Reciprocity in Relationships

A Question from the Advice Corner

Can I please have you opinion on whether a person can ever be too forthright and communicative in a relationship?

Too forthright? Too communicative? At some point in the communication process you may be communicative and forthright, but the communication will not be complete until you get a response. What you’re always looking for in a relationship, at the bare minimum, is reciprocity. If you’re communicative and forthright and that elicits a communicative and forthright response from your partner, chances are better to generate rapport, achieve intimacy and really enjoy being together. Furthermore, if you’re not communicative and forthright, achieving rapport and intimacy becomes impossible. If the person you’re with responds in kind, you’re set.

However, if you continue to be communicative and forthright and your partner doesn’t or doesn’t know how to respond in kind, you cease being communicative and forthright. There will no longer be a natural flow and deepening in the relationship.

If you continue when your communication is not reciprocated, chances are that you’re running off purpose, and your own personal agenda has taken over. Are these control issues -- trying to get the relationship to unfold on your terms and to your liking?

You may want to ask yourself the question, “How comfortable am I being vulnerable?” The nature of intimacy is one of vulnerability, because you never know how your partner will respond. He may be communicative and forthright or not.

Addictions, Recovery, Relationships

I have been with a woman for the past year that I am very much in love with that started attending AA 2 months ago. We have been communicating up until recently. I was not aware of her problem until we tried living together for the winter. It turned into an emotional rollercoaster to say the least. She finally faced the problem and started AA 2 months ago. I moved back home but we continued communicating and did some things together once in a while etc... She first wanted a couple of months to get on track, but now it has turned into the one year without a relationship and now she speaks to everyone but me. She wants to return all the diamond jewelry that I gave her and will not tell me she loves me anymore. Or, once she said "I love you," but needed to get her life together. It seems a huge wall went up all of a sudden. I admit I have had a difficult time understanding this so called disease but I am quickly educating myself of course. But the radical change in feelings, moods and decisions remind me of someone skating on the edge of bipolar disorder. Is this normal and should I make myself disappear (detachment) until she wants to talk to me in 6 month to a year and wait for hopefully a reconciliation.

Thanks,
Rick

5/10/06

Hi Rick,

Thank you for your inquiry.

The timing of this relationship was unfortunate. You seemed to get more involved when she was needing to get less involved with you, more involved in her own recovery. It sounds like she realized that she is in no condition to continue this relationship, when she needed to make sobriety and recovery her top priorities. It's true, "all bets off" right now- Given that she is now in the early stages of recovery, it would behoove you to put this relationship on an indefinite hold. If and when she is ready to return and there is interest and readiness to get back together, you'll "cross that bridge" then. The 1 yr without a relationship is the standard recommendation throughout the 12-step program, and for which there is a sound basis. It's quite likely that during the time you felt that you were "in love" with her, you weren't being realistic or objective about how well you were doing together, that you were proceeding blindly ahead. From your description, it doesn't appear that the "radical change in feelings, moods and decisions" is coming from someone skating on the edge of bipolar disorder." It sounds like she realized that she isn't ready to proceed. The best thing for you to do at this time is to get support for things not working out the way you wanted them to and to validate yourself for not pushing for a relationship that is not mutual.

Daniel

"True Love" in a Platonic Relationship?

Question From the Advice Corner...

Can there be "true love" in a relationship with platonic intimacy but not sexual intimacy? (I mean, if there was once, but it died out.)

Daniel's Response

Sexual intimacy is "icing on the cake," not the cake. True love transcends sexual intimacy. It may be an ideal that is never realized, or it may be realized; that is, if you wholeheartedly believed, acted upon and expressed. True love has more to do with ability to communicate intimately over time making for an ever-deepening relationship, a enduring bond of loyalty and commitment, not necessarily monogomy, but more like a best friend, soul mate -- the one you feel the most connnected to or intimate with, that special person, the only one in that category.

Visitor's Response 5/8/06

I am not sure that I understand. I have always felt that if two people are in a relationship, spend time together and are intimate, but not sexually intimate, than they are ultimately, just friends. It is the sexual intimacy that makes it more than just a friendship.

Daniel's Response 5/8/06

Let's be careful not to get too bogged down on the concept of friendship, and be thinking of friendship as falling short of true love in any way. Because the relationship is not sexual doesn't diminish it. Friend is probably the closest anyone will get to defining or simplifying true love into what it actually is.

Sex may be likened to the "x-factor." On one side of the spectrum, sex, even great sex doesn't equate to true love in any way as sex may be completely void of any emotional exchange. But if a great rapport evolves into an on-going intimate relationship and you add sex, or great sex into that equation, then you might be moving closer to achieving the ultimate, all inclusive true love. When it comes to quality of relationship, sex is only one of many other considerations.

Visitor's Response 5/9/06

I am still confused. If a couple is always together, i.e., eat together, watch TV together, sleep in the same bed together, are together almost every moment, but are not sexually intimate... What would you call this?

Daniel's Response 5/09/06

What you're describing may well be true love. The defining factor is totally subjective - how two people feel towards and with eachother, the love in their hearts and the immeasurable depth of two people's ideals being realized.

(I did not get the sense from your words and in your tone that you found spending all that time with someone and doing all those different things together particularly poignant. Again, you're running the risk of diminishing what may be mundane aspects of true love. I would think that when we're talking about true love the experience would include, the mundane and the profound. Or, that you cast off true love as mundane if it doesn't include sex.)

Vistor's Response 5/09/06

Also, do you think someone can analyze to much? Should they accept things for what they are?

Daniel's Response 5/09/06

Are you asking me whether I analyze too much? Or, are you asking me whether you might be analyzing too much? Being in pursuit of intimacy is not analyzing too much. When thoughts get in the way of feelings, you may be analyzing too much. The point of your line of inquiry is that you know that things are not what they appear to be and the actual experience may be eluding you.

The nature of true love is subjective. Therefore, whenever you discuss it or ask questions you run the risk of intellectualizing.

Visitor's Response 5/10/06

Please give me you thoughts on when two people are in an intimate relationship and sexual desire/attraction diminishes or goes away completely.

Daniel's Response 5/10/06

If you are talking about fluctuations of sexual desire and interest, there are several factors to consider. There are natural biological forces that slow or impede sexual functioning like aging. Then, stresses of life and life style might make the mood not condusive for sexual intimacy. It always helps to be rested and have windows of opportunities to connect intimately and sexually. You also want to think about the stage and the dynamics within the relationship. True love, intimacy and sexual fulfillment don't continue on their own. Two people have to be present and have aligned intentions to make it happen each and every time.

Every relationship goes through periods when one is more or less connected to the other. Relationships need "check-ins" and status updates. What often happens is that two people stop communicating and intimacy is at a standstill before anyone notices that sex is lacking. For this reason, pursuing a venue where a couples therapist has experience facilitating communication with couples in these types of situations often results in relationship renewal. If one can address these issues with their partner directly (regarding where one is really at with the other person in the relationship), there may not be the need to pursue a therapist.