a married couple have? Let's look at the stages of changing the nature of family relationships. Let's take the most common scheme of marital relations. These stages occur in the life of every family, but families experience them differently.
Stages of family relationships:
We are married!
A guy and a girl meet. In the sea of love and in the whole world you are the only one, sailing in your boat of romance. Gradually your relationship becomes hotter, and it all develops into madness and passion. It is during this period that marriage proposals are made. Then an explosion of emotions, the ultimate dream - a wedding! The first year of marriage is going well. You are happy with your choice of companion and feel like the hero of a fairy tale with a happy ending. This period lasts approximately 2 years. Beautiful compliments, passion in relationships, frequent gifts, everything for each other, gradually pass.
Features of communication with your husband
Why bother trying to communicate with your husband? Many wives think so. But in vain! Happy marital relationships depend on proper communication in the family, so be attentive to what your spouse says, listen and try to hear him. Inattention greatly offends men. Being a grateful listener to your husband is an art that requires patience, endurance, tact and understanding. Even if what he is talking about has long been known to you. Laugh with him at a joke or anecdote that you have known for a long time, or a funny incident that happened in his life. Pay special attention when he talks about himself, his childhood and experiences. It's not very often that men share their innermost thoughts and feelings. At such moments, show maximum attention and empathy.
It is no secret that the goals of communication between men and women are different. When a woman talks about her problems, she thinks out loud, looks for ways to solve them, participate and support. If your husband is experiencing any difficulties, he is in no hurry to notify everyone about them. Most often, he withdraws into himself and mentally solves his problems. At such moments, learn to wait patiently. Don't interfere, let him be alone and don't bother with questions. The time will come and he will tell you everything.
Go through life together.
At this stage, the first conscious thoughts about marriage begin. You will finally notice the difference between just dating and being married. Since if you used to be a bird of free flight and lived in your own way, then you cannot avoid grinding in your characters. An uneasy feeling will appear in the family. You will notice that you have begun to understand each other less well. But don't worry! Everything will work out, just be patient and understanding. Try to maintain warm feelings for your significant other. Worry about your relationship and do not allow simple peaceful coexistence. Marriage can be wonderful if you work at it.
The right approach to a man
But here, too, the other extreme is possible. Why put in the effort and help with household chores if the housewife can handle it herself?
How to find the middle in this relationship? An indicator of this is the general atmosphere in the house: not only comfort and coziness, but also kind, caring (not over-caring or cold), warm relationships in the family.
But, if you want family relationships to always be wonderful, then you must learn to understand a man. How to do it? See “How to improve your relationship with your husband.”
Understanding men
Men are considered the stronger sex. But how can I say this? They are very vulnerable and acutely feel the lack of attention and care. If this is so, then the man does not feel like a protector, does not feel like a macho and a superman. And hence he does not show due attention to us. So let's (if this is your case) try to awaken all these qualities in him. But first, let’s find out what our men need.
We rely on him
Can you rely on your man? Do you let him make responsible decisions? After all, a man feels significant precisely when he feels that he is trusted and responsible for his beloved.
Gratitude for caring
How grateful are you for his care and attention? Or maybe, taking for granted, you often forget to say or at least show how grateful you are to him? When a man sees gratitude in a woman’s eyes, then, figuratively speaking, his shoulders straighten, his chest becomes a wheel, and in front of you is a strong-willed man, ready to continue to be your protector and fulfiller of your desires.
If a man understands that his soul mate likes him, as he is with all his characteristics, then it is easier for him to accept her loving advice (and you must admit, how often do we women need an understanding interlocutor). After all, he understands that it is difficult for her to accept just some of his actions, but she loves him and accepts him completely.
We support self-esteem
Do you know how to admire your life partner? No - these are not sugary words, but the ability to watch him and his successes with delight, approval and pleasure. A man not only sees this, but also feels it. This gives him confidence and he is ready to do anything for his beloved. Not only for exploits, but also for the adoration of his beloved.
Intimate...
How good are you at expressing your approval when your macho man is in bed? If a man receives such support, then he is ready to make even more efforts to please you. Even if something didn’t work out, don’t rush to tell him about it. Think it through and, in a more appropriate setting, wisely and respectfully try to talk about what you would like to make your intimacy even more desirable.
