Why are relationships needed? This is the same as asking why water or air is needed? But many people cannot answer this question or give the most banal reasons.
Everyone knows the parable about two halves that God scattered around the world, and they spend their entire lives looking for each other. Not everyone manages to find it, so people start dating for the most ordinary reasons: not to be alone, to have children, to live like everyone else, to be a support in difficult life situations.
But what is a relationship for then? Why fall in love, waste time on friends, communicate with family, if the reasons for their creation are so prosaic.
Every person needs a relationship because he has a soul that requires harmony and warmth. Reuniting with each other for love and friendship, they give a sense of real life, turning each into a great value for the other.
Even when the relationship doesn’t work out, this is a wise lesson for each of us.
Why do people need relationships?
This term was first used by Aristotle and called the relationship “a symbiosis of two people, which is created by a mutual connection.” Their highest level is love, everything else is dictated by reason.
At different periods of life, the need for them is dictated by different reasons.
Why are relationships important during adolescence?
Romantic relationships during adolescence are an important stage of human development. During this period, the basic principles of future adult life are laid. The feeling of adulthood, independence, raging hormonal levels “leads” a teenager to his first, sublime love.
For a teenager, these relationships are very important; they look for the only person in the object of love with whom they can share their most intimate things, receive support, and feel new emotions and experiences. Often a teenager loves not a real person, but his dream, attributing non-existent traits to the chosen one.
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But it is precisely these feelings that correctly evaluate ourselves and others.
According to surveys, every ninth man is married to his first “school” love.
Why do we need a relationship between a guy and a girl?
There are several reasons why a guy and a girl meet: uncontrollable love at the level of a chemical reaction, logical choice, physical attraction.
In the process of developing feelings, young people experience a “mini-format” of future family behavior.
The beginning is full of hope, tenderness, and enjoyment of each other. After six months, the passions subside, and are replaced by a period of testing feelings and similarities of characters, the idealization of the partner ends, disagreements arise, and separations are possible.
If the partners retain their feelings, this becomes the threshold of marriage.
Long-term relationships are based on trust, the desire to share significant events, support each other in trouble, and the opportunity to be yourself next to your partner. This is an invaluable experience for the future long years of life together.
What is the relationship between a man and a woman for?
Relationships for a man and a woman, according to psychologists, have different goals; they need each other for different tasks.
It is important for a man:
- Continuation of the family line
- Constant sexual intimacy
- Taking care of him and making him feel comfortable at home
- Spiritual closeness and support
- The desire to care, provide, and protect one’s “nest” are three basic components of a man’s essence
It is important for women:
- Start a family, get married
- Have children
- Financial support
- Feel loved and wanted
- Feeling of security and stability
- Care and help
Sigmund Freud on relationships
Sigmund Freud is famous for his research into the psychology of the unconscious. It is he who owns the phrase that perhaps most fully reveals the essence of a person’s need for relationships: “We choose each other not by chance - we meet only those who already exist in our subconscious.”
Thus, in Freud’s understanding, the subconscious is more responsible for a person’s desire for relationships than a conscious choice. So if you figure out what your subconscious is looking for, you can easily understand why you really need a relationship.
Now the second and, as we wrote above, more important point. It is important to understand in whose subconscious we already exist. If everyone chooses only those who already exist in their subconscious, then we are chosen according to the same principle. If this is clear, then, after all, you will have to turn on your consciousness and try on the basic patterns for yourself.
For example, if a woman wants to feel protected always and everywhere, the likelihood of attracting the attention of a powerful, or even despotic, person is very high. If a man wants to reign supreme, then in choosing a partner he can rely at most on some kind of “gray mouse” who does not want to take responsibility for his life. A determined and independent girl is unlikely to tolerate someone’s despotism and total control.
Through the area of the unconscious, you can consider almost all the visible and, it seems, conscious reasons why people start or continue relationships. Of course, in this way you are unlikely to correct your subconscious, but at least you will reduce the degree of misunderstanding why your relationship is developing this way and not otherwise.
