- Traditional
- Merged
- Roommate
- Relighting Romance
- promotes healthy development of each person's full, mature self--the individual's independence and uniqueness, as well as the couple's healthy interdependence in which they come together in equal and mutually satisfying ways;
- provides opportunities for individual as well as mutual pursuits;
- approaches decision making;
- offers consistent opportunities for intimacy building and emotional connection.
When push comes to shove, however, the behaviors and communication styles you observed in your childhood relationships are the behaviors and communication styles you revert to until you consciously
- reflect on your relating style;
- make decisions to keep what is working and discard what is not working;
- learn new ways to interact and communicate that are healthy and more compatible with the relationship you want to achieve;
- work together toward instilling the new ways as lifelong habits.
As you read, you may recognize some aspects of each style in your relationship. Most couples start with a combination of styles. When a mixture of styles exists, partners are often confused, because one person may be operating under on set of assumptions, and the other person may unconsciously switch to another style and set of assumptions.
While every couple consciously or unconsciously chooses the kind of relationship they want to create, in my work with couples over the past thirty years, 100 percent of couples who come to me desire a Relighting Romance once the partners understand these four different styles of relating. They would not have used that term before learning about the four styles; nor do they have all the tools necessary to build a Relighting Romance until they learn the approach. However, as they study the Traditional, Merged, and Roommate styles and reflect on their desires, couples observe that aspects of each feel OK sometimes but are not ultimately fulfilling in a lasting relationship.
They learn, as you will, that Relighting Romance, offers an approach that makes their relationship long lasting - and fulfilling - every day and at every step along the way.
Let's look at all four styles. They form a backdrop from which you can choose how you build your most intimate relationship.
The Traditional Style
The first way of relating is the one most likely modeled by your parents or grandparents: the Traditional Style. This style has been the norm in marriages for many generations and across many cultures. You may recognize aspects of this style in your own relationship.
In the Traditional Style, one person has more decision-making power than the other. This does not necessarily mean that the dominant partner misuses or abuses his or her power. What it does mean is that one person in the couple usually makes the ultimate decisions.
The male or female may take on this dominant role because the couple has assigned this person the decision-making authority or because one partner is more forceful, the other more passive. In the past, the man often assumed the dominant decisionmaking role, simply because both partners followed tradition, Sometimes the man wields decision-making power over more worldly aspects such as finances, and the woman makes most of the decisions about the home, child-rearing, and social activities.
If you evaluate your style as Traditional, assess whether the style is chosen consciously, as a healthy combination of interdependence and independence, or whether one or both of you are simply avoiding making decisions or conflict by allowing your partner to take the lead. This approach would stifle your individual healthy growth. It would also limit intimacy-building and emotional connection because you are not sharing your true self.
Whether the people within a Traditional relationship promote independence and interdependence is determined by each couple. Sometimes a Traditional couple will do most things independently. He goes to work and hangs out with the guys; she raises the children and has her work and hobbies and friendship activities. They may come together around dinnertime, religious activities, some social engagements, and children's after-school events.
Some Traditional couples are very emotionally connected. Others do not know each other much at all. They choose to continue their Traditional Style because they may not wish to reveal themselves, or they may not wish to perform the work becoming close sometimes takes.
Intimacy and Emotional Connection
Intimacy is getting to know someone who is different from you, then making space for those differences and accommodating those unique qualities in a relationship. It doesn't mean you have to like everything your partner does or necessarily agree on everything. Rather it is a nonjudgmental caring, a desire to know another person that develops out of a sense of openness and curiosity about that person, how he or she experiences life, what he or she values, enjoys, desires, it is also the willingness to share the same about you.
Intimacy is not just a feeling of being "in love." It is a combination of care, respect, wanting to know your partner's thoughts, feelings, and desires, and a willingness to work together to meet some of those.
Getting to know someone too quickly is not necessarily intimacy. It may simply be an emotional sharing that makes you feel connected for a brief time. True intimacy develops over time: It is the knowledge that we are willing to "know" each other, and continue getting to know each other, and that knowing is an evolving, growing, lifetime event.
When you are a couple for a long time, intimacy includes balancing acceptance of another and yourself with challenging each other to grow or develop more fully. Sometimes it is a feeling; often it is an action involving respect, caring, deep understanding, and acceptance, along with interactions and communication that promote mutual growth.
The feeling of safety with that person, the feeling of being cared about, accepted, not judged, and the feeling of being on the same team is what we call emotional connection. You can feel emotionally connected in the same room, while you are each off at work, or when you are across the globe.
Many Traditional couples report satisfying relationships, and some point out that it results in successfully circumventing potential power struggles and conflicts. Some even feel it is a God-given preference. The Traditional Style can spell out roles and tasks very clearly when there are young children to raise or when one person has the main breadwinning function and is on a career path that requires intense involvement.
You might know a couple like AI and Sharon, who exemplify the Traditional Style. Al is a high-level vice president at a Midwestern company. He comes from a culture of 1950s-style family values. He and Sharon are in their early thirties, with three children under the age of nine. Sharon is a stay-at-home morn and a stand-by-your-man kind of woman. She never questions Al's work choices, including their frequent job-related moves.
She and the kids have had a hard time making long-term friendships. She hopes they stay in their current town until the kids have grown, but that decision will be left to AI. Sharon is proud to be at Al's side at church and at community and social events. They are both pleased with her role as Al's wife, and with her skills as a homemaker. She has dinner on the table at seven, shortly after AI arrives home from the office. If they have plans to go out for the evening, Sharon will have made arrangements for the sitter. AI spends time with the children after dinner until Sharon takes over and gets them ready for bed.
Sharon and Al came to see me because their relationship was feeling routine and Sharon didn't know why she was dissatisfied. I became concerned that their relationship did not make room for individual growth. I wondered if they could accommodate the conversations, openness to hearing each other's dissatisfactions, and change that are hallmarks of true intimacy. Al seemed content with the way things were going, and I wasn't sure he was concerned about Sharon's growing dissatisfaction.
The opportunity for connection and intimacy building in the Traditional Style is dependent upon the choices, needs, and desires of the person with the most power. When that person, usually the husband, feels that time with his partner is important and valuable, then talking, affection, and sex may occur on a regular and mutually fulfilling basis.
If, however, the dominant person is out of touch with the other person's needs, or simply doesn't think those needs are important, then connection and intimacy is missing,
Next post, we'll talk about the second style - The Merged Style. You can learn how to better manage your relationship by getting Get Your Ex Back today!