All this encourages a man to new “feats” and all for the sake of his beloved. Even if you say that it is very difficult to satisfy such needs of a man when he has a difficult character. But you love him, so let’s do our best to maintain peace, love and warm relationships in the family. And you will see how your dear person changes before your eyes.
Is there something wrong!
Everything is the same - nothing has changed! But you begin to feel irritated. You notice a bunch of shortcomings in each other’s actions, although just recently you were happy with everything. Confrontations begin between two individuals who themselves do not know what they want. You deliberately spoil each other’s nerves, but at the same time you expect understanding from your partner. It would seem that there is no love left, but this is not so. The feelings just cooled down. It is quite possible that the “enemies under one roof” situation will begin again. This period is short, but stormy and full of negative emotions. The main thing is to stop in time and think carefully and understand for yourself what you really want. If you have reached this stage, then it means that you really love each other, but you just forgot to work on your relationship. Pay more attention to each other, start going on dates together, as you once did, and you will find joy in marriage. You can find your own recipe for happiness, the main thing is to try to do something and not look for easy ways.
I came, I saw, I conquered
The man has always been and remains a conqueror. He loves wrestling and fighting. And of course, success. Only in this case is his self-esteem normal, and he feels like a winner. If he wins over you too quickly, then a suspicion creeps into his head: something is wrong with the girl. At best, he will transfer you to the category of available women with whom you can build regular, but completely frivolous relationships. Freedom is what a man values most; marriage for him is tantamount to the loss of freedom. There must be good reasons for this. Winning a man's heart and then keeping him is a great art. But love is also a capricious feeling; it must be constantly fed, otherwise it will wither.
Problems that lead to conflicts in the family
Some problems in marriage are universal—those that older generations tell a quarreling couple they've been through too. But there are problems that this particular couple manages to find, and solving such issues takes much more time. Let's look at the most basic causes of quarrels in married couples:
- Showdown on the topic “who is the boss in the family.” The classical understanding of the relationship “man is the head, woman is the neck” or “man is the breadwinner, woman is a reliable rear” is beginning to gradually fade away in modern society. Women want to engage in self-realization, they work on the same level as men, emancipation and feminism are flourishing. Therefore, the argument “he is a husband, and therefore a leader” can be heard less and less in modern families. The struggle for power is destructive in any area of life, not only in the family. Unfortunately, not all young couples know how to agree on the distribution of responsibilities. In fact, the ideal option is when both partners do not try to outdo each other, but simply enjoy their relationship and work on it together, which also applies to household chores.
- Arrogant relatives. In Slavic culture, it is accepted that a family is not only a husband, wife and their children, but also grandparents, uncles, aunts and many unfamiliar relatives. It often happens that many of them happily interfere in the married life of a young couple, either with advice, or with curious questions, or with requests for help where it is inappropriate. If you can simply send a stranger out for a walk, then with relatives, and especially close ones, the situation is more complicated. But the fact is that they interfere, and the family fights. You need to be able to negotiate and set your own boundaries.
- Different views on life, differences in ideas about family life. Such moments had to be discussed before the wedding. For example, a guy wanted a child as soon as possible, but it turned out that the girl plans to devote at least several years to her career. It’s much worse if a guy stubbornly stands his ground, not wanting to compromise: in fact, he has already decided in advance what family life will be like, without discussing it with his future, and now current, wife.
His hobbies and interests
They may be completely different from your hobbies, but they are part of his and your family life. They need to be respected, it is better to put up with them than to fight them. It's good if you can share his hobbies and be always close to him. But a woman can’t always sit all day with a fishing rod, dreaming of a catch, or wander through the forest with her husband in search of prey, kick a ball around the field for hours, or work out muscles in the gym. And the hours spent by the husband on computer games often cause irritation and cause family quarrels. But in this matter, show wisdom. By devoting his free time to his hobbies, a man may be taking a break from communicating with you. So give him this opportunity. Use these free minutes and hours for yourself, your beloved, devote them to your interests. You have them too. Surprise your spouse with your successes more often: he will be pleased that his wife is not like everyone else. Over the years, common interests and the habit of spending time together will appear.
