Is forming intimate relationships healthy for everyone?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was reading an article in the New York Times that starts out with:

Then it goes on to explain why that might not be the case. Although it doesn’t provide any research to back up that claim, just anecdotal evidence.

I get the same kind of talk from my therapist. For the past year it feels like we’ve been debating whether or not I would enjoy forming more close relationships. At first it seemed like I was just avoidant, but now she thinks I’m apathetic toward creating relationships because I’ve never experienced any good ones.

I guess the question is whether intimate relationships are always healthy, and whether it’s possible for someone to be happy without them? And if that’s possible, how can we tell if someone doesn’t need them? That they’re not just avodiant, or that they don’t know what they’re missing?

2

Well, I would question why a person is unable or unwilling to form any close intimate relationships. If you’ve never had a good one, you might never see the benefits of having one.

And no, intimate relationships aren’t always healthy. People can get into codependent or otherwise toxic relationships that can be extremely harmful.

I think it’s more of a question of wanting to form relationships and being unable to or attracting the wrong sort of people.

3

I’m very wary of statements that apply to everyone, without exception. Although I do believe that an intimate human relationship is good for most people, I also believe that there are probably exceptions. And there are some types of intimate relationships that aren’t good for anyone.

4

Lets assume the goal is an intimate relationship with a non-abusive partner.

5

Are you specifically talking about romantic/sexual relationships? Or do friendships count too?

6

I cannot access the article. Everytime I do, my computer crashes. :frowning:

When you say “intimate” relationships, do you mean like the romantic kind? Or simply having a close relationship with someone…someone who you would consider a friend, share secrets with, and lean on when in need?

I think having a good relationship with someone is a sign of health, but simply having a relationship is not a sign of health all by itself. I mean, there are some people who fight like cats and dogs and make each other miserable all the time. Why should they be considered healthier than a single person who’s content with their solitude?

I’m not a “should” person. I don’t think people “should” have romantic interests or that they “should” desire friendship. There are benefits to having these things definitely, and there is evidence that people who are more social live longer. But if you don’t desire them, I don’t see why you should break your back trying to form them. Being open to different experiences–whether they involve other people or not–seems to be more important to me than just attaching yourself to people just for the sake of it.

I’m biased, though. I’m schizoid. How do I know that I’m indifferent because of indifference rather than because of misanthropy or lack of experience? I’m not 100% sure, but I’ll guess. I’m not a misanthrope, even though I have a low tolerance for run-of-the-mill personality flaws that most people can overlook. And in regards to lack of a positive experience with someone, I’ve had plenty of positive interactions with people. People, in general, seem to get along well with me and find me pleasant to be around. It wouldn’t take much effort on my part to step things up a notch and become closer to people, but I just don’t care enough to do that. I don’t have the desire and can’t make myself have it.

I’m the type of person who will be friends with you at work but ONLY at work. If you quit or if I move away, I will not “keep in touch”. I will not send you postcards from my travels…and I probably will not keep the ones you send me. It’s almost like once a person is out of my life physically, they do not exist to me. Now, I think that is rather unhealthy and I’m trying to work on this because I feel guilty about all the nice people I’ve abandoned through my life.

So in short, no, I don’t think everyone is cut out for intimacy and I think that’s totally fine, as long as they are not distraught about it. But on the other hand, I think being able to form some type of mutual, positive relationship with someone makes life easier to deal with. One doesn’t have to be intimate, but it’s a sign of personal well-being to be able to trust someone.

7

I agree. Romantic intimacy definitely isn’t for everyone (and an unhealthy romance can definitely make life worse for people than if they weren’t romantically involved at all). However, I do strongly feel that everyone needs at least one good friend or confidant in their life to be healthy and truly enjoy the richness of life.
It does make life easier if you have someone out there to help you if there is a rough patch, and it’s also important to have someone who can give you a reality check!

8

Close relationships. Think a level above co-workers and casual acquaintances.

The distress comes from the fact that the world runs through social relationships. For as far back as I can remember, I’ve only created close relationships for their professional utility.

I used to believe that everyone at work would only pretend to act friendly with each other, but that they really wouldn’t care if someone dropped the social pretenses. Turns out, I am told, that I’m in the minority with that opinion. I was also informed that people get value out of relationships besides their professional usefulness. I’m still not entirely sold on this. Like monstro, I could not care less if all my coworkers and acquaintances disappeared tomorrow - except for the impact the loss would have on my career.

