Intimate relationship

From ArticleWorld

Although sexuality may or may not be involved, intimate relationships are traditionally characterized by relationships between two people that highlight a great deal of physical or emotional intimacy. Intimate relationships form the same way any interpersonal relationship forms, with initial contact, involvement, intimacy and deterioration. A successful intimate relationship will result in extended love, passion and friendship, even after a relationship has passed into the deterioration stage.

Love

Love, which is distinctly different from like or sexual attraction, is a key factor in intimate relationships. These types of love relationships can be categorized into passionate love characterized by intense longing and physiological arousal (for example, increase in breathing rate, muscle tone and blood pressure as well as skin flush and dilation of the pupils) and companionate love which involves affection and intense intimacy that is not characterized with any sort of physiological arousal (this is commonly thought of as the love between friends or family).

Variations of intimate relationships

The idea of passionate love is often present in the Mediterranean. In Sub-Saharan Africa there is less passion. In China, couples often value companionate love over passionate and many believe that American couples value the opposite. Meanwhile, in Japan, the word amae, which is used to describe the security that your partner will take care of you (as a parent would). The Chinese enjoy a type of romantic love called gan qing, which epitomizes a social relationship between two people or organizations. In Korea, jung is a feeling of connected fates.