Olivia’s Broken Relationship Interview
In order to understand romantic relationships, I interviewed a 24-year-old lady Olivia, who had a broken relationship. When I asked Olivia to describe her past relationship, she told me that she had been in the relationship for three years with a man, Jim, whom she described as insensitive. According to her, the affair ended because she felt that her expectations as a woman were not met, despite their three-year relationship.
From Olivia’s face, I could tell her dissatisfaction with the relationship, and I asked why that was the case. She narrated how her fiancé’s life and wellbeing concerned her to the extent that she would borrow money to ensure he had basic needs whenever he lacked. She told me that she expected the same caring treatment from Jim, which did not materialize. Olivia explained how Jim used to hide some information from her to the extent that she had to get the information from his cousin.
As the interview continued, I realized that no negative sentiment had been directed to Jim, who was not there with us. I asked Olivia, “Do you think Jim was aware of his behaviors towards the relationship you had?” She said that her fiancé was aware of his conduct because he did not change despite promising Olivia to change his attitude whenever she raised an issue with him. As evident, Jim had low self-concept in the relationship, and that is why Olivia perceived him as insensitive.
Olivia admitted that she did not know much about Jim’s family of origin. The only information that she said to know about Jim is that he was an adopted son of a middle class family that lived in Louisiana. I then asked Olivia about ways in which Jim’s experiences with his family affected their relationship. She answered that Jim’s life with adoptive father and mother would have been difficult for him because the family neglected their parental role over Jim, and that was why Jim was also cold to other people, including Olivia. Therefore, Jim’s experience with his adoptive father and mother created insensitivity in him which later led to failure of the relationship with his fiancée.
I sought to understand how Jim’s values differed or coincided with her Olivia’s own. On values, Olivia told me that they shared many values except on self-disclosure where she felt Jim was keeping a lot of issues from her. Remarkably, she told me that responsibility was a value they shared in common because they did their apportioned duties at home and in the college in a diligent manner. Indeed she appreciated that their common value inculcated hard work in her and that was the main reason why she stayed in the relationship for three years.
It was clear that gender issues led to collapse of Jim and Olivia’s relationship. A significant issue that was apparent in the relationship was the nature of men as being abstract (Parrott & Parrott, 2002). As such, Jim may have failed to talk about his life experiences, fears, and feelings to Olivia due to his specific masculinity nature. Also, Olivia admitted that she wanted to know everything about Jim, a fact which showed that she did not romanticize Jim’s independence to his life experiences. Clearly, this was a manifestation of dependency, which Jim could have understood of Olivia.
I delved into the issue of social, cultural, or spiritual matters that ware existent between Jim and Olivia by asking her if any of the issues caused difficulty in their relationship. From her reply, religious issue was the only challenge to their relationship. She narrated how the clash of doctrines of Jim’s Catholic denomination and her Protestantism view always led to bitter arguments between them. Olivia held that disagreements over religious matters led to poor communication between them.
I assessed whether Olivia and Jim were practicing smart love. From her replies, I could tell that Jim and Olivia did not share many similarities apart from the value of responsibility. Secondly, smart love did not play out in the relationship because Jim was a reserved fellow who never talked about his fears or desires with her girlfriend. Olivia was deluded to think that her love for Jim would change herself to suit Jim’s desires and Jim’s attitude and beliefs, failing to recognize that the qualities she was observing were Jim’s real character.
At last, I asked Olivia how she made the decision to end her relationship and her coping strategies afterwards. She said that she had to make a decision between being happy afterwards and feeling as if her love was not reciprocated. Counseling helped her in reestablishing her identity without becoming phony (Parrott & Parrott, 2002). The counselor gave her therapy and relationship advice, as well as moral support until she recovered from the stress that engulfed her.
Experiences and Lessons Learnt
Personally, my experience is that Olivia’s relationship was not grounded on common values that bonded them together. From Parrott and Parrott’s (2002) argument, there was incompatibility between the two because they were not tied with similar values. Additionally, self-concept was lacking in the relationship and identity was lost for either Jim or Olivia (Crabb, 1997). Arguably, Olivia then felt Jim was not reciprocating for her love to him.
In broad terms, I learnt some few things from Jim and Olivia’s past relationship and the general nature of people. Firstly, I have learnt that for people to understand themselves, they must be purposeful and less reactive to situations (Crabb, 1997). To add on, selfishness is one of the vices that surround human beings’ daily interactions with others (Crabb, 1997). Building of strong relationships requires self-identity as this enables a person to understand another person’s values and behaviors as well.
References
Crabb, L. (1997). Understanding who you are: What your relationships tell you about yourself. NavPress.
Parrott, L., & Parrott, L. (2002). Relationships: How to make bad relationships better and good relationships great. Zondervan.