Web lecture 5

I think that Long-term Relationships and Conflict is more intense when the couples first start out because they try too hard to make everything perfect and work out just right. And over time as they get use to one another and more comfortable that is why they are able to let things go more easily and have less conflict. Its kind of like the saying of “pick your battles” and after a while the little things that bothered couples in the beginning they are just able to adjust to later. And of course maturity has a lot to do with how often you have conflict in your relationships.

Chapter 15

Within Chapter 15, I found that I could relate to and understand the turning points in family relationships best. We all go through so many turning points with parents. Some we all experience and others we do not. I remember that open moving out to attend college at San Francisco State, some years back that I did in fact have less and less contact with my parents. I remember just trying to come into my own from being out on my own (per say). I think I just felt that I need to enjoy my time away and fend for myself, as much as I could considering my parents were paying for my education and apartment, I still felt that I needed to be an independent. I worked and went to school both in San Francisco so I didn’t feel there was any real need to come home. Of course that was until my time of crisis with some strange roommates and then I found myself coming back home more often for/to depend on that close connection and bond with both my parents. I am thankful that I do feel that my parents have come into our own in the third turning point of communication. I have yet since moved back home from days of going to SF state and now being at SJ state, I have found that my parents do include me on more decisions around the house. I also do appreciate the fact that as they get older and things need to be taken care of and prepared for as they get older they include me and my sibling in their decisions and inform us of all their wishes. Of course the aging of my parents and taking care of things that will need to be taken care of is not something I look forward too, but then again, I don’t think anyone does.

Chapter 13

I really enjoyed reading all of chapter 13. There were so many different areas that I could relate to in this chapter so it was hard to pick just one to blog about. However conflicting styles won out in the end. For me it’s a toss up between what two styles I would say are the best. Collaborating is the first. Isn’t that what any good relationship does, it’s a collaboration of two people in any situation coming together to promote solutions, goals and commitment together? And yes, I can understand that often it takes lots of energy and often feels like more work than anything else. On the other hand I think the style of Compromising is also works best. That’s what life is about, compromising, isn’t it? Any good relationship has its handful of compromising. And although the disadvantages involve scarifies by both people involved, don’t all types have some level of sacrifice to a degree? For example, you may not always want to go with you partner to that rock concert if you like classical but you sacrifice make a compromise and do it because of what the relationship means to you. One style I have been experiencing for a while is that of Withdraw and Avoidance. The story at the beginning of the chapter and this style really hit home for me this week. You see, I have this great job, that I use to love. However, my boss, who I use to be close too hired someone who just doesn’t fit right in our department of three. And over the past 5 years, he is the third person in that position. My colleague is well in a manner of words, unprofessional and very inexperienced for the position they hold. But, for my bosses own personal private reasons, she feels this person is great and perfect for the job. Unfortunately my colleague has not only disrupted the department but also the small company as well. Sadly there is a division between the a few other departments and the one I am in due to this colleague. In any case, my boss and I have become increasingly distant in the last 8 months. My boss has become quite unbearable to work with at times and when we differ or something goes array in our department her and I use the style of Withdraw and Avoid. Whenever I have a problem with my boss and her ethics, my colleague or whatever is going on at the time, instead of confronting her, I just avoid the situation. I mean, my job gives me extreme flexibility with my school schedule and that’s why I keep the job and my mouth shut so that I don’t get fired. I also no longer confront my boss because she isn’t willing to try out any of my solutions I offer because she sees it as a threat of me trying to take over, in which it’s the complete opposite. She use to be great boss and I am only trying to find ways to help fix things but she is closed off to any suggestions. I also don’t confront her anymore because she continues to make excuses for my colleague, such as, they are young and they need to learn and get use to this type of job. And my question to that is, this person was suppose to have experience in the job, they are 25 going on 26, so they aren’t that young and after 8 months of work, when are they finally going to catch on? LOL. So my boss essentially avoids confrontation with me by making excuses to try and make me understand why my colleague is the way they are and that my solutions are just not possible. In addition, anytime that my boss may have a problem or question about my work or a decision I have made, she doesn’t confront me to ask me, rather she sends an email or memo about the situation in hopes that I will respond to her that way in lieu of having a face to face conversation to work the problem. However, I only see my boss as being weak in her attempt to avoid the situation instead of finding ways to fix things. As for Competing style I see that as those people are selfish and Accommodating as weak people as well because they are pleasers and should take care of themselves just as much as the person they are engaging in a relationship with.

Chapter 12

In chapter 12 I found Culture and Self-Construals to be interesting. Perhaps I was more in tune with this section because for my other Comm classes this summer, they focus a lot on different cultures and how we communicate differently and that leads us to where we are today in terms of communication at work, in school and personally with each other. It definitely seems that we communicate and use tactics based on how our culture is. For example, the point about Japanese avoiding conflict and Americans do not. Although I have no real experience with the Japanese culture one on one per say, what I observe if I am in a Japanese community, say at a restaurant, in school or someplace like Japan town, it does seem that Japanese culture does try avoid conflict by focusing more on subtle indirect communication strategies than we do. We are loud society as Americans so it only seems fitting that we’d be more likely to dive in and get into an argument or confront and persist on get someone’s ideas out or giving our expertise spin on something. And in terms of how we and the Korean culture make request again, it seems that these culture tactics sum up pretty good how I view each culture to be. Sometimes, I think are the Europeans and other countries right in thinking that we are the rude culture based on how we communicate? For example, the comparison of the how the Koreans feel that making certain request were imposing on peoples feelings where as Americans are more right in your face, direct and imposing upon one another. It was an interesting and right on the money section for me.

