1. Being with Others: Forming Relationships in Young and Middle Adulthood
Chapter Eleven

2. 11.1 Relationships Learning Objectives
What type of friendships do adults have? How do adult friendships develop?
What is love? How does it begin? How does it develop through adulthood?
What is the nature of violence in some relationships?

3. Friendships
A mutual relationship in which those involved influence one another’s behavior and beliefs. Quality determined by the satisfaction derived from the relationship
Adult friendships develop over several stages
Acquaintanceship
Buildup
Continuation
Deterioration
Ending

4. Friendships usually encompass three themes:
Friendships (Cont)
Young adults tend to have more friends than during any other stage of adulthood
Research suggests that satisfaction with life is partly dependant upon the quantity and quality of contact with friends
Friendships usually encompass three themes:
Affective or emotional: Refers to Self-disclosure and trust
Shared or communal nature: Participate in mutual interests
Sociability and compatibility: Source of fun and entertainment
Online friendships quality is good and is improving, trust is important, advantageous for shy persons
Sibling friendships are important as well. More for women than for men

5. Caption: Importance men and women place on sibling relationships across adulthood.

6. Men’s, Women’s and Cross-Sex Friendships
Women tend to base friendships on more intimate sharing and confiding in others
Men’s friendships tend to be based on shared interests or activities
Men’s friendships tend to involve less sharing and more competition
Women tend to have more close friends
Cross-sex relationships may help men with their capacity for intimacy
Difficult when persons enter into committed relationships and marriage, Partner may become jealous.

7. Love Relationships Sternberg’s three basic components of love:
Passion – intense physical desire
Intimacy - need to share thoughts and actions
Commitment - willingness to stay with someone during good and bad times

8. Love Through Adulthood
Early in relationships, passion tends to be high and intimacy and commitment lower. This is called infatuation
Falling in Love
The theory of assortative mating suggests that people find partners based on similarity
Homogamy is the degree to which people are similar. Research found that greater homogamy was present between partners that met in school or some religious setting
As time goes on commitment increases

9. Meeting and Falling In Love
Meeting at school is likely to result in the highest level of homogamy
Speed dating partner selection defined by attractiveness, outgoing, self-assured, moderately self-focused
Online dating has resulted in many couples meeting and forming committed relationships, advantageous for those with dating anxiety One in 5 couples in US meet online.
Higher marital satisfaction resulted when couples shared openness to experiences, but not other aspects of personality

10. Meeting and Falling In Love
Research shows three factors that are important when people meet someone
Stimulus
Values
Role

11. Selection and Dating
Studies find differences between women’s preferences in the looks of the men they meet
More masculine for shorter term relationship
More feminine for husbands or someone their parents would want them to date

12. Couples and Culture: Mate Preferences
There is great diversity in preferences across cultures
Two main dimensions emerge:
Cultural values – traditional or Western
The importance of education, intelligence, and social refinement
Chastity was a highly valuable in traditional cultures along with homemaking characteristics
World-wide, men preferred attractiveness and women valued the ability to be a good provider
Arranged marriages in some cultures report 94% success

13. Developmental Forces and Relationships
Choices are influence by biopsychosocial factors
Research shows the importance of the dopamine system in love
Erikson describes the importance of the development of the capacity for intimacy for mature relationships

14. Developmental Forces and Relationships
Exhilaration of falling in love due to amphetamine (dopamine system) neurochemicals
Neurochemical related to morphine appears when relationship switches to long term commitment and tranquility
Oxytocin plays part in attachment and women’s orgasms
Those who tend to fall in love have dominance of left hemisphere chemicals.
Romantic love more important in early adulthood, companionship in later life
Sociolcultural and life-cycle forces play a role in falling in live

15. The Dark Side of Relationships: Violence
Abusive relationships may result in battered woman syndrome where a woman believes that she cannot leave an abusive situation. She may go as far at to kill her abuser
Studies have found a continuum of aggressive behaviors toward a spouse, verbal, physically aggressive, severe physically aggressive, murder
Some violence, such as pushing or slapping, occurs in % of committed relationships

16. The Dark Side of Relationships: Violence (Cont)
Victims are more likely female, Latino, African American, have an atypical family structure, have more romantic partners, early onset of sexual activity, and being a victim of child abuse
Studies show that the complexity of the causes of abusive behavior increases as the severity increases
Violence may start as common violence, or physical aggressiveness between the couple
There may be patriarchal terrorism in which men systematically abuse women

17. The Dark Side of Relationships: Violence (Cont)
Men can also suffer abuse, appox.1/3 the rate of women
Men and women showed similar patterns of holding traditional gender patterns, lack of communication, and anger management skills
Culture is a factor, and reflects cultural traditions, beliefs, and values of patriarchal societies, seen in sexual slavery, female cutting, intimate partner violence, and honor killing,

18. Caption: Types and causes of physical abuse in relationships.

19. The Dark Side of Relationships: Violence (Cont)
Abuse is more common in cultures that value female purity, male status, family honor
Americans in northern US rated women more positively if they left the abuser
Southern US showed less disapproval if woman was contrite and self-blaming, value honor more
South Asian immigrants use isolation for abuse
Chinese Americans use physical and sexual abuse, not psychological
Gay marriages report abuse similar to herterosexual.

