Typical Communication Patterns

The typical communication patterns with a married couple are intimacy, commitment and disclosure, and nonverbal affection. Intimacy is the feeling of closeness and connectedness that develops through communication between partners (Galvin, 2015). Commitment is trying to be together such as working out a solution when a problem arises. Disclosure is sharing personal and private information with one another. Nonverbal affection can be shown by reaching for another’s hands, intense visual gazing, and back rubbing. The typical interaction patterns couples used is relational maintenance. The theory that relates to couples is social constructivism. Emotions occur in the contexts of social interactions and relationships. The married couple that

Intimacy can be love, warmth, and joy. There are four factors that lead to intimacy; effort, sacrifice, forgiveness, and sanctification. Effort links with intimacy because couples must put the energy into the relationship to stay connected. Sacrifice is important for intimacy, because it takes a high level of commitment to give up something personal to benefit another family member. Forgiveness is a factor for intimacy due to some relationships being broken, and this can happen when couples do not forgive each other after having horrible fights. In order to become more investment couples need to forgive one another to move forward with their relationship. The last aspect of intimacy is sanctification when married couples know their leading roles. A husband is the head of the house, he is the provider of money, food, shelter, and helps provide emotional support for his wife and children. The mother is the caretaker and the emotional support of the household, she is in charge of providing emotional support to the children and the husband, cleaning the home, and providing a safe environment to raise children. Not only is intimacy is important to a marriage so is

Relational maintenance allows a means for couples to stay happy. Couples maintain the relationship by being positive and open, showing assurances, and by having relationship talk (Galvin, 2015). Couples can show positively by smiling, compliments and laughing with one another. Another way to interact with another is talk and share feelings about their problems with each other. Showing assurance is by including messages of affection and support. Having relationship talks is another way to show relational maintenance by discussing the quality of the relationship.

The theory that relates to marriage is social constructivism theory which connects emotions to relationship. Emotions are socially constructed in the moment-to-moment interactions. For example, when there’s a marital conflict a spouse can use passive aggression or active aggression towards the other person and can ruin a relationship with one another (Boiger & Mesquita,