Relationships and Tattoos

Tattoos: Resolvers of Transition

  • Tattoos as a way to explore emerging identity.
  • Symbolize the beginning of a personal journey and asserting identity.
  • Tattoos function as resolvers of transition.
  • Help individuals find closure and healing after emotionally difficult experiences.
  • Tattooing the memory of a person, event, or emotion on their skin allows them to hold on to that task while also moving forward.
  • Tattoos help transform negative perceptions of the body into something positive and beautiful.
  • Reframes tattoos as dynamic tools for identity construction and emotional processing.
  • Act as markers of transformation.
  • Allow individuals to self-identify during times of change.
  • Offer a lasting and deeply personal way to document pivotal moments.
  • Complex tattoos act as enablers, initiators, and resolvers, providing a symbolic bridge between who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.

Love vs. Being in Love vs. Liking

  • Being in love differs from liking.
  • Involves intense physical arousal.
  • All-encompassing interest in the other person.
  • Rapid swings of emotion.
  • A feeling of closeness, passion, and exclusivity.
  • Exclusivity is like monogamy, one-to-one.
  • Friends lack physical arousal and exclusivity.

Stages of Love

  • Passionate or romantic stage:
    • Intense physical arousal and passion.
    • Strong, powerful absorption in the person, both psychologically and physically.
    • Strong physical attraction.
    • Sexual attraction leads to wanting to get closer, culminating in sex.
    • If it remains at this level, it is doomed to fail.
  • Companionate level:
    • Characterized by intimacy.
    • Putting others first and being selfless.
    • Having pleasure in just watching them be happy.
    • Intimacy depends on communication.
    • Self-disclosure and genuine interest in another.
    • Conversations proceed with Person A talking and sharing personal things, and Person B being a good listener and giving feedback.
    • This builds bonding and trust, leading to deeper sharing.
    • The goal is feeling of trust and understanding.
    • We all have thoughts or things we've done that we may never share with anyone.
    • Companionate love involves sharing quite a bit.

Choosing a Partner

  • Men typically prefer a partner who is physically attractive and can cook.
  • Evolutionary theory: maximizes the potential for the species to do well.
  • Attractive women lead to more sex and procreation.
  • Women who can cook ensure the family stays alive.
  • Women prefer a man who is ambitious and industrious.
  • Industrious men provide financial stability and care for children.
  • The marriage gradient: Men tend to marry women who are slightly younger, smaller, and lower in status.
  • Lower in status means position in society or job.

Attachment Styles

  • Secure attachment:
    • Happy and confident about the future.
    • About half of adults.
  • Avoidant attachment:
    • Less invested in relationships.
    • Higher breakup rates.
    • About one-fourth of adults.
  • Anxious-avoidant attachment:
    • Over-invested in relationships.
    • Repeated breakups with the same partner.
    • Low self-esteem.
    • This is a trend, not a certainty for everyone.

Cohabitation

  • Living together before marriage.
  • Those who cohabit have a higher divorce rate than those who have not.
  • Possible reasons:
    • The high of moving in together diminishes excitement after marriage.
    • Attachment styles may play a role; anxious people may cohabitate.

Reasons to Get Married (Good & Bad)

  • Bad reasons:
    • Spouse will provide security and financial well-being.
    • Spouse fulfills a sexual role.
  • Acceptable reason:
    • To have and bring up children (easier in terms of societal view).
  • Best reason:
    • Love.
    • Same/similar values, see the world almost the same way.
    • Magical feeling, knowing each other's thoughts.
    • Being in love helps weather ups and downs.
  • Public divorce free with second marriages is 50%.

Having Children

  • Finances: Middle-class family spends approximately 250,000250,000 per child until they reach 18.
  • Good reasons:
    • Pleasure watching them grow.
    • Sense of fulfillment from watching their accomplishments.
    • Enjoyment of having a close bond with them.
  • Bad reasons:
    • Somebody to take care of you when you get older.
    • Somebody to take over the family business.
    • Companionship.
  • Counseling is suggested before and after birth to prepare for the life change.

Gay and Lesbian Parents

  • Being good parents is most important.
  • A child's sexual orientation is determined by hormones, not parenting.

Choosing a Career

  • John Holland's career values:
    • Realistic (R).
    • Investigative (I).
    • Artistic (A).
    • Social (S).
    • Enterprising (E).
    • Conventional (C).
  • Strong Interest Inventory (SII):
    • Well-researched test to determine career interests and values.
    • Compares interests and values to people in different professions.
    • Provides a three-alpha code based on combinations (e.g., RIA).
    • Helps individuals understand what they want to do and matches them up to people who are happy in the field.