20. 11.2 Lifestyles Learning Objectives
Why do some people decide not to marry, and what are these people like?
What are the characteristics of cohabiting people?
What are gay and lesbian relationships like?
What is marriage like through the course of adulthood?

21. Singlehood
70% of women and 80% of men are single between the ages of 20 and 24
Men tend to remain single longer than women, but more marry in the long run, find partners more easily
Twice as many African Americans as European Americans are single throughout adulthood
Singlehood increasing among Latinos, men expect to marry as a measure of achievement
Young adults may perceive married people as caring, kind, and giving 50% of the time ,only 2% of single people

22. Being Single Single people receive less compensation at work
Rental agents preferred married couples 60% of the time in a recent study

23. Being Single Three groups of single women in their 30s
Those acutely distressed by it
Those vacillating between desire to marry and desire to remain single
Those happy being single with healthy self image and high quality of life
Reasons for remaining single
Reaching a milestone birthday
Buying a house
Gradually drift into singlehood

24. Cohabitation
Lower educational levels cohabit more and in more relationships
Three reasons for decision to cohabit
Part-time or limited cohabitation is usually for convenience and accessibility. Women more than men. No long term commitment, marriage is not a goal
Premarital cohabitation is usually a trial marriage and if it doesn’t end in marriage, the couple splits-up
Substitute marriage is a long-term commitment without legal marriage and is more common with older couples who may lose financial benefits if they marry
Increasing

25. Caption: Frequency of cohabitation in the United States.

26. Cohabitation (Cont)
Research on cohabitation suggests that it does not increase the chances of a successful marriage, though more recent research shows lessening of the negative effect
Some states and countries provide rights and benefits for cohabiting couples

27. Gay and Lesbian Couples
Most research shows similar issues for marriages between homosexual and heterosexual couples
Heterosexual couples argue more about financial, political, and social value issues
Homosexual couples are more likely to argue about trust issues
Gay and lesbian couples report less support from family than do married or cohabiting couples
Less similar in demographic characteristics such as race, age, education
Rates of drug and alcohol abuse in much higher

28. Marriage
Studies show the median age at which couples marry has been rising since 1970s, 28.1 for men, 25.9 for women
Women under the age of 20 at the time of their first marriage are 3 times more likely to divorce than women who marry in their 20s, and 6 times more likely than those in their 30s

29. Caption: Median age at first marriage in the United States.

30. What Factors Help Marriage Succeed? Measuring Success
Marital success – umbrella term referring to any marriage outcome
Marital quality – subjective valuation of a couple’s relationship on a number of different dimensions
Marital adjustment – degree to which a couple accommodate to each other over time
Marital satisfaction – global assessment of one’s marriage

31. What Factors Help Marriage Succeed?
Teen marriages are more likely to end in divorce partly due to the need for the development of a strong sense of identity before intimacy. Maturity provides more likelihood of success.
Homogamy, or similarity of interests and values, increases the chance of successful marriage, and financial security and pregnancy at the time of marriage
Exchange theory suggests that marriages are more likely to succeed if each partner provides something to the relationship that another would not be able to provide, the feeling that the relationship is equal

32. Do Married Couples Stay Happy?
Studies show that satisfaction with marriage is highest in the beginning, falls until children begin leaving home, and rises again in later life
When dependence is more equal, marriage tends to stay strong and close
When dependence is less equal, more conflict and difficulty is experienced

33. Do Married Couples Stay Happy?
Vulnerability-stress-adaptation model- marital quality is a dynamic process resulting from the couples ability to handle stressful events in the context of their particular vulnerabilities – if it gets better over time the marriage will improve

34. The Early Years
Less educated couples experience greater dissatisfaction with their marriage
Couples who do not pool their financial resources experience less satisfaction
With the birth of children, marriages become more routine and static, resulting in less satisfaction. However, childless couples’ satisfaction declines as well
Greater satisfaction is achieved if women have accurate perceptions of their husbands rather that “love is blind”
Ability to handle conflict is crucial to a satisfying marriage
Satisfaction decreases with the birth of children
\Satisfaction decreases over time for child less couples also