Dynamics of emotional relationships in a married couple
Love in marital relationships. Typologies of love.
Optimistic and pessimistic models of love.
The optimistic model of love - according to Maslow - self-actualization of people - high satisfaction with sexual life does not decrease over the years, but increases. Partners are interested in each other, becoming more and more interested over the years. The partners knew each other very well as they were. No idealization.
The pessimistic model of love - according to L. Kasler - love as a feature of an immature personality.
3 reasons to love another:
- the need for confirmation of one’s attitudes by another person - as a validation tool (immature)
- Only through love can one satisfy sexual desire and not feel guilty
- love is a conformal reaction to the norms of society.
Feelings of gratitude towards the lover, hatred potentially towards the one on whom we are dependent - these are manifestations of an unstable marriage.
Models of marital love.
R. Sternberg is a major modern researcher of intellectual activity.
Intimacy - depth of interpersonal relationships, trust of communication
Passion is the mutual attraction of people to each other
The solution to the obligation is the solution to the obligation of fidelity
| names of love relationships | intimacy | passion | resolution of the obligation |
| perfect love | + | + | + |
| romantic love | + | + | — |
| conjugal love | + | — | + |
| Love | + | — | — |
| blind love | — | + | + |
| empty love | — | — | + |
| love is passion | — | + | — |
| not love | — | — | — |
Dynamics of emotional relationships in a married couple.
There are some processes that occur throughout life:
— adaptation (primary, secondary)
Primary marital adaptation
— problem solving, development of communication tools, distribution of responsibilities. The transformation of infatuation into love is one of the aspects of primary adaptation.
Secondary marital adaptation
— deep, good knowledge of the partner, bringing together personal factors. Highly developed ability to predict partner behavior, synchronicity. Married couples who have lived together for more than 10 years have a portrait resemblance.
Negative aspects:
fading passion in the relationship between spouses: a feeling of disappointment, boredom, routine. Loss of interest in others as individuals.
Changes in the relationship between spouses are repeated cyclically.
V. Zatsepin - 5 stages:
- deep passionate love
- some cooling of the relationship towards the partner, although the appearance of the partner still causes inspiration.
- continued cooling of relations
- the presence of a partner causes irritation
- the negative attitude takes over completely.
T. Kemper is one of the few who tried to interpret the feeling of love through any schemes. Human feelings in general lend themselves with great difficulty to any kind of formalization followed by an “objective” interpretation. Kemper, however, tried, within the framework of the social-interactive theory of emotions he was developing, to explicitly define the selection of love options using “verifiable” factors, from the point of view of the theory.
T. Kemper's model is based on two independent factors that are present in any relationship (not only interpersonal, but also those in which entire social systems, such as states, are the subjects).
According to Kemper, these are:
power, i.e. the ability to force a partner to do what you want, and status - the partner’s desire to meet the subject’s demands. The desired result in the second case is thus achieved not by force, but thanks to the positive attitude of the partner.
Based on these two factors, T. Kemper identifies seven types of love relationships in a couple:
1. romantic love, in which both members of the couple have both status and, since each of them can “punish” the other by depriving him of manifestations of his love, power in relation to the partner;
2. brotherly love, based on mutual high status and characterized by low power - the absence of the ability to coerce;
3. charismatic love, in which one partner has both status and power, the other - only status. An example of such a relationship in some cases can be the relationship in a teacher-student pair;
4. “betrayal” - one partner has both power and status, the other has only power. An example of such a relationship, which gave its name to this type, could be a situation of adultery, when for a partner who has entered into a new relationship, the spouse retains power, but no longer evokes the desire to meet him halfway, i.e. loses status;
5. falling in love - one of the partners has both power and status, the other has neither one nor the other. An illustration of such a relationship can be one-sided, or “unrequited” love;
6. “worship” - one partner has status without having power, the other has neither status nor power. This situation arises in the absence of real interaction between members of a couple, for example, when falling in love with a literary character or an actor known only from films;
7. love between a parent and a small child. One partner here has a high status, but low power (child), the other (parent) has a low status, since love for him has not yet formed, but a high level of power.