And one more thought from the master of psychology: “A woman should soften, not weaken a man.” Yes, this idea needs to be taken into account long before your first date. Few men will strive to be with a woman who makes him weaker. But the opportunity to be next to someone soft, kind and caring looks clearly more attractive. By the way, being needed is also one of the motives why the stronger sex seeks a relationship with the weaker sex. And one of the differences is in the motivation for relationships on the part of the stronger and weaker sex.
How to know if you need a relationship
To understand whether you need a relationship, you need to honestly analyze your inner state and decide whether you constantly need another person by your side. Many people feel much better and calmer when alone.
| No | Yes |
| The person is an introvert, does not need communication, people are annoying | Lack of communication, I want to have a good friend |
| Love freedom from any obligations | Lack of sex life or its irregularity |
| Relationships hinder career advancement | Do you want a family and children? |
| No desire to make long-term relationships | Lack of care, support and help in life |
| You don’t see a worthy partner in your environment | Loneliness, melancholy |
| Self-sufficiency, best friend is a pet | Having confidence in the face of life's challenges is easier with two people |
| Negative past experiences | The state of unclaimed love |
What influences them2
How relationships develop and change depends on many factors, including beliefs about behavior and attitudes between women and men in relationships, experience, or at least character.
This is largely influenced by a kind of matrix of “woman - man”, “woman - woman” and “man - man”, which people carry out from childhood. Simply put, a girl learns from her mother what it is like to be a woman, a wife, a mother. The “mother-daughter” relationship is a prototype of a girl’s relationships with other women in adulthood. And the girl’s relationship with her father is a kind of prototype of her relationships with men in the future.
For example, if the father is strict, demanding of his daughter, cold or aggressive, then the girl learns to fulfill her father’s demands, to be towards him, he can react with fear and objects to his outbursts of aggression. In adulthood, this girl, as a woman, can be defensive, submissive in relationships with men and react with anxiety to her partner’s outbursts of anger.
How to create strong relationships
In order not to make a mistake in your choice and understand whether it is worth planning a future with this person, you need to objectively evaluate your partner and the prospects for further life together.
Strong mutual feelings require the fulfillment of a number of important conditions:
- Sexual harmony and compatibility.
- Respect for personal space.
- Lack of desire to remake a partner in your own way.
- Everyone has the right to individuality and originality.
- Accepting flaws and preferences.
- Intuitive understanding of each other.
- No deception, no secrets.
- Caring for each other, lack of “terry” selfishness.
- Coincidence of life priorities.
Attachment can be insecure
What is dangerous attachment? The heartfelt affection of two people for each other looks idyllic from the outside, but in reality it can be selfish, demanding, on the verge of emotional terror. And then this attachment becomes burdensome for both parties, doesn't it?
Elena Stankovskaya: This is one of the options for what is an insecure attachment. Most often, this is due to an anxious type of attachment. This is when I feel that I cannot survive without another, and therefore I allow him to abuse me. There are also mutually destructive relationships where partners cause a lot of pain to each other, experiment with each other's boundaries and destroy intimacy. This suggests that a secure attachment has not been formed. But if it exists, then close relationships are always beneficial. They relieve many psychological problems. In addition, there is an “avoidant” type of attachment, when people avoid relationships and live alone. And they try not to allow another to be significant to them. Some people feel fine, while others develop symptoms of anxiety and depression. Even if you are an avoidantly attached person, what you really need is attachment. You need a relationship, you need someone to whom you will tell about how you don’t need a relationship.
Self improvement
Very often, love and the desire to have a relationship force a person to improve. For example, in order to please a certain person, you begin to study topics that interest him, try to become better, and highlight the most positive qualities in yourself. It happens that a person finds a soul mate in the process of self-improvement, which makes this reason for looking for a relationship doubly productive. Even if you don't build a relationship, the fruits of self-improvement will remain with you forever.