35. Marriages
Couples in the military face additional challenges with deployment and PTSD
More chance of success if non-deployed spouse believes the challenges will make the relationship stronger
Effects of deployment greater on wives than husbands
‘Divorce rates higher for deployed women that men

36. Marriage at Midlife Important is adapt to chancing circumstances.
Important to keep the romance alive
Couples who have grown apart but remain married are called married singles
Sharing religious beliefs helps
Physical appearance is an important factor in marital satisfaction. Declines in physical condition due to aging may cause changes in level of satisfaction with marriage

37. Older Couples
Satisfaction with marriage tends to be higher in older ages
Relationships further improve shortly after retirement
Declines in health and advancing age often leads to a decrease in marital satisfaction
While the amount of past or present sexual activity or interest does not seem to be related to marital satisfaction, interaction with friends is

38. Caption: Developmental course of marital satisfaction.

39. Keeping Marriages Happy
Couples who have enjoyed happy marriages over the years are better able to deal with changes and challenges
Problems an individual experiences may actually bring couples closer, except for physical illness which has a tendency to negatively affect marital quality
The most important factors in good marriages are Ability to be flexible and adaptable, share religious beliefs, esp in lower socioeconomic marriages, communication of thoughts, actions and, feelings, intimacy and support of each other

40. Seven Keys to Staying Married
Make time for your relationship
Express your love to your spouse
Be there in times of need
Communicate about problems in the relationship
Be interested in your spouse’s life
Confide in your spouse
Forgive minor offenses, try to understand major ones

41. 11.3 The Family Life Cycle Learning Objectives
Why do people have children?
What is it like to be a parent? What differences are there in different types of parenting?

42. The Family Life Cycle
Most common family in Western societies is the nuclear family
Most common world wide is the extended family

43. Deciding Whether to Have Children
More than 50% of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned
Finances are always a big consideration
An average family having a child in 2009 will spend $206,000 to $476,000 over 17 years for food shelter and other necessities to raise a child
Childless couples have higher standard of living and greater marital satisfaction, but may be viewed negatively by society

44. Deciding Whether to Have Children
Considerations – Relationships with one’s parents, marital stability, career satisfaction, finances
Benefits of having children – affection, improve family ties, feeling of immortality, sense of accomplishment

45. The Parental Role Couples are having fewer children and waiting longer
Older parents are more at ease, spend more time with their babies, are more affectionate and supportive
Men who become fathers in their 30s spend up to 3 times as much time caring for their preschool children
More than 70% of women with children under 18 are employed outside the home and still perform most of the child-rearing tasks

46. Ethnic Diversity and Parenting
African American husbands are more likely to help with household chores and child care than European American husbands
Native American families assign important roles to children, and tribal members spend large amounts of time passing cultural values on to them such as
cooperation, sharing, generosity,
harmony with nature, spirituality
as opposed to European values of
competiveness and individuality

47. Ethnic Diversity and Parenting (Cont)
Latino families esp. mothers adopt authoritative behaviors
Latino families value familism (placing the well-being of the family over individual concerns), and the extended family

48. Ethnic Diversity and Parenting (Cont)
Asian Americans value familism, and place even higher value on extended families
Value good grades, maintaining discipline, being concerned about what others think, and conformity
Males have a higher status
Less marital stress during transition to parenthood due to clearer traditional division of tasks
Multi ethnic parents face discrimination and prejudice
Mothers usually raise the children according to the minority’s culture

49. Single Parents
Roughly 70% of African American births, 50% of Latino births, and 30% of European American births are out-of- wedlock
Causes include high divorce rates, the decision to keep out- of-wedlock children, wanting children, failure to use contraception, and fertility rates

50. Single Parents (Cont)
Divorced single parents report feelings of frustration, guilt, and a tendency to be overindulgent, and loneliness
Tend to try to be peers with children
Single parents often face financial strains. Single mothers are often affected the most, women are paid less, have less flexibility due to childcare for higher paying jobs
Worries regarding dating and sex

51. Alternate Forms of Parenting
One-third of North American couples become step, foster, or adoptive parents
Strength of bond between parents and children is an issue
Many children remain very close to non-custodial parents
Visitation of non-custodial parent is an issue
Children of blended families have more mental health difficulties than non-divorced children
Adopted children may wish to have
contact with birth parents,
which may be viewed as
rejection by adoptive parents

52. Alternate Forms of Parenting cont.
Adopting children from another culture
Problems establishing and maintaining a connection with child’s culture of origin
Child may have problems because he/she looks different than peers

53. Alternate Forms of Parenting (Cont)
Foster parents have most difficulty developing and maintaining bonds with their foster children
Bond can be broken at any time despite quality of care
Foster children vary in age at the time they were taken from biological parents
Foster children may be re-united with their parents, or adopted by another couple

54. Alternate Forms of Parenting (Cont)
Research shows that children raised by gay and lesbian parents do not experience any more problems than those raised by heterosexual couples, although there may be resistance to their having children
90% of sons of gay fathers are heterosexual
Though controversy continues, studies show that lesbian couples show more awareness of parenting skills than heterosexual couples, their children are
raised less homophobic and more
egalitarian than heterosexual children
Parenting is more egalitarian and shared.

