Couple Relationships in the 21st Century

Abstract

Relationships in the 21 st Century presents an incisive and engaging account of love, intimacy and personal life in contemporary Western society. The authors draw on rich qualitative and large-scale survey data to explore how couples communicate with each other, negotiate the pressures and pleasures of parenthood, and the vagaries of sexual desire and intimacy across life course. Focusing on 'the everyday', this book unpicks the ordinary and often mundane relationship work that goes into sustaining a relationship over time, breaking down the dichotomy between enduring relationships of quality and good enough or endured relationships. It contests the separation of couples into distinct relationship types-defined through, age, parenthood or sexuality. Looking through the lens of relationship practices it is clear that there is no 'normal couple': couples are what couples do.

Understanding Everyday Relationship Work: The Development of a Relationship Maintenance Scale

“…"Long-term" was not straightforwardly associated with relationship duration but instead framed through personal experience -such as family stability, household permanency, and security of friendship networks. It is also experienced in dynamic terms, including the past (time spent together), the present (relationship satisfaction), and a desire to be with a partner into the future (relationship horizon; Gabb & Fink, 2015). The study focused attention on the ways in which couple relationships are materialized and experienced through everyday relationship practices in the context of different personal, socio-cultural, and economic circumstances.…”

“…Based on the literature and our theoretical conceptualization of relationship maintenance, we developed items to create the Relationship Maintenance Scale (RMS), which could then be subjected to further testing. These items were designed to include everyday contexts and mundanities as well as the more intimate dynamics of couple relationships (Gabb & Fink, 2015).…”

Art as a pathway to impact: Understanding the affective experience of public engagement with film

“…It was based on a large ESRC research project on relationships and involved a transdisciplinary collaboration between the impact project lead (a psychologist, DL), who had not played a part in the original research (adopting an 'outsider perspective'), one of the original project leads (a sociologist, JG) and an established and well-recognised public artist, assisted by an experienced social science fieldworker (JL). The artist was provided with a book produced from the original research project that includes academic analysis of key findings (Gabb & Fink, 2015), and was also briefed in person. He then sought to immerse himself in the findings independently in order to produce his proposal for the film series.…”

“…The original research project ('Enduring Love') was designed to investigate how couples sustain their long-term relationships, focusing on the meanings and practices of relationship quality and stability. An online survey focused on understanding the patterning of relationship practices across a large and diversely constituted sample whilst qualitative research generated rich data on relationship experience and the everyday ways that couples work at their relationships (Gabb & Fink, 2015). Overall, whilst findings point to great diversity in relationship experience, what is clear is that relationships are experienced and sustained through 'everyday', often mundane, relationship practices (like taking out the rubbish each week) and shared activities (such as dancing at home).…”

Was benötigen LSBTI-Menschen angesichts ihrer Sexual- und Geschlechtsbiografien für eine bessere Gesundheitsversorgung?

“…Vielfältige Lernprozesse hinsichtlich der sexuellen Identität und ihrer Benennung, dem Ausdruck sexueller und emotionaler Bedürfnisse sowie sozialer Erfahrungen sind notwendig, wenn in einer bestehenden Partnerschaft ein_e Beziehungspartner_in transitioniert (Platt und Bolland 2018). Bezüglich der Beziehungsqualität deuten Studien darauf hin, dass Menschen in nicht-heterosexuellen Partnerschaften zufriedener sind als solche in heterosexuellen (Gabb et al 2013). Dies liegt möglicherweise daran, dass weniger Erwartungen und mehr Freiheiten hinsichtlich der Geschlechterrollen bestehen (Matos 2015).…”