In his research, L. Ya. Gozman identifies the stages of development of emotional relationships. Let us give their characteristics. Stage 1: the emergence and development of sympathy. At first, the following properties of an object appear as significant: external data, socio-demographic characteristics, behavioral patterns; then, in the process of developing relationships and communication, as recognition progresses, the socio-psychological characteristics of a person become significant. Attraction is influenced by a person’s merits; too high a level of positive qualities reduces attraction; such a person is perceived as inaccessible and unattainable. His constant “correctness” is depressing. A smile and friendly manners increase attraction. Attraction depends on self-disclosure, the trust of partners in each other, the luck of the other person, and the similarity of attitudes. At subsequent stages, personal properties begin to play an important role in the development of attraction. To date, the prevailing point of view is the complementarity of personal properties. spatial proximity, frequency of contacts, duration and intensity of interaction corresponding to expectations, cooperation (but not turning into rivalry), positive reinforcement as factors contribute to the emergence and strengthening of sympathy. The attraction is directed from sympathy to love. The sensations that accompany love are stronger than with sympathy: euphoria, depression, tendency to fantasies, sleep disturbances, general agitation, difficulty concentrating. The concept of “love” is one of the few words that express almost absolute abstraction (along with “truth”, “God”, etc.). People have different meanings for the concept of “love”. In ancient Greek, the following terms were used to define various manifestations and forms of love: Eros - spontaneous, passionate, irrational love-obsession, striving for complete physical possession; Philia is love-friendship, conditioned by social connections and personal choice, rational and amenable to the control of consciousness; storge - calm, reliable love-tenderness, especially family. And finally, agape is selfless, sacrificial love, it is associated with complete self-giving, the dissolution of the lover in caring for the beloved. An important source of the formation of a person’s image of love is the experience acquired in the parental home, the influence of the behavior of the father and mother, since the image of love is not limited to ideas about how to behave during sexual intercourse, but is largely determined by the learned way of communicating in life together with others people. Attempts to build theoretical models of love are distinguished by their claims to greater globality. And yet such cases are known. The differences between models of love are based on the evaluation parameter: optimism-pessimism. The pessimistic model postulates the weakness and imperfection of man, while the optimistic model postulates the constructive power of love.
The pessimistic model was proposed by L. Kasler. He identifies three reasons that make a person fall in love: 1) the need for recognition; 2) satisfaction of sexual needs; 3) conformist reaction (as is customary). According to Kasler, love is a fusion of a combination of emotions, among which the leading role is played by the fear of losing the source of satisfaction of one’s needs. Falling in love, constructed by the constant fear of losing him, makes a person unfree, dependent and interferes with personal development. He associates the positive emotional state of a lover with the person’s gratitude for satisfying his needs. Consequently, L. Kasler comes to the conclusion, a free person does not experience love. The optimistic model of love was proposed by A. Maslow. According to this model, love is characterized by the removal of anxiety, a feeling of complete security and psychological comfort, satisfaction with the psychological and sexual side of the relationship, which grows over the years, and the interest of loving people in each other constantly increases. During their life together, partners get to know each other well; a real appreciation of the spouse is combined with his complete acceptance. Maslow associates the constructive power of love with the connection of the sexual sphere with the emotional, which contributes to the fidelity of partners and the maintenance of equal relationships. Psychologists turned to the phenomenon of love, and studies were conducted on various aspects of this phenomenon. One of the fundamental questions is the question of the source of love. It is reliably known that love can be “different”, includes many aspects (physiological, psychological, social, spiritual, etc.) and personality states (sex, care, tenderness, respect, admiration, procreation, etc.) and definitely It is difficult to talk about the all-encompassing source of love. Love as a reflection of personal inadequacy. So, some authors (Kesler, Freud, Martinson, Reik) tried to describe the need for love as a sign of inadequacy. Z. Freud and V., Reik considered “love” as a reflected perception of one’s own unattained ideals in a partner, Peel drew a parallel between the use of drugs and love (dependence on a feeling of satisfaction contributes to the underestimation of one’s self-esteem). According to Kesler, “love” is a sign of the presence of a need in a healthy person, and according to Freud and Reick, “love” is not a pathology, but characterizes a neurotic personality. Thus, the dependence of psychotherapists’ clients on their partners shows that “inadequate individuals are more dependent on love in order to survive psychologically.” So, the concept of inadequacy is used differently by different authors. Let us give as an example the development of a theory of love by a domestic author, the so-called “syntax of