55. 11.4 Divorce and Remarriage Learning Objectives
Who gets divorced? How does divorce affect parental relationships with children?
What are remarriages like? How are they similar to and different from first marriages?

56. Divorce Who gets divorced and why? US has highest rate of divorce
Ethnicity is a big factor
African American, Asian Americans, and tend to be married longer
Ethnically mixed marriages are most likely to end in divorce
Infidelity moat common cause, followed
by incompatibility, drinking or
drug use, and growing apart

57. Divorce Couples with high levels of negative feelings divorce earlier
Less able to deal with conflict
European American wives and African American couples use more accommodation and less withdrawal over time
European American husbands remain constant over time, use less withdrawal in the beginning
Absence of positive emotions results in later divorce

58. Caption: Divorce rates around the world.

59. Divorce and Remarriage
Reasons men give for divorce:
Communication problems
Unhappiness
Incompatibility
Sexual problems
Financial problems
Emotional abuse
Women’s liberation
In-laws
Infidelity by spouse
Alcohol abuse by self
Reasons women give for divorce:
Communication problems
Unhappiness
Incompatibility
Emotional abuse
Financial problems
Sexual problems
Alcohol abuse by spouse
Infidelity by spouse
Physical abuse
In-laws

60. Effects of Divorce on the Couple
Typically divorced individuals feel disappointed, misunderstood, and rejected
Divorced people often find it difficult to let go or to find new friendships
People with less preoccupation with the divorced spouse adjust better to single life

61. Divorce Gottman’s Framework:
Couples who express high levels of negative feelings (contempt, criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling) as a result of conflict tend to divorce earlier
Absence of positive emotions causes divorce eventually
Predictions did not hold in lower income samples

62. Efforts to Decrease Divorce
Covenant marriage – couple agrees to mandatory premarital counseling, limited grounds for divorce, makes divorce more difficult
Governmental efforts –
Healthy Marriage Initiative
National Healthy Marriage Center
National Center for Marriage Research
Marriage education programs – limited participation, but positive results

63. Effects of Divorce on the Couple (Cont)
Men are more likely to feel shocked, be blamed for the break-up, accept the blame, move out, and therefore have their social life disrupted
Women are usually at an economic disadvantage, have a more difficult time with prospects for remarriage, and are likely to have inadequate child support

64. Effects of Divorce on the Couple (Cont)
Divorce hangover – inability to let go, form new friendships, or reorient as a single parent, unable to forgive expartner
Preoccupation with the divorce and inability to forgive are indicators of inability to move on with lives

65. Effects of Divorce on the Couple (Cont)
Divorce hangover – inability to let go, develop new friendships, reorient selves as single parents, inability to forgive spouse
If middle aged women initiate divorce they report feelings of self-focused growth and optimism, if did not initiate the divorce they tend to ruminate and feel vulnerable
Middle aged women at particular financial disadvantage if they have been homemakers through the marriage

66. Relationships with Young Children
Mothers tend to obtain custody, but not enough financial resources
Fathers suffer psychologically. Often do not stay close to children

67. Relationships with Young Children
Collaborative Divorce Project – voluntary, contractually based alternative dispute process for couples who want to negotiate a resolution of their situation rather than have a ruling imposed on them by a court. Designed to assist parents of children 6 or younger.
Advantages - less conflict, greater father involvement, better outcomes for children

68. Relationships with Adult Children
Even many years after the divorce, men are less likely than women to have positive relationships with their adult children
Adult daughters’ relationship with their mothers are more likely to be positive, or intensify, after the divorce
Fosters negative feelings on young adults views on intimate relationships and marriage

69. Remarriage
On average, men and women wait about 31/2 years before remarrying
African Americans wait longer than European Americans or Hispanics
Remarriages have 25% higher rate of divorce than original marriages
Remarriages involving stepchildren are 3 times more likely to end in divorce
Women are more likely to initiate a divorce, but are less likely to remarry
European Americans, people with lower educational levels, and military more likely to remarry
Younger generations less likely to remarry
Remarriage 25% more likely to end in divorce esp. with children