The problem is that everyone keeps telling me that close healthy relationships are the key to peace and happiness, while I can’t see them as anything but stressful. And I can’t tell whether this is because relationships really are nothing but stressful, or if that’s just me rationalizing because I don’t want to (or I’m too scared) to do the work necessary to build them.

Is there anyway I could get a sample of a close healthy relationship? Try it out and see if it’s the right thing for me? Because these things take years to form, and if I don’t see what’s so good about them, I’m not going to spend that much time trying.

9

My distress comes from the fact that I seem to unintentionally attract others and then ultimately push them away. For a very long time, I harbored this idea that there was an evil monster inside me, because only an evil, nasty thing could not want to be friends with nice people. Now, I realize that my ability to be social when it counts is a strength. I just have to learn how to be assertive and self-confident enough to handle situations when people cross my personal boundaries.

Don’t listen to “everyone.” Everyone is neurotic about something, and most of the time it’s because of what “everyone” thinks. I used to think I was evil because I wasn’t like “everyone”. Now I just think I’m different, that’s all.

Like you, I see relationships as being nothing but stressful despite also knowing that they can be beneficial (or else, why would people have them?) The reason I believe this is that whenever I have let people “in”, my life DOES become stressful, and I just don’t like it. And I know exactly why. I don’t like wondering about people’s moods, or trying to figure out if I’ve done something to hurt them. I don’t like trying to read minds, interpreting vague expressions, or censoring myself lest I say or do something “non-conforming” or embarrassing. I don’t like having to consider what someone else wants all the time, like when it comes to what’s for dinner or what movie to see or where to go on a lazy Sunday. I don’t like that “locked down” feeling I get when I’m with someone–that feeling that I can’t be myself and do whatever I want. I’m selfish, and I’m saying that in a neutral, non-judgemental way.

The only real close relationship I have is with my twin sister, but even then I can’t be with her for a long time before it becomes a stressful endeavor. For her, it’s an emotional thing. She seems to have more nerve endings than I seem to have, and when I bang into one of them, I can’t handle the subsequent reactions. Like, I exasperate and frustrate my sister and often make her angry for reasons that I don’t understand. I really hate that it’s like that, so I’m resolved to limit our interactions to pleasant spells so that I can continue my stressfree existence. I know I should probably care more about why I seem to make her angry, just so that we could at least spend more than a couple of days together at a time. But it’s like choosing between eating an ice cream cone and working on a difficult calculus problem. I will go for the ice cream (solitude) and get back to my sister (who I love more than anything) when everything has blown over.

So that’s how I know that for me, it’s not a case of sour grapes or fear. I know what I don’t like: being “locked down” and hurting other people. The benefits of being alone (freedom and peacefulness) outweigh the stress I experience when I’m with other people, even if I can enjoy their presence in short doses. Also, I don’t have a sexual libido, which I’m guessing would be pretty hard to ignore if you had one.

If you can easily articulate your reasons for why you don’t want to form attachments and they aren’t irrational (like thinking you’re not good enough for anyone), then you shouldn’t feel like you’re just rationalizing away avoidancy.

I don’t know how long you’ve been with your therapist, but if you work with her long enough, your relationship could very well become that “sample.” I’ve been with mine for almost three years and we’ve reached a point where I can confidently say that I would cry if she were to die. To me, that’s a hallmark of something. Yes, it’s taken three years and it’s not a real relationship (because I only see her “nice” side and our interactions, while frequent, are of short duration), but I can now understand why someone would want to be attached to someone else. She’s the only person outside of my family who has ever said she loves me. It’s probably just a technique she uses for people with attachment issues, but just the concept of a person loving me and me not hating them for it is a new one for me. If my doctor were to abruptly “fire” me, I would genuinely be hurt. I would feel the abandonment of an orphaned child, or possibly even the pain of someone who has been dumped. The thing is, I don’t know how I would recreate this relationship in the real world since the real world is much more complicated, the boundaries between people a million times looser. So I guess I’m just as confused as you are.

10

I haven’t been able to find this on the Internet after searching for 5 minutes so you can take it as authentic as you like, but I definitely recall reading that studies reliably show a relatively high number of close relationships being one of the best predictors of happiness.

