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Asked by anon-204924 to Sally, Lucy, Louise, James, David, Dan on 5 Mar 2019.
Question: Why are healthy relationships so difficult to maintain?
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David Chadwick answered on 5 Mar 2019:
Good question. Perhaps it is because humans are such flawed individuals, with characteristics such as anger, jealously, greed, selfishness etc. Such characteristics are bound to harm healthy relationships. So we have to nurture characteristics such as love, friendship, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, etc. which help to grow healthy relationships. Forgiveness is particularly important, given all the flaws that we possess. We need others to forgive us, and we need to forgive others.
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Sally Tilt answered on 6 Mar 2019:
Ooo, that’s a pretty big question!
There are quite a few approaches that you could take to answer this question with regard to psychology. One model that can be used to explain how people form relationships as adults is attachment theory – an idea developed and tested by a psychology called John Bowlby. He suggested that babies have an inbuilt desire and behaviours to try to build close relationships and attachments, with their early caregivers. He suggested that the way that the child and the carer built these early attachments was key to the later adult development of that child. Another researcher, Mary Ainsworth, tested this idea by observing the way that Mothers interacted with their children. She observed different reactions between parent and children and described these as secure and insecure (of different types) attachment styles.
Some psychology models suggest that the development of an insecure attachment styles with a caregiver can impair the process of learning about forming relationships as an adult, and this in turn can lead to difficulties for the person when they reach adulthood about forming and maintaining relationships.
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Lucy Maddox answered on 6 Mar 2019:
Wowser! Fab question and if I knew all the answers I’d probably be able to retire early as I think this is a probably a question everyone worries about to some extent at different times.
My idea of a healthy relationship is where the people involved are both able to get their individual needs met but without trampling all over the needs of the other person. I also think being able to communicate clearly about our individual needs and feelings is part of that. I think that those things are difficult though… communicating clearly about our own needs and taking care of both our own needs and someone else’s can be really tricky, and can take practice. Sometimes it takes time for people to even feel like its ok to ask for their needs to be met, so that’s a whole other layer.
So that’s why I think it’s tricky – because it involves difficult things that we need to practise and not stop doing. -
Dan Taylor answered on 6 Mar 2019:
Yeah this is a huge, question! I think we can break this down a bit as I don’t think we can pin it down to just one thing.
From a social perspective, I think there’s definitely something to be said about how romance is often portrayed in a very specific way, often these ideas of “soul mates” or the one person that’s perfect for you. When we don’t get that, we become disappointed and things start to fall apart, especially in a world which is often so fast paced, we don’t always have the time to spend with our significant other, which often can make these issues much worse. We also live in a world where dating can also be more about quantity than quality, we’re often more bothered about the number of matches than how compatible we are with the person.
I think there is also the issue that humans are scared of being alone, which sometimes work against us. We might end up dating someone who may be completely different to us, but we’re too scared of being alone, so we persist. Unfortunately this often leads to an inevitable breakdown in the relationship. Instead of having this scramble to pair up with someone that may not be right for you, taking the time to make sure this personal compatibility can be formed is really important, it may take a bit longer, but also will help relationships to last a bit longer.
I spend a lot of my time looking at how evolution has shaped human behaviour, so in terms of scientific theory I can talk a lot more about evolutionary perspectives. From an evolutionary perspective love has a bunch of benefits, love help facilitate pair bonding (two people investing in each other). This can be important for insuring parents stay together and can effectively invest in a child, insuring its survival in what would have been a very harsh environment. I think its important to note that evolutionary perspectives focus on what it was like when we first evolved, so back in the day where we would have to worry about being attacked by saber-tooth tigers and other beasts, having two parents looking after a child would probably be very helpful, in modern times we can see that a whole bunch of family structures work (which is fantastic to see). We can see this being mimicked in modern day life, there is some evidence to suggest that divorce rates spike after 7 years, which was thought to be when dual parent investment was most important. After the age of 7, it was much easier for one parent to ensure the survival in that offspring. Germany even thought about making a law which would have allowed couples to renew their marriage every seven years because of this evidence! -
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James Munro answered on 10 Mar 2019:
Good morning 🙂
You say in your profile that your favourite scientist is Brian Cox. That is helpful to me, as I might be able to put this very complex question into one of his analogies.
“Entropy explains why, left to the mercy of the elements, mortar crumbles, glass shatters and buildings collapse”. This idea that as time moves forward, if things are left alone without repair or maintenance, they will stop being complicated structures and instead become chaotic. A house will turn slowly into sand and rubble.
The same is true of relationships. It takes energy to keep a relationship healthy and satisfying – just like it takes energy to keep a house repaired. Some relationships need more energy than others, and it is up to every person to decide when they want to spend energy, and when they think it is better to let their relationships turn to sand.
Absolutely brilliant question. I hope my answer helped.
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