CHANGES IN A LIFE

Friends & Friendship ~ Relationships ~

Friends & Friendship ~ Relationships ~

ARTICLES WITHIN THIS TOPIC ARE:

11-25-05

Friendships Do End - Losing Friends.
Friends Part and Even Best Maintained Friendships End:
Losing Friends
Jan Wilson

Friendships may not last. Friendships can lose importance and die gradually. Some friendships end abruptly with unresolved conflict. The worst enemy of friendships is change by one or both friends. There is usually pain with the loss of friendship.In fact, friendships end with pain and change.

Carole King's song, "You've Got A Friend" promises "Winter, spring, summer, or fall--all you've got to do is call--and I'll be there." Many people expect that their friends will always be there. They expect friendship to last forever.

Yet, friendships end and friends part company everyday. Unfortunately, even the best maintained friendships can end.

Many end because of a change in personality or lifestyle when friends just drift apart and fade away with time. There is a retreat from self-disclosure and seeking out each other's company. Avoidance begins. The friendship slowly loses importance and finally disappears.

Sue said, "The end of our friendship was a gradual thing. I moved from one side of the metroplex to the other. We had over an hour's drive to see each other. For a year or so, we met religiously. Then our friendship began to taper off."

John wrote, "I didn't even know the friendship was over until I caught myself thinking of Alan as a former friend. In the past tense rather than the present."

Pat explained, "We started seeing each other less and less. The friendship was just over."

Other friendships break up suddenly from a disagreement or move to another town.

Paul said, "When I moved to Seattle after college, our friendship abruptly died. We were both struggling with new jobs and didn't keep in touch. Now that friendship is so dead, I don't even call him when I go home."

Sandy wrote, "That was the last straw for our friendship. I never spoke to Lisa again. It's like we were never friends."

Bob Carver, Dallas psychotherapist, says, "A friendship or any other relationship fails because of three things:

* Unexpressed expectations,
* Undelivered communication,
* And/or thwarted attention."

Yet the biggest threat to a friendship is change.

For example, moving from single life to coupled life has a great effect on friendship. Coupled persons often feel their single friends act interested in them only when a romantic prospect is not in sight. They may feel jealousy for or neglected by a single friend's new social life. The single friend may feel awkward and withdraw from a world of twosomes. Divorced and widowed people often have a feeling of being abandoned by old friends.

Lillian Rubin in her book Just Friends says, "Thus generally it's true that friends accept each other so long as they both remain essentially the same as they were when they met, or change in similar directions. If they change or grow in different or incompatible ways, the friendship most likely will be lost."

Regardless of why, when, or how friendships end, there is always some pain of loss to assimilate. When nothing can be done to mend the friendship, it is important to grieve and feel the pain fully. Then move on to enhance another friendship or build entirely new friendships.
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11-25-05

What is a friend?

Someone who...

Accepts you as you are,

Believes in "you",

Calls you just to say "HI",

Doesn't give up on you,

Envisions the whole of you (even the unfinished parts),

Forgives your mistakes,

Gives unconditionally,

Helps you,

Inspires you to be the best you can be,

Just happy to be with you,

Keeps you close at heart,

Loves you for who you are,

Makes a difference in your life,

Never judges,

Offers support,

Picks you up,

Quiets your fears,

Raises your spirits,

Says nice things about you,

Tells you the truth when you need to hear it,

Understands you,

Values you,

Walks beside you,

X-plains things you don't understand,

Yells when you won't listen and

Zaps you back to reality.
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11-25-05

Building Friendships from Casual Friends
Friends and Friendship
Joy Stevens

Attending builds friendships and acknowledging builds friendships. Friendships require equality and friendships require loyalty from friends. It takes three years to build true friendship.
In most cases, the transition from acquaintance to friendship occurs gradually. We reach out to offer friendship by offering a potential friend caring, listening, talking, sharing, accepting, and affirming. It takes time and effort to build a friendship. They are built slowly, slowly, slowly...

Yet, nothing can add more to your life than having truly intimate friends. "Just friends" is a goal worth pursuing!

Friendships can take up to three years to build! And building friendships is much the same for children as adults, but a bit quicker!

Self-Disclosure builds friendships.

Self-disclosure is usually the first step in establishing a confidant. And it is scary because of the potential rejection factor. Do it anyway!

Start by sharing a few private thoughts and/or feelings with one person you might want for a close friend. If the person is responsive, he/she will usually share a personal thought or two with you.

If he/she is not responsive to your overtures, don't think of this as a rejection.People may be non-responsive for reasons of their own or merely as a perception of yours. Nevertheless, they can't be rejecting you because they don't even know you yet.

Listening and acknowledging builds friendships.