love”. Theory of love by A. Afanasyev. “Love” is a special state of euphoria caused by the illusion of finding “happiness” in a pair with a subject sufficiently endowed with those mental properties in which one feels lacking. The author substantiated his idea of the internal architecture of a person, consisting of four mental modules or functions: Emotions (“soul”), Logic (“mind”), Physics (“body”) and Will (“spirit”). This set of functions is inherent in all people, but it forms a hierarchy in the individual, which determines the differences between people. “As nature places these four bricks on top of each other, such will be the inner world of the individual.” Something in the human psyche is strong, sufficient, life-giving, and something is weak, insufficient, defective, requiring addition and development. People converge fruitfully to varying degrees, striving for harmony of the psyche and life in accordance with the hierarchies of their functions. It is a significant deficiency in the manifestation of any function (will, emotions, body, mind) that is the reason for the emergence of love for another person. There are three types of love (or combinations of a weak function with the functions of the opposite side, which can cause euphoria): Eros - love according to the principle of opposition. Most often, unfortunately, the strong side of the other does not add strength to the weak side. Love - envy - hatred. Phipia is love based on the principle of identity. Soul mates, recognizing each other, eventually find themselves in front of their reflection in the mirror. Static, boredom. Agape is an evolutionary love that moves partners away from the opposite of identity. A fruitful, real “formula of love” leads to harmonization of the personalities of lovers. There are pure and many transitional types of relationships (24 options) with different development prospects. Love is a normal feeling of an adequate personality. However, for most psychologists, “love” is a completely normal feeling of an adequate personality.
Love in marriage and family relationships. The concept of “love” is one of the few words that express almost absolute abstraction (along with “truth”, “God”, etc.). The ancient Indian treatise “The Peach Branch” described the emergence of love: “A person’s attraction has three sources: soul, mind and body. The attractions of souls give rise to friendship. The attractions of the mind give rise to respect. The drives of the body give rise to desire. The union of three attractions gives rise to love.” Fromm identifies 5 types of love: brotherly, maternal, erotic, self-love and love of God. He highlights in love: care, responsibility, respect for each other, knowledge of the characteristics of the other, an indispensable feeling of pleasure and joy for love. R. Hatiss identifies in love respect, positive feelings for a partner, erotic feelings, the need for positive feelings of a partner, a feeling of closeness and intimacy. It also includes a feeling of hostility, which stems from too short a distance between partners and emotional closeness. According to Z. Rubin, love contains affection, care and intimacy.
Western scientists have proposed the following classification of love: 1. Eros: passionate love with a bright and obligatory shade of physicality and a desire for physical contact. 2. Ludus: hedonistic love-game with rather superficial feelings, allowing for betrayal, lack of obligations between partners to each other. 3. Storge: calm and reliable love-friendship without special emotional experiences, but guaranteeing fidelity and care. 4. Pragma: relationships built on sober calculation, rational and constantly controlled by reason. 5. Mania: irrational love-obsession, which is characterized by suspicion, jealousy and uncertainty about the fidelity of the object of love. 6. Agape: selfless love-self-giving, complete dissolution in the object of love, complete service to him. In this regard, some details of the gender-role behavior of men and women are curious (L. Ya. Gozman, 1987). Thus, it turned out that the “desire to fall in love” is a stronger reason for starting a relationship among men than among women. It has also been established that men in general are characterized by a higher level of romanticism than women and fall in love more easily and quickly. But at the same time, during the period of an already established love relationship, a woman is capable of greater self-disclosure and values her partner higher than he does her. T. Kemper (1979) proposed to differentiate between love relationships in a couple taking into account two factors: power, i.e. the ability to force a partner to do what you want, and status - the desire of the partner himself to meet your demands. Thus, he identified seven types of love relationships: 1. Romantic love: partners have both power and status. 2. Brotherly love: partners have high status and low power, that is, there is a mutual willingness to meet each other halfway rather than a desire to force, force the other to do it. 3. Charismatic love: one partner has both power and status, the other only status. Example: student-teacher relationship. 4. Cheating: one partner has both power and status, the other only power (the cheating spouse retains power over the second, but loses status, i.e. the desire to meet his demands). 5. Falling in love: one of the partners has both power and status, the other has neither one nor the other (so-called “unrequited” love). 6. Worship: one partner has status but no power, the other has neither status nor power. 7. Parental love: one has high status and low power (child), the other has low status and high power (parent). This typology, despite some sketchiness inherent in almost all psychological typologies, can be used as the basis for the study and analysis of emotional relationships in a couple.
