The longer I am living, the more nuanced my understanding of relationships becomes. Having witnessed a wide variety of thoughts, feelings and behaviours in my role as therapist, in this post, I would like to discuss some of the ways in which human beings differ in their views towards relationships. I am adopting a broad definition of relationship here as something that works between two people. The overarching message of this post is that today more than ever, we need to figure out what kind of relationship suits us so that we have the best change of creating it with someone else.
Before I originally came to the UK, I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as dating someone non-exclusively. Now this may reveal something about my age and origins. However, it also highlights the fact that we all have varying degrees of exposure to different ideas and cannot assume to be on the same page with a prospective partner. For instance, different faiths may promote certain expectations when it comes to relationships and sexuality. However, even if two people share the same religion or similar backgrounds, their relationship expectations can still be miles apart.
These days, there is a multitude of terms to describe relationships, for example casual relationships, friends with benefits, open relationships, polyamory or situationships. However, this increase in vocabulary doesn’t necessarily bring more clarity. There is now such a wealth of relationship models that we simply cannot know what someone means when they are referring to ‘a relationship’.
Questions that often feature in the therapy room concern the interface between friendships, romantic and sexual relationships, such as: When is something a friendship, and when does it become something else? As a heterosexual, can I be friends with the opposite sex? How can I fulfil my needs for physical intimacy without becoming emotionally attached?
Some people have plenty of male and female friends. They feel comfortable showing physical affection and telling their friends that they love them. They may be used to having very emotionally intimate friendships. Sometimes, these friendships can be more emotionally intimate than their couple relationship. Or they may prefer to have emotionally close ties with their friends and to satisfy their sexual needs in other ways. Some people refer to their friends as family and may indeed view them as such while having little to no contact with their family of origin.
Other people do not believe in friendships with the opposite sex or cannot imagine this for themselves. Some may have very frequent and meaningful contact with their family instead – spending considerable time with their siblings or parents, for example talking to them or messaging with them on a daily basis. Here the expectation may be that any romantic partner would need to integrate into their family first.
Some of my clients who are single move quite comfortably within and between friendships of varying degrees of physical intimacy. Their friendships ebb and flow between incorporating different sexual elements and being purely platonic. For others, this is unthinkable or creates considerable heartache.
I have clients who tell me that they are very well able to separate the physical from the emotional. They can enjoy the pleasure of sex without worrying that this might create more of an emotional connection. For others, even having intercourse once can be such an intense shared experience that it feels more like a meeting of minds and souls rather than a mere physical encounter.
Also with open relationships, there can be lots of different ways in which a couple may decide to open things up: What degree of physical intimacy can both partners enjoy, and under what conditions?
And even if we are just talking about a monogamous romantic relationship, there is plenty of room for misalignment and misunderstanding.
For some, if a person in a romantic relationship speaks at length with their friend about their inner most thoughts and feelings, that’s considered to be an emotional betrayal. For others, that concept doesn’t even exist. They might argue that a romantic partner couldn’t possibly expect them to give up or change their close friendships and that it is a given that they couldn’t possibly fulfill all of their needs either. They might claim that some of their close friends naturally have more empathy than their partner and hence are much better suited for them to confide in.
Some romantic couples like to spend all of their free time together. If they socialise with their friends, they want to do so as a couple. They seem themselves as a unit that has priority over any other relationship. For others, being together so much of the time feels stifling and suffocating. They want to hang out with their own friends and expect their partner to have their own independent social circles. When they go to a party, they want to get to know new people or immerse themselves in different discussions, irrespective of whether or not their romantic partner is there with them.
It also makes a real difference what experiences we come into a new relationship with. For instance, if we’ve experienced infidelity in a previous relationship, we may have different needs for boundaries or reassurance. Together with our new partner, we may need to clarify what these needs are. Points for discussion may include: How transparent do we want to be with each other about our whereabouts and how we use social media? What constitutes flirting? Are we OK with our partner staying over at a friend’s house or sharing a bed with someone else?
Being faced with this variety of relationships and the blurred lines between them, I believe what is most important is that we are clear with ourselves about what we want and what we are OK with. Sometimes, that level of clarity is hard to come by since we only really figure out how we tick when we come into contact with what we don’t want. It’s like culture. The best way of understanding it and how we have been shaped by it is when we confront a culture that is different to our own. Equally, when it comes to relationship models, we may need to confront what is different in order to understand and express what is right for us.
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