Physical needs
Although this option is quite crude, it is one of the reasons to try to build a relationship. In order for a person to be healthy, he must satisfy all his needs, one of which includes sex. Some people initially start a relationship precisely for this purpose, knowing that no serious relationship will come of it. But if we compare the need for food and the need for sex, then the latter will be less important, especially since the desire to have sex is perfectly suppressed by other sublimated activities, for example, sports. Thus, although physical need is the answer to the question: why are relationships needed, it is far from the main thing.
Relationships with children
The relationship between parents and children also very often develops into conflict situations. Some of the questions from viewers who turned to a psychologist for help are: “What should I do if my parents are still playing tyrants and trying to teach me how to live? How should a child behave if a parent is constantly dissatisfied?”
“The topic of control and suppression is quite difficult for parents and their children,” says Diana. Psychology of relationships, as well as questions: “How and why?” - sounds from people indicate a lack of understanding of the reasons for what is happening. They are focused on investigation and blaming others.
The problem is that people ask, “Who is right and who is wrong?” And sometimes parents themselves seek to control and manipulate. Naturally, children begin to adopt these behavior patterns and resist. Why, if it only brings suffering?
Using her personal example, Diana told how she faced problems of mutual understanding with her children. Until she began to ask herself questions: “Who is the child trainer in me and who is the evaluator of other people’s actions in me?” — there was no clear understanding of the situation.
If you remove the assessment and stop picking on children over trifles, then the relationship will gradually improve. We must understand that they are just learning to live and interact in this world. Therefore, it is better to just help them with this and love them.
Purely for myself
What is a relationship for now?
How does a person who lives in “post-truth” mode and perceives a girl as a feature for a show called “happy together” answer this question?
Status
— The status of a guy who is not alone, “in demand” by the female sex, is very important, otherwise you and your influence are too weak. You can read about the rules of life for a womanizer here. The principles of a womanizer or what needs to be done so that your constant does not find out about your mistress
Sex
- Be sexy and experienced. A need as important as uninterrupted access to Wi-Fi
Household items
-House cleaning and cleanliness. Little things in relationships, how girls help in relationships.
About men
Masculinity is power, action and logic. It is he who bears the enormous responsibility of revealing the essence of a woman and her strength.
A man is free from the excessive sentimentality inherent in women - he is consistent in his actions, stable in his judgments and reliable in the ups and downs of life.
Just don’t confuse a Man and a male individual. It's different. Just like Woman - this difference is not based on gender or wearing a skirt.
Relationships and friends
Often the reason for partners' quarrels is the other half's comrades. Do you need friends in a relationship? Or maybe they only provoke the couple’s separation?
The fact that a person has friends is his big advantage. But at the same time, such a circumstance seriously undermines existing love relationships. After all, for example, a guy will have to devote time not to his girlfriend, but to spend it with friends. Quarrels with your soulmate in this case are inevitable. After all, a person shares his opinions, experiences and emotions not with his partner, but with friends.
Is it necessary to sort things out in such cases? If a guy values a girl, then he should introduce her to his friends. This will allow them to come to meetings with their comrades together. Another way out of this situation can be found. So, friends can be given time when the other half has gone to work, left or is busy with other things.
It should be understood that for a future life together, a person needs to maintain a good relationship with his partner. Friends should remain friends. Moreover, they also create their own love affairs, in which only two are present.
Accepting your partner for who he is
Does a man or woman need a serious relationship if their partner has any shortcomings? It is worth understanding that everyone has negative sides. And in order to create and maintain a strong relationship, the beloved must be accepted entirely. Psychologists recommend trying to look at your partner’s shortcomings from the other side and try to find something good in them. For example, if a man does not want to eat what a woman likes, she has to prepare dishes separately for him and for herself. Of course, this is not entirely convenient. What to do in this case? A woman should study the properties of her favorite products. Or maybe they harm the body? In this case, you should think about switching to the food that your partner prefers. After all, it turns out that he is not capricious at all, but cares about his health.
Finding compromises
How to understand whether a man or a woman needs a relationship if disagreements often arise between partners?