Lecture 4

I really enjoyed the lecture on Relational Dialectics. Since my grandfather has Alzheimer’s I could relate in some way. He (my grandfather) came to stay with my family the week after Father’s day and boy was that really a test to just how to handle things. It’s sad but true, like the wives I and my family and his own wife, my step-grandmother experience the presence-absence, certainty-uncertainty, openness-closedness, and past-present. My grandfather was present but he had no real idea where he was. He kept asking my mother if this was the same house that we’ve lived in or did we move. And when I saw my grandfather not knowing how to use the controls for the tv in our guest room, I asked him if he needed help and he said, “yes, I was waiting for that guy who has been helping me to come in here”, that guy, was in reference to my father, his son, who he clearly didn’t even know. So yes, he is living and we are living with him in the presence-absence. So I often during that week would say “grandpa” and give him a hug or pat him on the back and smile. It was difficult to determine if the ache in his shoulder that he kept complaining about was real or just a tactic to try and get us to take him home so his wife could take care of him because he missed her. He seemed fine, and nothing seemed to really be wrong with his shoulder. Since my grandpa stayed with us while his wife had caterax surgery, it was often difficult in deciding to disclose how she was doing in or explaining why staying with us longer, when he asked if he could go home. In all it was a very difficult weak because my family had never experienced on a day to day basis how bad my grandpa is and how, he really isn’t my grandpa anymore. Sure he’s here but he doesn’t talk to me the same or act toward me the same as he did before when he was of sane mind.

Chapter 11

In chapter 11, I had an OMG moment. In the grave dressing and move on section, I felt like I was reading about my last two years. Yes, I had a break up. And yes, when my boyfriend broke up with me, it was an extremely traumatic event and I felt all the feelings they described in the book because I thought that-that relationship was it, I thought I had found the one. Anyway, I think the outcry and denial stage were the biggest and scariest thing I had ever experienced. I had never before let a break up get to me the way that one did. I did feel panicked, in despair, with draw from others, I didn’t want to do anything, even eating, I was going through it, I felt everything. Sometimes, I feel like I had a real break down, it was a horrible loss. At that point I scared myself a little bit. I never thought I’d be the girl on the floor, not able to get up from crying for days, or the girl who wasn’t ever able leave the house again because I couldn’t cope, or the girl who reacted to the break up the way I did with my crazy desperate actions. It even took me a long time to be able to sleep again by myself. I was so use to having some there all time. Of course I experienced the intrusions now again but I definitely didn’t think I’d ever get past it all. Toward the end of my relationship, I had gone into therapy to work on my issues that were causing problems in my relationship, I got more intense with the treatment when the relationship ended and was on my way to working through it. It’s been 2 years and I’ve finally come to the completion and narratives. I can tell I’ve come to the end stages because a year ago when I went out on a date, I wasn’t ready. I could barely get through lunch and basically hyperventilated on the poor guy and I cried all the way home from the date, partly because I wasn’t ready and I knew it, and partly cried cuz I felt bad for basically freaking out a nice guy who had no real idea what I was going through. But it’s kind of funny that this chapter comes at this particular time in my life. Through my job, there is someone that I met a year ago. Someone I was totally not interested in and rejected their invitation for a date twice before. But after finally really talking to this person for about a week, and him asking again for a date, I’ve accepted. I’m actually looking forward to it. Partly because I have learned so much through my therapy, not just about relationships but how to deal and act around people in a different light and partly because I’m really excited to interact in the my new ways with someone outside of my friends and family. I’m also looking forward to not hyperventilating this time around. But in the end I am thankful that I went through grave mess of the breakup that I did because I learned so much. And I’m grateful that my ex was in my life because he gave me courage to do so much, and go through so much and find out that I can come through it all ok and a better person in the end.

Chapter 10

In chapter 10, I really wanted to talk about the Sharing Tasks section. Of course I was expecting and not surprised that the book brought up the fact of “traditional” sex-role division. This is something that bothers me just a bit. Where and why and how has society allowed these rules of who does what or provides what in a relationship set a president on how genders are represented in a relationship? I don’t like that a man should be the one to mow the lawn and the woman the one to cook. My sister sometimes mows the lawn if her husband is too tired from his hard day at work. Or my brother in-law sometimes makes the dinner or takes care of the children when my sister is too tired from day at work. I understand the whole idea of what is expected but that doesn’t mean that that is the way it has to be. We can in fact change roles and still give the same amount of sharing of tasks in a relationship. I think that sometimes these “traditional” sex-roles hurt a relationship as well. My parents for instance….my mother was always the planner when I was growing up. She would plan where we went on our vacations, what we did and the rest of us, including my father just went along for the ride. Now, as my parents are in the older days of their life my mother often gets frustrated cuz my father never plans anything. And so because somewhere in society it was mapped out that the mother needs to care of the kids and the family and the direction or even in my Latin culture that the mother is one who maintains the family togetherness, now she is left frustrated that my father doesn’t 1. Know how to take on that role and 2. Has no desire too. I think sometimes that these sharing of tasks help to ruin a relationship because expectation of the “traditional” doesn’t happen as one gender would like. If people just instead mapped out in their own relationship what works best for them and what each brings to the table the best then maybe we’d have less divorce.