The gist of the article was “if you want to be happy and emotionally stable, what is most highly correlated with that?” Money was very helpful at low levels, for instance, but once reaching a level that allowed ends to meet, higher incomes no longer correlated with happier lives.

On the other hand, having lots of close relationships was extremely positively correlated.

So if the question is, without knowing more about a specific person, can you safely conclude that forming intimate relationships would likely be good for their well being? Then yes.

If the question is, are there some people for whom close relationships aren’t beneficial even though they generally are? I don`t know, but I doubt it. I suspect most people who would claim that close relationships aren’t going to make them happier are wrong, although they’d probably legitimately believe it.

11

That brings us back to why I started the thread: Is it rational to think that relationships are not worth the stress?

For a thought like “I’m not good enough for anyone,” I can tell that’s wrong because I’ve seen people make friends with people a lot less interesting/decent/caring/intelligent than I am.

How am I supposed to check the validity of “relationships are too stressful”? Most things in life that are worthwhile require some effort. So it’s possible that relationships will be worth the effort if I find ways to deal with the stress. Even people in healthy relationships admit that there is stress, but they say it’s still worthwhile. But for most things that require effort, I can tell what the reward will be before I decide to put in the effort. Law school is hard and stressful, but at least I know that it will result in a high paying job and a career doing something I enjoy. So far no one has sold me on putting in the effort required to have a close relationship.

This made me smile. I guess life isn’t so simple, huh?

12

It doesn’t have to be abusive. People often get into relationships with people where in an attempt to “fit in” they may take on bad habbits or perform dangerous, illegal and otherwise harmful activities. Is it healthy to form intimate relationships with people who encourage excessive drug and alchohol use or discourage you from living up to your intellectual, educational or professional potential?

Might explain why there are so many jerky lawyers.

As an MBA working in Manhattan, I see this a lot. Career driven people in finance, law, technology and consulting who graduated from good schools to pursue lucrative careers. They don’t seem to have any relationships or interests outside of their job. Any relationships they do have tend to be superficial or based on professional necessity.

What I have also seen at different ages is that they often end up alone. Sometimes they get married (usually to some gold digger because of their professional success) only to get divorced later on. And nearly always, they get into excessive alchoholism, drugs and prostitution (paying for them…I don’t mean they end up blowing dudes under the highway).

Now maybe that’s all those people care about. For all intents and purposes they are soulless robots intent on making money so they can simply pay for whatever needs they have. But it seems to me that if you can’t have fun outside of work or make real connections with people, you are missing out on a big part of life.

Was does having relationships and close friendships mean to you? If you are in law school, you aren’t a kid. You’ve been through high school and college. Did you have friends there or did you just sort of keep to yourself? Do you ever just go to the bar with a couple of pals and just shoot the shit over some beers? Have you ever had a serious girlfriend? Do you have and hobbies or other stuff you like to share with people? Who do you take to a weding or other event (assuming you even get invited to such things? What do you do with yourself on a Friday or Saturday night?

Do you really want nothing else in your life but your job?

I get that people like their space and don’t want to feel “locked in”. OTOH, how happy can you be in your life if you are alone all the time and constantly paying for a therapist?

13

Well the therapist is covered by my insurance.

As for being alone most of the time, I don’t see anything wrong with it. If I did I would probably take steps to avoid it.

And I really don’t know what people get out of shooting the shit. I find it a dull waste of time.

14

No…I mean if you are so happy why are you seeing a therapist?

Because people normally tend to enjoy socializing with other people.

If you want to be a hermit, that’s your business obviously. The problem is that I think you will find it very difficult to be successful as an attorney if you don’t have an interest in socializing with people.

15

Lots of sad reasons I don’t feel like sharing.

Even though I’m not happy with my life, that doesn’t mean that the problem is a lack of close relationships. Maybe I can learn to be happy without them? I don’t know.

I get that. I just don’t know why they enjoy it.

I agree with you here. Everyone has their weaknesses. While I have a hard time socializing, I do have an easier time reading journal articles and doing research. Plus I’m willing to socialize to the extent necessary to my job well. Basically it’s not a serious enough problem for me to actually try and solve it.

16

Maybe all the people you’ve known so far are assholes. It happens.

Generally speaking, the largest factor in human happiness is the quality of their relationships with other people. That doesn’t mean that’s true for all people, but frankly, a lot of your remarks here are troubling. There’s a difference between preferring time to yourself and having no ability to relate to or empathize with other people. Your question is whether that is rational… no, I don’t think it is.

