I believe that when Relationships are abstracted to their base motivations, they can be seen as an exchange of significance and comfort.
We all have the need to feel significant in the world we are surrounded by to have meaning. We also have the desire for comfort to satisfy our physical and psychological needs.
Some real world examples could be;
- A child cries out to their mother, because they have a need for the comfort of food, warmth, protection. A mother gives up her comfort to provide for the child because providing as a mother and seeing the results of needs filled in her child, provide her the feeling of significance.
- A child will play with others who will interact with and acknowledge them because it makes them feel more significant.
- People are willing to sacrifice comforts and enlist in the military because it makes them feel like they will make a contribution and helps them feel more significant.
- A teenager who is insecure, feels the lack of significance and will then seek a peer group that will accept them and help them feel more significant.
- A person goes to work each day because the job may both provide money which can help them acquire comforts of food, housing, entertainment. The job is often called a "good job" when it makes them feel more significant.
So how do these principles play out in our relationships?
- Relationships grow when people provide time and comforts to each other, which makes the each feel more signficant.
- People in my life (family, friends, co-workers) may also behave in ways that help them feel more significant or comfortable, and those may take away from my feelings of significance or comfort. When someone says derogatory things or takes things from me, it is often from their need to feel more significant.
- A person who has lost a relationship or work role often feels less significant which can cause the feelings of depression from loss. They can respond in fear to those who threaten or in anger to those have caused their loss. Their fear may be demonstrated by the trying to manipulate or take control of the situations around their relationships.
Relationships are often an exchange of significance and comfort for the benefit of both.
- A friend will give up their comfort and time to help another friend complete a goal which brings that second person significance and comfort.
- In friendships and marriage we often give up of our significance and comfort for the benefit of the other person.
- A relationship or marriage that is sought primarily because the other person gives me significance and comfort, may only be temporary when that person no longer finds it benefits their significance and comfort, and leaves. When this happens we suffer great loss of significance, and may feel "used".
- From a spiritual and supernatural standpoint, God has called us to be his children, and to have a purpose in His kingdom, which can give us a feeling of significance. He also can provide for our comforts with food, shelter, and relationships with other people.
- Great marriages can come when both individuals feel secure in the fact that God has a purpose and calling for each of them in this world and eternity, and will provide for their needed comforts. Because their relationship with God provides their needed significance and comfort, they then can freely give up basing their significance and comforts on their spouse and feel more free to provide "unconditional love" by serving their spouse and making them feel more significant and comfortable.
For further discussion see my page on verses that speak to how we find Significance and read the book Search for Significance.