Often when your child, lover/partner, or friend tells you a story or voices a complaint, he/she is just asking for acknowledgment.

This does not mean that he/she wants agreement or compliance; it merely indicates a desire to be heard and understood.

Try these three steps to acknowledgment:

1. Repeat back.
2. Don't invalidate.
3. Don't try to change.
4. Don't problem solve.

Many conflicts in your personal relationships can be avoided if you will take the time to acknowledge other's feelings and points of view. For more information about acknowledgement, click here.

Listening and attending builds friendships.

Paying attention to someone is called "attending." It means that your ears, your eyes, your body and your feelings are all focused on that person at one time. Attending is a very important part of any relationship. It includes:

1. Being there physically
2. Focusing
3. Eye contact

Looking at and focusing on another person shows that you are "there for him/her." For more information on attending, click here.

Talking Is a Primary Building Block of Friendships.

Talking is an integral component of friendship.

When a friend talks and reveals ideas or feelings, he/she is expecting shared information in return. When the talk is not equal, the person talking feels as if the listener is uninterested.

In fact, the person who is always the listener is really playing the role of a counselor, not a friend. Anytime you have been talking for more than a minute or two without participation from the person you are talking to, you are lecturing, bossing, or putting that person in the role of a counselor.

Loyalty, Equality, and Respect build friendship.

Friends are equal. Without equality, you can't have a close friendship.

Friends are loyal and trustworthy. No one can confide in someone they can not trust to be loyal and to keep his/her secrets.

Friends have similar values. Our value system is so important to us that our friends' values must be close to our own or we will not have respect for this friend.

Allow Time for Friendships to Grow!

Jan Yager, Ph.D. , author of Friendshifts, says that it takes at least three years for "best friends" to evolve. She writes, "One of the reasons tried-and-true friendships take three years to evolve is that working through initial conflicts will determine if a friendship has staying power."
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11-25-05

Setting Limits with Friends
Friends and Friendship
Joy Stevens

If you have long-term feelings of resentment, anger, manipulation, being treated as unimportant, etc., you probably need to set some limits in your friendship.


Many people find themselves caught up in others' problems, then feel confused about how and when to help.

Take your good friend who just left her husband. Do you offer her a place to stay, money, advice, help with baby-sitting, a blind date or two?

Or take the friend who can never make it to the end of the month on a budget. Every month you bail him/her out.

How much is enough?

And how much is too much?

What fosters self-esteem and self-reliance for the other person plus mutual respect for both of you while avoiding the pitfalls of dependency?

All relationships need limits whether they are friendships, sibling relations, mate/lovers, business relations, etc. On some level, all limit setting means saying "no." However, it is usually a qualified nay that says what, where, when, and under what circumstances you will give or not give to another person.

If you have long-term feelings of resentment, anger, manipulation, being treated as unimportant, etc., you probably need to set some limits in your relationship.

There are five steps to limit setting:

1. Choosing to set limits. You will tolerate a difficult relationship situation just as long as you choose to tolerate it. You are the one choosing to set boundaries in place.

2. Identify the source of your feelings. It often takes some real soul-searching on your part to figure out the source of your anger or resentment.

3. Decide where to set the limits. Think about the entire situation. Consider your time, emotions, and means. Then consider whether you are helping the other person or merely allowing them avoid or postpone his/her own problem solving. Aim to do something to help the other person without taking on the whole problem.

4. Express the limits clearly. For example, you say to your friend, "I will loan you up to $200.00 no more than once every three months. And I expect each loan to be repaid within three months and certainly before you can borrow more."

You say to another friend, "You can stay here for three weeks but you must help me with expenses and cooking and definitely find your own place before the three weeks is up."

You say to your newly divorced friend who calls often to rehash her hurt and anger, "I have to go in five minutes."

5. Stick to your limits.You are not responsible for making the other person obey the limits. You are only responsible for following the limits yourself and for reinforcing them.

Your divorced friend says at the end of five minutes, "But I'm not through. I really need to tell you one more thing."

You say, "I know we're in the middle of something but I must go. Perhaps we could take this up again Thursday after work."

Your friend has repaid $125.00 of his/her $200.00 loan and asks for $200.00 more. You say no. He/she gets emotional then says, "Well just loan me the $125.00 again. I need this money to cover a bad check. If you cared for our friendship, you would do it."

Again, you say no, not because you don't care for him/her but because you do. You are forcing your friend to detach him/herself from dependence on you because you care.

Limit setting is difficult because people mistake it for rejection. However, limits mean that you care enough not to get entangled in your friend, lover, sibling's problems; you care enough not to take care of him/her...

Limit setting is often stressful and painful. It will probably give you an intimidating sense of aloneness.