17

Reason doesn’t have anything to do with it, I don’t think. I mean, we’re talking about desires and tolerance levels. It’s kind of like asking someone who’s lactose intolerant is it rational for them to eat an ice cream cone? If they’re willing to endure the bloating and diarrhea that will surely follow, then obviously it’s a rational decision for them. However, it’s also rational for someone who does not want to endure that pain to refrain from ice cream. There’s a trade-off involved for each person, and it doesn’t make sense to judge either individual as having made the “right” decision.

The question is, do you want ice cream, Lakai. If you want just a little lick, just to see what it tastes like, then there are plenty of ways to get one. First, you start off by turning workplace (or schoolmate) acquaintances into situational friends. If people gather together somewhere to study, join them. Try to eat lunch with others. Make small talk. If someone invites you to a party, accept. Let people in just a little. If you find yourself stressed out with each lick of the ice cream cone, examine the underlying reasons. Is it because of self-consciousness? Fear of ridicule or being rejected? Or is it because you’re tired of putting on the “act” and tolerating other people’s assholery?

I know I’m making it sound like it’s so simple to figure out the answer to your question, and I don’t mean to. But I don’t think it’s an impossible task. Examining the underlying reasons for my stress in dealing with people was how I came to realize that I wasn’t avoidant but that I was schizoid. I examined all the interpersonal interactions I’ve had in my life, starting off when I was a kid. Each and every time I pushed someone away, it was because I had grown tired of them.

Like, I had a friend when I was in grad school. She was a kind woman, a few years older than me, married to a doctor and not used to living in the big city. She was quiet and shy and insecure (her face was pretty, but it would have been gorgous if she hadn’t buried it under so much make-up). She was also brilliant, much smarter than any other graduate student, but didn’t seem to know it. That made her endearing. Anyway, somehow we became friends. She would invite me over to her house for lunch, and I would buy her presents for her little baby. She knew I liked trees, so we once spent the day at an arboretum. I can say she was one of the few people I’ve met in my life that never showed an “asshole” side. She had flaws, but I could tolerate them. For awhile, she generated very little stress in my life, so she seemed like a perfect friend for monstro.

But then she started calling me on the phone at night just to chat. Eventually I would just look at the caller ID and let the answering machine pick up.

And then she would want to come over to my place–which was a junky, stamp-sized one-bedroom apartment in a low-income highrise. Full of cat hair and roaches. (I had to lie and say that my cats were too mean for guests to come over :)).

Then her lunch invitations turned into dinner invitations with her and her husband.

She threw me a party when I did my defense. It was a lovely affair–she really went all out. But I was both touched and frightened. Was I obligated to do something for her in exchange? Did this mean we were BFFs, bonded forever? Would I have thrown her party if the roles had been reversed? I felt tremendous guilt because I knew the answer was no. STRESS!!!

So when I got a job and moved thousands of miles away, I never looked back. I didn’t keep in touch. I never sent her emails describing my adventures in the Everglades. I didn’t ask her about her baby, her research, or her rocky relationship with her husband. It was like she no longer existed. What a horrible, terrible person I was. :frowning:

If you haven’t had an experience like this, where you’ve given yourself a chance to have a relationship, then you owe it to yourself to test yourself and really see what’s going on. If you run away before the relationship even has a chance to develop, then I would wager that you are more avoidant than you think and perhaps you need to work on your self-confidence. If you are able to stick it out but end up deciding that, despite the other person being damn near perfect, it was more hassle than fun, then you can at least be satisfied knowing that you tried.

Being a lawyer, though, is not going to fill you up. Just like science doesn’t fill me up. If you don’t have something going on in your life besides the law, find something.

18

It sounds like you guys are using therapists the way people who don’t want to put the effort into relationships use hookers. You get the sympathy and “good side” of relationships from them, but you have no interest in reciprocating, so you give them cash instead. Fine if it’s what you want, but I wouldn’t really expect people to think you’re particularly healthy or praiseworthy for doing so.

But who cares if you’re healthy by everyone else’s standards? If you’re satisfied with your lot in life, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. If no one’s “sold you” on intimate relationships by now, the only way you’re going to find out what it’s really like is to try it. Close relationships are worth it for a large portion of the population. Maybe you’re not in that portion, maybe you are. In any case, it’s no one’s job but yours to find out; nobody can tell you whether it’s worth it to you any more than someone who doesn’t know the details of your mental, physical and financial life can make any other decision about life choices for you.