You should not rush to conclusions, since it is quite difficult to meet absolutely identical people. Each of the partners is an adult, already established personality, with their own principles and views. Nevertheless, if they want to have a serious relationship, people should try to find something in common that would suit both of them. And this is very important when making any serious decision. In such matters, the opinions of both sides must be taken into account.
Why are we important to each other?
The man is the first to take a step to further develop the relationship, but the woman pushes him to do so: with a look, a gesture, a smile. Without her love, he cannot live happily, it is important for him to feel needed, in demand, every achievement of a goal is like defeating a dragon in the Middle Ages for the sake of a princess (after all, thousands of brave men did not sacrifice themselves out of sporting interest). A man feels his importance, his masculine strength only next to Her.
And who is a woman without a reliable male shoulder? Boy-woman, who “gallops into the fire”? Without male love and attention, the flower of femininity will never bloom, but will remain a withered bud of uncertain purpose.
It is important for a woman to feel his protection; thanks to a man, she gains confidence in the future. The man teaches her the art of love and forgiveness, just as she teaches him to be strong and persistent, for his sake she strives to become more beautiful, wiser and more feminine.
Close relationships are always risky
Can close relationships be somehow dangerous? I don't mean here what is called "promiscuity."
Elena Stankovskaya: Close relationships are always risky. They are fraught with the pain of loss. Because if we enter into intimacy, then the other person becomes part of our life, and losing him means losing a part of ourselves. That's why they say that intimacy is built on mutual trust and willingness to take the risk of rejection, misunderstanding, betrayal and loss.
In your lectures you say that close relationships require an emotional response. Which one? It can be both positive and negative. Or are both important?
Elena Stankovskaya: A careful emotional response is important. Because intimacy is an exchange of emotions. And when we trust another person with our tastes, fears, desires, dreams, thoughts, discoveries, we want empathy. And it hurts us if the answer is indifference. There is modern neurobiological research that shows that the lack of a safe emotional response is equivalent to physical pain. “It hurts me when people don’t hear me” - this phrase should be taken literally. Ideally, we need a fair response, correlated with our ability to accept this response. It shouldn't be a carrot, but it shouldn't be a stick either. What is a fair response? It is a response that matches the inner truth of the other person. How to present this truth is what is called emotional literacy, the ability to express it so that another person can more easily understand and accept it. One of the modern researchers of intimacy says: remove tenderness from intimacy, and you get cruelty. And in this sense, we need tenderness, we need mercy towards others. Although fair negative feedback is also useful. He shows how we shouldn’t be treated, often - that relationships are important to us.
Common mistakes and their psychological consequences
Things don't always go smoothly. At first, there is a grinding-in stage, when partners are just beginning to get to know each other. Conflicts are inevitable, but there is no need to be afraid of them, they allow you to better understand the other person, his needs, pains.
Typical mistakes:
- too rapid rapprochement - new acquaintances do not know each other well;
- behind bright emotions and strong love, it is difficult to adequately evaluate a person;
- comparing the new partner with the previous one, sometimes not in favor of the first;
- excessive demands already at the beginning of acquaintance;
- the desire to limit the partner’s contacts, to tie him exclusively to himself - freedom of choice and personal space must remain;
- the fact of accepting that the past relationship is over has not occurred, there remains the hope of returning to it;
- the new partner is perceived as temporary;
- behavior when one of the partners tries too actively to adapt to the other;
- on the contrary, an attempt to adapt a new person to oneself;
- hushing up what irritates you, what you don’t like - sooner or later this will result in a strong conflict, because you can’t keep negative emotions inside yourself all the time and not notice irritating factors;
- jealousy is an initial lack of trust in a partner;
- specially provoking jealousy - the only thing this will lead to is conflicts, mistrust, severance of relationships;
- lie - relationships should be built on honesty, only then will they be strong;
- excessive intrusiveness - you need to leave your partner his personal space - if today he doesn’t want to communicate, that’s his right.