Modern concepts that explain the mechanisms of the emergence of love take physiological attraction as the initial one. Romantic love is interpreted as strong excitement, which can be the result of anything, but is often accompanied by danger, death, and fear. Romantic love is fickle and unstable because 1) the reasons for excitement in everyday situations quickly disappear; 2) is associated with the constant experience of strong (both positive and negative) emotions, from which one quickly gets tired; 3) is focused on stable idealization of the partner, in which the real person becomes a phantom. The statistically normal outcome of family relationships built on romantic love is dissolution.
Quarrels and conflicts are inevitable companions of communication
Especially in marital relationships. Keep your emotions under control. Do not stoop to foul language or a state of uncontrollable anger or passion when resolving conflicts in the family. Women are very emotional, and in an inadequate state they may say something that it will be too late to regret.
Tears are not always good helpers and a compelling argument in a quarrel. We women cry with and without reason. Know how to restrain yourself even in the most difficult moments. Most often, excessive tearfulness or tantrums can cause irritation. When showing weakness, moderate the use of tears when communicating with your husband.
Do not persist and do not try to defend your opinion by falling into anger. The price is too high. What is more important for you - to be right and prove your competence or to be happy? Therefore, do not be afraid to admit your mistakes, your wrongness. Even if you are 100% sure that you are right, what will this give you for your relationship with your spouse? Well, they proved that he, to put it mildly, is incompetent in some matter. And what? His self-esteem was lowered by an order of magnitude. A trifle, but unpleasant for relationships. However, family life consists of all sorts of little things. Smart women always know how to show flexibility and cunning in communicating with a man. This is the psychology of family communication.
"Risk zones"
Psychologists identify several difficult periods in family life, the so-called crisis years in marriage. Surely many have heard the concept of “three-year crisis,” which applies not only to marriage, but also to relationships in a couple as a whole. In practice, periods of so-called crises are not at all tied to a specific time period, since each person is an individual, and relationships in couples develop according to an individual scenario. For example, one couple may be terribly tired of everyday reality just a year after marriage, while another only after three years. Some families may not encounter any problems during crisis periods at all.
Let’s take a closer look at what “risk zones” family psychologists identify:
Be a positive person
Is having an easy-going and easy-going character a talent or the fruit of working on yourself? Of course, we receive and learn something from our parents, but we also learn a lot ourselves. Family life is not at all an easy walk. The relationship with her husband largely depends on the woman.
Wean yourself from seeing the world around you and the people close to you in dark colors. Smile even when you want to cry. Wean yourself from grumbling on business and without business. This bad habit can make you boring and grumpy, and turn family life into hell for your children and spouse, from which he will certainly run away. And will a man want to have sexual relations with such a wife? And this is another one of the most important aspects of family communication, and the main role here belongs to the woman. It is not stupid fulfillment of marital duty, but initiative, tenderness and affection that will make you desired and loved.
Monitor your mood and emotions as they change throughout the month. If your husband begins to irritate you, all his actions cause resentment and you want to throw a scandal, then use your reason and find a logical explanation for your condition and do not rush to blame your spouse.
Study yourself and the psychology of relationships with a man. Be your own psychologist and creator of your own family happiness. Your relationship with your husband is in your hands.
