Monday, April 12, 2010
Question 1
In my experience with relationships, the hardest concept to change would be the rigid complementary. According to Trenholm this is when "the submissive partner begins to resent always giving in or when the dominant partner begins to tire of being in charge, dissatisfaction can result"(p. 148). I have definitely experienced this kind of relationship and it became impossible to change. The person that is the submissive role does resent the person in the dominant role and it doesn't change because there is no trust that they truly want it to be different. For example, my ex boyfriend always assumed I liked wearing the pants in our relationship, and this assumption made it impossible for us to ever grow into something different. He didn't believe me that I wanted it to be equal and so we would try and make things different but it wouldn't really ever work. A lot of times people are so fed up with the way things are, that they make it up in their heads that it won't work. Rigid complementary also damages the self-esteem of both partners. The one who is dominant thinks everything is all good and then the other person will act out because they don't feel like everything is all good which causes the dominant one to lose trust in the submissive one. The submissive partner loses self-esteem as well because they feel less of a person if they don't "stand up" to the dominant one.
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It’s funny how different these questions get answered. I think it is entirely subjective and has a lot to do with your personality and your relationship experience. I put that the most difficult pattern was the competitive symmetry, simply because I have been in a relationship like that. It was hard because we always wanted to be the one that “won” the argument. It took a long time for both of us to let down our guard and finally come up with a solution to the problem. The relationship was never boring, however. It was exciting and always brought new challenges. The competitive symmetry relationship is definitely a pros and cons type of pattern. However, I do agree with you in that the rigid complementary would be the hardest to change. Great post.
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Ray ray I completely see where you are coming from when you talked about your relationship. I was also in a relationship where my boyfriend always was under the assumption that I wanted to be the person that wore the pants in the relationship. I too would tell him that I wanted us to be equal but he never believed me either. And nothing every really came of the relationship because it couldn’t work if he didn’t think things could ever change. I also agree with you when you said that rigid complementary damages both people in the relationship. Especially when you said that the submissive partner feels like less of a person when they don’t stand up to the dominant partner, that was very well put!
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