Personal Relationships, Research Paper Example

Nature of the Relationship

During my childhood, I grew up knowing only my close family members. As the youngest son in our family, my father was quite protective of me. This created a huge barrier with the external relationship environment.  Upon starting school at a tender age of ten, I immediately found myself in the wilderness, knowing no one despite majority of my classmates hailing from my immediate neighborhood. On one of those initial schooldays I was teamed up with a certain blonde boy named Michael Smith. We were required to perform some minor physical exercise which involved competing with other pairs of boys and girls in short distance sprinting.

On that day I reluctantly initiated a limited chat with my new acquaintance not knowing he will eventually end up to be my long time on-school and off-school companion. On that day as I was alighting from the school bus on my way home, I realized that he was living in the next apartment. Michael and I were now inseparable and for many years we have developed a strong personal relation that is anchored on our common education background. After our first encounter we happened to join the same elementary school and this boosted our relationship as we developed academic similarities.

At home, smith was living with his uncle who was a military officer, and due to our relationship my parents ended up knowing his guardians and ultimately effectively developing a close relationship. Our relationship is basically based on a casual interaction with no definite expectation but due to the many days that we have lived together we have ended up fully understanding desires and the needs of each other and the obvious expectation is to respect and honor of each other’s aspiration and concerns.

Right now we are past our teenage years and still the relationship is growing stronger and stronger perhaps due to closeness that we have naturally maintained. We attended the same high school and now we are in the same campus although back at home we bow reside in different cities. This has made our relationship not to have definite time duration. There are occasions when we fail to see each other for months for instance since we undertake diverse professional courses at the university, during attachments we often spent that vacation in different locations, however we continuously communicate through cell phones and emails.

Important Rules That Govern and Define Our Relationship

Just like any kind of relationship, our relationship is based more on one’s input rather than what you get receive the tie. There is no definite cut- out rules that define our relationship. They have been gradually developed in each other’s mentally over a long period of togetherness. Over that long duration we have stuck to a number of self defined canonical rules. This includes:

Never Command

This being a mutual personal relationship, everyone detests being hulled and ordered around. In such cases ones ends up getting more resistance rather than cooperation expected. For instance if you expect some favor it is important first to request the other’s persons availability and then fitting into his schedule rather than the reverse.

Never Contradict

In any relationship it is almost impossible to concur with each other on every issue raised. This has been the case in our relationship as well despite our long period of existence. However any minor difference should not always degenerate into a full blown disagreement. In our relationship, we have developing a sense of not openly contradicting with the other person for instance through interrupting. We often adopt a rather “flattery and invitational”talk and remarks. This involves acknowledging the point raised but still requesting for a more insightful and productive response.

Johari Window

Defensive or Supportive Relationships

Our relationship is supportive, in that it provides a perfect climate that boosts honesty, openness and constructive interaction. Factors that aid in the building of the supportive climates:

Monitoring oneself- this enables one to be mindful of the others communication habits and thus eliminating the habits that make people to be defensive. Behaving in a steady manner, and showing compassion and empathy and listening keenly one is able to set a standard that others can emulate. This means that for effective relationship one must change some individualistic attitudes first.

Reaching agreement on important and helpful guidelines- This involves one allocating time to talk and take turns. In complicated cases it is imperative for the parties to agree in advance on basic contentious issuers if need be they can employ a mediator or negotiator where there are hotly disputed clauses of disagreement.

Is feedback Necessary?

It is important to bring to the partner’s attention any habits and behaviors that they may exhibit and which look more defensive such as when are assuming an unwarranted superior position or using loaded words. This involves doing such things in private so as not to embarrass them and vividly describing how you feel.

Resolving Conflict

There are cases and situations when we find ourselves on logger heads. For example we differed when one of us ostensibly snatched a girlfriend from the other. This created a huge gap in our relationship to an extent we never communicated for three months.

Respectful Communication

In such cases of highly emotional and contentious issues we resorted to less painful rules through outlining the principles of dialogue and one on one communication. Although this approach allows us to address the conflicting occasions, it is only effective if it focuses on the substantive disagreement rather that the rising personal differences. This requires for the parties to substantial sacrifices to ensure the benefit of both parties.

From this relationship, I have realized it requires some skills which means in the end one develops effective conflict resolution amplitude. In all cases, I have learned to treat every problem as my fault. This means that one should cease from accusing, blaming and consequently attacking the other party. From this case I have learned top scrutinize my contribution to the conflict before figuring out what went wrong or right. From our relationship, we have learned to embrace humility in favor of pride. Since humility involves doing what is right unlike pride which concentrates on who is right. As said before, every relationship is how one should contribute to boost and improve the relationship.

Scheduling Conflict Resolving

Unlike how disputes arise, conflict resolution does not happen accidently; it requires one to tread cautiously through a deliberate and intentional approach. In every situation we always prearrange to a “mutually agreeable time” since personally I understand improper timing is disastrous as it leads to loss of the real resolution focus.

Stick Up the Process

In every dispute resolution case, especially where one confidently feels that he/she is blameless, one tends to walk out of the fight in the middle. In our case we tend to first recognize that a problem exist thus no point of living in denial. This is followed taking the courage to fully confront the real dispute causes and effectively take the tempting temper flare- ups. Through this relationship I am able to interact with diverse people in personal and professional profile.