 Relationships play a significant role in our lives and we have them all over the place at home, at work, in our communities, and so because they're such an ever-present part of our life, it really behooves us to understand the nature of relationships, how they affect our lives, where they come from, all those types of things. So this video is going to take a look at the nature of personal relationships, why they matter, how they form, those types of things that are significant. So let's start off by talking though about why these things matter, why are relationships important to us? Well, first of all, just as part of human nature, we have this sort of innate need to belong. Some of us see it more strongly than others, some of us really crave a wide variety of relationships and deep relationships and others of us prefer a more limited number of relationships but maybe with some additional depth. But to some extent, to some degree or another though, all of us have this need to belong. Even people who are highly, what we would call antisocial and sort of loners or whatever, have this need to belong. They reach out to people, they just don't necessarily know how to do it effectively or whatever but relationships matter because we all feel this pull. We all feel this need to belong to some degree or another. They also matter because relationships can bring rewards. They bring a variety of different kinds of rewards and positive things to our lives. For example, they can bring emotional rewards. There's a lot of joy to be having life just by experiencing and sharing emotion with others. It can kind of bring meaning to our lives in many ways. That ability to share our happiness and our joy but also our grief and our sadness and our disappointment and all those types of things with others helps us enjoy our life more and experience life more fully. So it brings the reward of emotional connection with others. Relationships also bring material rewards. Maybe you have a buddy who has a pontoon boat and you get to go out on the lake every once in a while. If you don't have a boat, that's a pretty significant treat, right? So having that relationship brings with it a material reward. Or you have a friend who has a pool, you get to go swim in every once in a while. Or if you have a friend who has a truck and is able to help you move or carry big things or whatever it is, these relationships can bring these material or more tangible rewards as well. Things that we can grab onto in our daily lives. And so relationships bring these kind of material rewards. Relationships can also bring health rewards in a couple of different ways. First, you may have a group of friends or somebody that really pushes you to stay healthy. Really helps you try to eat better and exercise more and so forth. So we have that accountability in these relationships that can bring that kind of health reward. It can also just be a matter of you have these people around you that you care for and that you want to experience for as long as possible. So you want to live longer so you're going to be healthier for that reason. Or you want to be able to enjoy the different things that life has to offer. You know, as you're getting older, maybe you notice your knees are starting to bother you, your feet are starting to bother you or whatever. But you still want to be able to go for bike rides and go for hikes and enjoy the activities that your kids and grandkids are involved in. So that may be incentive for you to maintain a healthier lifestyle and to try and look after yourself a little more. So relationships can bring those kind of health rewards as well, both directly and indirectly. So as we can see, relationships have all kinds of benefits for us. They're important because they bring us lots of different rewards. Now it is important though that we remember that the flip side of that is that relationships do carry costs as well as benefits. Sometimes you're the person who has the couch to move. Sometimes you're the person who's helping your friend move that couch. So there can be material costs and emotional costs just as friendships bring us lots of joy and happiness. They can also bring us frustration and disappointment and anger. And sometimes friends help us make healthier choices. Sometimes they do the opposite. They lead us down maybe some not so great paths health wise. There's two sides of the same coin. Relationships really do carry these costs. And the best relationships, those costs will then obviously outweigh the rewards will outweigh the costs. But they do have the potential and do carry these costs at times as well. So we need to keep that in mind and keep that in perspective. But relationships matter because they bring us positive things. So there are a couple of things that we know about close relationships. We have a few dynamics, a few things we need to keep in mind when we're thinking about close relationships and things that they kind of require of us and that we have to put into them. So first of all, we know that close relationships require commitment. Close relationships, real personal relationships are not the kind that, you know, when they go and get tough, the tough get going. No, no, no. In close relationships, we stick it out. They require commitment. They require us to be there. You know, in marriage, traditional marriage files, you don't have that line about, you know, in sickness and in health for better or for worse, right? That's true of pretty much any close relationship that we're going to have that we can't just kind of pick and choose them when things get a little dicey. So I'll never mind. Close relationships see us committing to them, right? They require that kind of commitment for us to kind of weather it out unless we're choosing to give that relationship up entirely, which should not be an easy decision for us in a close relationship. But so these close relationships, they require commitment. They require for us to say, I'm going to be a part of this relationship on an ongoing basis, even if it's a little difficult, even if it doesn't always bring me 100% rewards all the time. We know that close relationships also foster interdependence. Interdependence really just kind of means that what happens to one person affects the other person, that you are so closely connected that it's that ripple effect, right? You throw that stone in a compound, how the ripples kind of go out from the edge of it. That's what happens in relationships as well. When you live with somebody, for example, whether it's your spouse, your parent, your sibling or whatever, your roommate even, you're living with somebody and they lose their job. That affects you, right? It affects their income, which affects, you know, maybe your living situation, whether or not they're going to be able to continue to contribute the rent and the utilities and so forth. And just their mood around the house, it affects you. What happens to them affects you. When your friend is excited because they're in a new relationship, that joy affects you as well, right? That puts them in a better mood. It affects your relationship with them. These close relationships have that kind of connection of what happens to one person will affect the other. And that should be, that's how it should be in close relationships. They foster interdependence. We also know that close relationships require continuous investment. It's not a one and done deal. You know, you just decide to be friends and then that's all you ever have to do or you decide to enter a romantic relationship. And that's all you have to do is make that decision. These require continuous investment from us. Investment of our time, investment of our emotion, investment of our material resources at times, right? So they require continuous investment. We have to continually be feeding these relationships. And that's not a negative thing. That shouldn't, that's not made to be, not intended to sound like a negative thing. But it is a truth about relationships that we have to continually invest to help maintain these relationships in a positive fashion. We also know that close relationships spark what we call dialectical tensions. Dialectical tensions, which means we kind of have things pulling us in different directions at times. Sometimes externally, you know, maybe you're really overextended at work. And so you, you're pulled away from a particular friendship or relationship because of that. Or it could be something more internally, maybe just your feeling, you're having a day where you're feeling a little bit like you want some alone time or you need some, you know, just some time on your own. Or maybe the other person or you are feeling the opposite of that. You want some time together and the other person's not feeling that. We're going to talk a little bit more about dialectical perspectives in a separate video. And we talk about the different types of things that affect and impact the maintenance of relationships. But just know that relationships spark these things. They spark these dialectical tensions that kind of pull us both internally within ourselves and pull each person in that relationship. And then when we think about how that, how we interact with the community of people around us, all of these things spark these dialectical tensions. That's a natural part of any close relationship. It's not something to look at and say, oh, well, obviously this relationship is doomed because we have different philosophies or different desires for that particular day. Now, this is a natural part of close relationships that are going to kind of ebb and flow. And we'll talk more about this in a different video, but just know that that's a natural part of any existing close relationship. So again, we know that these relationships are an important part of our life. They bring us a lot of joy in addition to, you know, some frustrations, some costs that are involved. But without these relationships, really, we would be sacrificing a lot of pleasure, a lot of enjoyment and a lot of the value that we take from life. So it's worth knowing about how these relationships work and why they're important to us. If you have questions about the nature of relationships or anything else about interpersonal communication, please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there. In the meantime, I hope that you will continue to examine your own relationships and what it takes to not only form, but maintain these relationships and why they're important. And just keep that at the forefront of your mind as we continue to examine the nature of these relationships.