However, if you’re less happy than the people around you, and the biggest difference you can see between you and them is a lack of close relationships (once chemical imbalance has been ruled out), then it’s not out of the realm of possibility that that’s your problem.

19

I just want to point out that some of those things are very rude and intrusive, they show poor social skills. Maybe its because you have poor social skills yourself, that you attract people with poor social skills, but those things are not stressful because you are psychologically “different.” Any person would find it stressful to have people invite themselves over (especially if they insisted after you have tried to put them off, that shows extremely poor social skills and is rude), or to have a casual friend do something that is out of proportion to the relationship, like throw a huge party. That’s just weird and uncomfortable-making, honestly.

It was probably hurtful to her the way you ended things, but you were under no obligation to stay in touch either (assuming you said a goodbye and didn’t just disappear without a trace). She sounds really needy and not like the kind of person I could have as a friend myself. I remember you had a situation with that guy, who showed up at your craft event, that was also inappropriate, needy and pushy.

I think at least some of the things, you think are the result of being, uh, what do they say? Non-neurotypical, actually are the result of not meeting people who are a good match for your mindset. It might be that at the moment you haven’t quite gotten your social skills to the point where you can seek out and befriend the right kind of person – I get the sense you are a bit of a passive initiator of friendship, so the people who you get friendly with are the kind who are pushy and demanding, but those are also the kind of people you can’t get along with.

None of my true friends (I would say I have two female friends, plus my brother and not counting my husband) are needy or clingy. They are very independently minded and very fulfilled by their own lives. We might not speak for months or years at a time, and it’s no big deal. I can’t have a friend who needs a constant reassurance that we’re friends. UGH! At the same time it feels pretty good to know there is someone who really “gets” my point of view, even if they don’t share it at all. Someone I can turn to for advice if I don’t understand a situation, who won’t get me generic advice, but something that really applies to ME.

Yeah therapy can be Friendship Lite, I’ve only done it short term but it has that mix of “affirming your true person while calling you on your bullshit” that a great friendship has. I think the difference is, in a friendship grows out of shared experiences that reveal you, while a therapist relationship is much more fundamentally cerebral. Therapists know who you are because you tell them. Friends know who you are because they lived it alongside you. You don’t have to tell them.

20

Well, here’s a question for you: have you ever had, or tried to have, a friendship/relationship outside of a work context?

Because AFAIC, I’m right with you on the “work relationships” thing. There’s a fundamental conflict of interest there, and if I opened up and allowed personal closeness there, I wouldn’t trust them not to use it against me if they saw an advantage (career or otherwise) to doing so. I’ve tried being friends with people at work; and invariably it ended when they used personal information I’d shared with them (after having been assured that it was in confidence) to screw me over professionally. I now keep a very sharp dividing line between “personal” and “professional.” I’ll be very friendly at the office, and I’ll get the work done, but they’ll never know anything about me that happens outside of those four walls.

On the other hand, I get a lot out of really intimate relationships. I don’t exaggerate by saying my mental health depends on them. I just don’t seek them out at work, but keep them in the “personal” realm.

It’s possible you are an outlier and simply don’t need intimacy to be happy. It’s also possible that you’ve built up a giant fortress of defense mechanisms. I don’t think it’s impossible for there to be some people who don’t need relationships to be happy; but I do think they are rare. I’ve also observed that very often people are unaware of, or don’t really understand, their own depression. They’re convinced that they’re just fine or perfectly happy simply because they’ve never experienced what happiness feels like. They have nothing to compare it to, so they figure their “default” emotion is equal to happiness, which may or may not be true. The thing is, I don’t think you can figure out which personality type you are until you’ve really tried both of them. Then you can figure out which suits you better.

This is going to take time to figure out, obviously.

The only thing I can think of, is start finding people to hang out with outside of a work context. Make sure they have nothing at all to do with work. (Do you have any hobbies? You could join a club or something. Or volunteer somewhere.) Talk to people, don’t try to force closeness right away, but maybe you’ll get a chance to see how people interact with each other when they’re close. Watching isn’t the same as experiencing it yourself, of course, but it’s a place to start, and maybe seeing how it makes other people happy will give you some clue as to whether it would make you happy.