You are separating yourself from old familiar roles and behavior patterns. Any loss brings feelings of anxiety, stress, and even emptiness.

And limit setting inevitably brings guilt. Bear in mind, it doesn't mean you have deserted or quit loving your friend, lover, or sibling. It does mean you are expressing that love in a different and more helpful (to both of you) manner.

Setting limits is a challenging task at work; it often seems an insurmountable task when love is involved. However, like all people skills, setting limits is a process that gets easier with practice.
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11-25-05

Friends Are Loyal and Trustworthy.
How to Grow a Friend:
Joy Stevens

Friendship: Friends are loyal and trustworthy. Good friends never break a confidence.

Deepening friendships mean people can trust you with their secrets, both large and small. Good friends never break a confidence.

Psychologist Don Moore made this observation, "I have a friend who tests relationships early on by giving a small disclosure to an acquaintance. Use this disclosure against him in an argument, repeat it to someone else, or betray this confidence in any way and he realizes you are not good material for a close friend."

Moore continued, "Many people feel the more secrets they know, the more approval of others they have. And this is true. However, when they feel the need to brag a bit by revealing the scope of those secrets, they are on the road to the friendship's end. A person does not have to be a genius to know if you will reveal someone else's secret to her, then you will reveal her secret to someone else."

Alan Loy McGinnis in his book The Friendship Factor writes, "It is a great honor to be privy to information with which you could hurt the other, for your friend took this into consideration before telling you. If you will freely show your gratitude, you will open the way for greater intimacy."

Trust and loyalty go hand-in-hand. When we know someone will be loyal to us, we are on the road to true friendship.

When we know someone is trustworthy and loyal, we will take the risk that friendship requires.
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11-25-05

Friends Reveal Their Feelings.
How to Grow a Friend
Joy Stevens

Friends reveal feelings. That is why few of us ever feel close to the person who must always be strong.

How many of us ever feel close to the person who must always be strong? It is hard to do. That is because he/she never reveals his/her feelings in conversation.

Conversation can be divided into three categories:

* Facts
* Opinions
* Emotions

Take this example:

Facts: "Sally and I had dinner together last night."

Opinions: "Sally and I talked last night over dinner. I really don't think she will marry John after all."

Emotions: "I felt really depressed after I had dinner with Sally last night. I feel pretty certain that she will not marry my brother John now. I know this will break his heart and I hate that. Besides, I'm also sad that Sally will not be in our family. I like her."

Of course, any conversation contains a certain amount of all three categories but friends move talk from facts to emotions. In fact, you can tell how close your friendship is growing by how often you talk about feelings rather than facts or opinions.

We feel closest to other people when we are suffering together, when we feel like the other person needs us, or when we feel someone has shared something of great importance to him/her with us.
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11-25-05

When Friends Hurt and Friendships Harm
Joy Stevens

Recognizing a toxic friendship before it starts. Avoid friends that harm you and friendships that are potentially harmful when you can.

Entering into a friendship opens the door for hurt and harm; a harmful friend or a toxic friendship can be one of life's hardest relationship tribulations to forgive and forget. Toxic friends often come back to haunt you for a long time.

There are nine main types of toxic friends--those people whose friendship hurts you eventually. Knowing the categories of toxic friends helps you avoid them. Unfortunately, though, becoming friends is risky and there is never a guarantee you will not be hurt by a toxic friend.

The User as a Toxic Friend:
This person only has friends as long as he/she can use them for some purpose or goal of his/her own. This person could be the most harmful of toxic friends.

The Betrayer as a Toxic Friend:
Nothing hurts more than a friend who betrays you. The betrayer is truly a toxic friend.

The Control Freak as a Toxic Friend:
The control freak is a friend as long as she/he is in control. The control freak often seems to be helping you. Refuse that help or break that control and find out what toxic friendship really means.

The Judge as a Toxic Friend:
Ever judgmental, ever critical, this friend can erode your self-esteem. The judge is a fault finder. You can rarely do anything completely right with this toxic friend.

The Promise Breaker as a Toxic Friend:
This person rarely does what he says he will do. If you have a date, your toxic friend is often a no-show. A general lack of dependability makes this person a toxic friend.

The Gossip as a Toxic Friend:
The gossip will eventually betray your trust and become a toxic friend. Gossips are easy to spot so beware your friendships with them.

The Self-Centered Person as a Toxic Friend:
Self-centered people can't think of you as they are too busy thinking of themselves. They make toxic friends.

The Competitor as a Toxic Friend:
The competitor is always looking to be "one up." Although some competitiveness is normal in friendships, too much competition makes a toxic friend.

