My Reflection On My Relationship

By reflecting on my relational resume and using it in the context of my previous relationships I discovered many things about myself and the ways that I act in relationships. For the most part, in my reflection I’m able to see what qualities caused the relationships to de-escalate and fail; this is because I’m so far out of these relationships and not blinded by the bias of liking that I’m able to see the problems that occurred instead of ignoring them. For this analysis, I’ve decided to focus on and analyze my recent long, and serious relationship of 4 years in regards to principles in the textbook such as attraction, affection, style of love, and attachment styles. First, I’ll cover attraction; attraction is defined as “a motivational state

Affection is the basic need of people to feel accepted and cared for by others and in romantic relationships, the need to feel loved. According to the textbook, absence of affection can reflect decreased emotional closeness and propel a relationship towards de-escalation. I had struggles in my relationship with affection because I would often show it a lot and my partner would never reciprocate; she would show me affection when we were alone but never when we were with others. This made me question many things about our relationship like, was she embarrassed by me? Or was I doing something wrong? I would learn that this was my partner’s first real relationship so she was uncomfortable when displaying affection around others and even though she couldn’t help it, it took a big effect on me. Research says that affectionate communication helps people survive because it is related to better mental and physical health; people who receive affection often are more happy, and more confident. Because she didn’t show affection, I found myself stressed and it made me less happy in the relationship. Our relationship was also affected by the paradox of affection on multiple occasions. The paradox of affection is the idea that “although affection is intended and usually perceived as

The styles of love that I feel apply to my previous relationship are Eros, Philia, Ludus, and Mania. Eros is an intense and passionate form of love that is very primal and powerful. For the beginning stages, I feel as though my love style was Eros and my partner’s was just a little less. As time went on, the intense love didn’t fade as much for me but I felt as though it did for my partner. As her love faded a little I feel as though my love style could have slipped into “Mania”; Mania is an overwhelming love and results sometimes in the loss of one’s identity. I feel as though I fell in love really quickly and that during our relationship, I was too involved and came off as extremely needy. As I slipped into Mania, I was too invested in the relationship and would let it control my emotions. For this reason, I also questioned if my partner’s style became Ludus, or the style of love being a game that is played to control other people’s emotions. Looking back on our relationship, I wasn’t treated very well at all and I feel as though my partner just needed someone there and didn’t particularly care how she made me feel. Even though I feel this way, after our breakup we still remain to be friends. Over our long 4 year relationship, we became great friends as well as romantic partners which is why I think we