Relationship Maintenance Relationship Self-Expansion
When relationships are new and you are getting to know someone, you experience exciting and novel things each time you are with them.
Over time there will come a point that so much reciprocal self-disclosure has occurred in your relationship that things may start to feel boring. You will know what they like and you will know what you guys like to do together. You will find comfort zones and habits of behavior that can feel settled.
A comfortable status quo can take a toll on your relationship. This is why the concept of individual and relationship self-expansion is critical to understand.
“Maintaining a satisfying relationship extends beyond managing conflict and reducing negative affect; it also involves increasing positivity and promoting leisure."
(Harasymchuk et al, 2021)
Self-Expansion
Self-expansion is the “fundamental human motive” (Xu et al., 2016) to increase one's ability to accomplish goals and grow.
This is done through being curious, exploring, doing things that broaden your perspective, and doing novel, interesting, or challenging things. It is actively seeking to expand your sense of self, perspective, and identity (Harasymchuk et al., 2021).
Novel: new or unusual in an interesting way
Relationship self-expansion is connected to the Inclusion of Other in the Self principle of the self-expansion model.
This means that we expand ourselves through the close relationships that we have.
A long-term study on relationship self-expansion asked participants, over several months, “who are you today?” and asked if they had fallen in love since the last questionnaire, among other questions.
The researchers found that when someone reported they had fallen in love, their responses to “who are you today?" became longer and more detailed and robust. Researchers noted that
“...falling in love appears to literally expand the self (Xu et al., 2016).”
When our relationship self-expansion naturally slows, we are at risk of pondering alternatives to our relationship (Harasymchuk et al., 2020).
As two lives become more intertwined, you can get stuck in patterns, and the day-to-day responsibilities of life begin to take up more of your time. So how do couples continue to self-expand their relationship?
To combat this new plateau in your relationship you need to put the effort into consistently doing things that are novel, challenging, interesting, spontaneous, playful, and adventurous (Harasymchuk et al., 2021).
You do not need your dates and the time you spend together to have all of these qualities at once. Make sure you are including at least one to two of these qualities each time, in the activities you do together.
The self-expansion of your relationship and yourself “can be re-invigorated by engaging together (so that the relationship is associated with the experience) in highly novel and challenging activities that generate the kind of excited engagement typically experienced with high levels of self-expansion (Xu et al., 2016).”
Relationship building is a marathon, not a sprint!
Approach Relationship vs Avoidance Relationship
Approach
Approach relationship mode is a way of being where you are intentionally working towards goals that enrich and cultivate your relationship.
This means you are thinking about what activities and connection rituals will help strengthen you, your partner, and your relationship. It means you are actively pondering, coming up with ideas, and planning ways to improve and level up your relationship strength. And you also make sure those plans happen and happen consistently so that your relationship can be fueled and nurtured.
Partners who put the effort into having a high approach toward relationship goals have been found to plan dates that are more exciting, more likely to promote self-expansion, and increase closeness in the relationship (Harasymchuk et al, 2021). This model of effort truly empowers you to cultivate your relationship with your partner.
Avoidance
On the other hand, avoidance relationship mode is a way of being where you are focused on preventing undesirable things from happening, like being rejected or facing conflict. This does not help build or strengthen the relationship; it avoids being a full participant in the relationship.
At the beginning of a relationship, it is common for satisfaction to be high and then decline if self-expansion and approach relationship goals decline.
Harasymchuk et al. have found that partners who use approach relationship mode have a greater aptitude for planning dates that will lead to self-expansion, thus increasing relationship strength and satisfaction (2021).
You can be proactive! Think about what things will enrich your relationship, plan them, and do it!
“Although planning might seem like the antithesis of excitement, pre-arranging these activities might actually ensure they happen and facilitate feelings of excitement (Harasymchuk et al., 2021).”
It is better to try and prevent decreased relationship satisfaction than to have to rebuild it. Either way though, it can be done!
Only you can learn what you and your partner will both feel are exciting, novel, challenging, and adventurous things to do.
The goal is to actively seek to expand and
“...create an environment for non-routine, spontaneous, and exciting moments to naturally emerge (Harasymchuk et al., 2021).”
This is a chance for you to help the relationship self-expand. Work your way through actually doing the exciting activities and then some of the pleasurable/exciting mismatches.
As you push yourself to try something your partner finds exciting, you may find you are personally self-expanding which will also help the relationship.
Some key things to remember as you work towards creating and participating in self-expanding activities with your partner:
- Boredom in the relationship is a signal that self-expanding, exciting activities versus familiar and routine ones are needed (Harasymchuk et al., 2020).
- If your relationship is already struggling or under stress, plan carefully so that the activities you participate in do not add more stressors or force you and your partner into uncomfortable situations where you may not behave optimally (Aron et al., 2000).
- Activities that include cooperation with your partner reinforce interdependence and closeness (Aron et al., 2000).
- The benefits to your relationship of participating in self-expansion activities can last for months. “When we engage in exciting activities with our partners, we tend to view both our partners and relationships as exciting (Xu et al., 2016).”
- Personal self-expansion is important and helpful also. “... a partner who continually improves his or her own self-concept also has more positive qualities to provide the partner, their positive personal gains can be put directly into the relationship (Xu et al., 2016).”