Again, no can always avoid a toxic friend. But often to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

The Leaner as a Toxic Friend:
The leaner is a very needy friend who clings and may be at your doorstep every day. He/she usually wants all of your time and jealousy often enters the picture in this friendship.
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11-28-05

22 Guaranteed Ways To Destroy A Relationship

Relationships are often hard to maintain, even when two people profess undying love for each other. A major problem in a relationship is that one or both partners continue to make the same errors but then cannot understand why the relationship is in trouble. It is almost as though they are determined to do things their way, even at the risk of damaging a good thing.

In my clinical practice, I have discovered at least 22 errors in thinking and communicating that people make, which if repeated, have the potential of destroying a relationship. Which of the following errors are you making?

1. Rigidly maintain that you are always right, even when you do not have all the facts!

2. Never apologize, even when you are proven wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt!

3. Be relentless in rubbing it in when you are proven right!

4. Dogmatically maintain that you know your partner's motives better than he or she does!

5. Assume that your partner should understand your needs and should respond immediately without being asked!

6. Totally ignore your partner's priorities and insist on your own!

7. Operate on the assumption that your partner's sexual need cycle is identical to yours!

8. Add deep psychological meaning to your partner's sexual disinterest, and take it very personally!

9. Do not ever admit hurt, but go immediately to the expression of anger!

10. Identify your partner's character flaws and family secrets and use them to make a point when logic fails!

11. Use guilt to manipulate, to get your own way or to punish!

12. Become proficient at catching your partner being bad, but do not ever comment if you catch him or her being good!

13. Cut no slack, yield no ground and push your argument until your partner walks out the door... then follow the coward!

14. Do not let go of the past, rehashing your version of it as often as possible!

15. Cling very very tightly, claiming that you will surly die if you are ignored!

16. If you are not a clinger, then stay emotionally/physically distant, and show no signs that you really care for your partner!

17. Make promises, but never keep them!

18. Be factious so you partner never knows when you are being serious!

19. Always make excuses for your bad habits!

20. Insist that what you have to say is always more important that what your partner is saying, so interrupt!

21. Pretend that you understand what you partner has said, even if you have no idea of the point that was being made!

22. Act as though you do none of the above and it is your partner who must make all the changes!

About the Author:

Robert W. Birch, Ph.D., Retired Marital & Sex Therapist, 35 years as a psychologist specializing in building sensual, intimate, and loving relationships. Clinician, lecturer, workshop leader, and author of nine books. For more information please visit www.oralcaress.com
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11-28-05

RELATIONAL PERCEPTION
R. C. Laing (pg. 254)

* How you communicate with another is determined by your perception of the relationship you have with them
* Behaviour - involving the observable actions of another is public
* Experience - internal perception and feeling is private
* You infer anothers experience, you cannot observe it (because it is private, internal within them)
* Direct Perspective - when you observe and interpret anothers behaviour
* Meta Perspective - when you assign meaning to what you imagine the other person is thinking and feeling
* Any relationship is defined by the direct perspectives and metaperspectives
* Understanding - the agreement between ones metaperspective and the others direct perspective (jack correctly infers that jill loves him, he understands her)
* Being Understood - the agreement between ones metaperspective and the others metaperspective (jack correctly infers that jill believes he loves her, he is understood)
* Feeling Understood - the agreement between ones direct perspective and ones metaperspective (jack infers that jill believes he loves her, which he does, he feels understood)
* Spirals - particular metaperspectives such as mistrust become accentuated
* Unilateral Spiral - one party moves toward extreme metaperceptions
* Bilateral Spiral - both parties move towards extreme metaperceptions



FUNDAMENTAL TOPOI OF RELATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS (Nonverbal Expectancy-Violation Theory)
Judee Burgoon (pg. 148)

* Our expectations of others is based on social norms as well as past experiences with those people and the situation in which the behavior occurs
* The expectations include non-verbal behavior (eye contact, distance, body angle)
* When our expectations are met, other persons behavior is judged as positive, when expectations are not met, behaviors are judged as negative
* Violations of expectations cause the perceiver to be aroused (standing too close or too far away, abnormal eye contact, staring)
* Arousal can be positive or negative (which makes you feel uncomfortable)
* In violations, attention is drawn to behavior that would normally pass unnoticed
* Reward valence is the degree to which you find the interactions rewarding
* Personal space (its size and shape) depends upon our cultural norms and individual preferences

Violating another persons proxemic expectations can be a superior strategy to conformity. Because distance violations are highly ambiguous, rewarding communicators can enhance their attractiveness, credibility, and persuasiveness by coming too close or staying too far away. Negatively valenced communicators should maintain a distance that others consider appropriate. Griffin. pg. 476
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