A look at the romantic and sexual relationships of young people aged 21 to 35

Relationships between 21- 35-year-olds take various forms, including:

1. Married couples who live together.
   A stable marital relationship provides for the partners' needs, but it seems to provide the greatest protection for the children's needs. Children from such a relationship have a clearly defined identity from the outset, usually bearing their father's surname and belonging to both their father's and mother's families, their cultures, and their religions. Extensive literature exists on this topic.
2. Young couples who live together have registered partnerships in the EU but have not yet married.
   This type of agreement regulates the partners' liability to the Tax Office and the couple's social functioning, including parenthood. Poland does not currently recognize such relationships.
3. Couples living together without marriage.
   These couples live together and usually share living expenses. An example of the difficulties faced by a couple who lived together without marriage: A woman and a man were the same age. They shared living expenses equally, but the man didn't support the woman as much as she supported him. The man found it too difficult to prepare a hot meal, which the woman needed. The woman couldn't talk freely with the man's friends because he didn't approve. The man didn't tell the woman when he would be away or when he would return. When difficulties arose in the relationship, the woman decided to separate. It seems that the advantage of such relationships is obtaining a more realistic image of their partner. Partners can examine each other from the perspective of everyday life. They can assess whether their partner is ready to commit and invest time and money in the relationship. Often, one partner leaves such a relationship early in its development.
   The experience of living together helps determine the type of relationship we are entering:
   • Do we take a submissive, dominant, or cooperative stance in the relationship?
   • Can we resolve the relationship conflicts without aggression, hurting or destroying the other person?
   • Can we name our needs in the relationship and define what we truly care about?
4. Short-Term Relationships
   1. A woman entered into relationships with men with whom she had intense sex. At the same time, she desired a stable relationship and a caring man. She found it difficult to enter into a relationship with a sensitive, caring man because this man at the time would need to be aggressive in his sexuality. The solution would be for the woman to recognize and work through her aggressive sexual patterns; then she would enter into a relationship with a gentle, caring man.
   2. A woman in her 40s wanted to enter into a relationship with a responsible man who wanted children. The woman held men responsible for being unstable, unreliable, and changing their minds. The woman had never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a year. Her difficulty was that she did not accept any negative information about herself. The solution would be to accept the negative information and use it for her own development.
   3. A 40-year-old woman stopped entering into relationships with partners who didn't make decisions for her, didn't impose their life solutions, or surprise her with their decisions. She felt bored and didn't know how to cope. It would help the woman recognize that she's the one struggling when nothing happens. That she seeks constant excitement and stimulation.
   4. In some families, young people try to enter into partnerships or marriages but quickly withdraw. Sometimes it's worth examining such families to see whether both parents are ready for the child to leave the nest and build their own relationship. Example: If a daughter is a surrogate partner for her father and a reward for all his frustrations in life, it's rather difficult for her to find a partner. The daughter's role is to be a kind, loving daughter who will never grow up.
5. Couples who can't marry.
   Often, such couples have children and joint assets. There comes a time when one partner wants to get married and legalize the relationship, but the other isn't ready. The reasons for this situation vary. Sometimes a woman doesn't want to be even more dependent on a man. She doesn't want to be his property or even more subordinate to him. Sometimes a man has various internal obstacles to creating a family. Sometimes these difficulties stem from difficult experiences in his family history, such as a history of divorce.
6. Parents sharing a house.
   These are couples who often have small children. They may be financially independent, or one parent may bear the financial burden. The partners barely communicate. They don't sleep together. They live next to each other, but they don't understand each other. The partners are used to each other. They stay in these relationships because they choose to, and their parents did too. They care for the children together, often go on vacation together, but have separate friends. For some reason, they fear life changes. They fear the strain of separation, change, and a new financial arrangement.
7. Friends with benefits.
   Friends with benefits refers to repeated sexual contact with friends, without defining the relationship as romantic. Sexual contact encompasses various forms, from kissing to intercourse. It often occurs after drinking alcohol. Such sex can be interpreted completely differently by the other person. For one partner, it may simply be a sign of friendship, trust, and the release of sexual tension. For the other partner, it may mean the friendship is entering a new phase, evolving into a romantic relationship. Such short-term relationships with friends seem to be more common among people who have been isolated for a long time and were unable to leave their homes (e.g., sex in a dormitory). This type of sexual relationship may have developed during the pandemic, when they had limited social contact. It may occur in an extremely shy person who has difficulty establishing social relationships. Among those who may seek friendships with benefits are those who, in some way, don't want to commit to a long-term relationship. They don't want to build a deeper relationship based on trust. They don't want to take on the costs and responsibilities of a relationship. They value mobility and freedom.
   This type of relationship is common among career-focused individuals in large cities who don't want to devote their precious time to building a traditional romantic relationship. Such relationships guarantee the ability to satisfy sexual needs without losing independence or engaging in a traditional relationship.
   Researchers argue that these types of relationships can exacerbate partners' feelings of insecurity, stemming from the lack of a clearly defined relationship type. Some researchers speculate that physical intimacy without a sense of emotional commitment can lead to feelings of harm and exploitation within the relationship, as well as a lower sense of self-worth.
8. Couples Living Apart
   A partnership in which there is a stable romantic relationship, but the partners live in different apartments, sometimes in different cities. They are usually financially independent. The essence of this relationship is that each partner has their own territory (apartment, house) in everyday life. Couples are in an emotional and sexual relationship, but live separately. An example is a couple where one partner works in another city, and they spend weekends together. Another example: at least one partner is divorced and lives with their children. Often, the costs of divorce were so high that after such a divorce, the person no longer wants to live with anyone or be financially dependent.
9. The Open Relationship Model
   There are a growing number of open relationships in which partners allow third parties into their sexual life. The basic relationship is a constant. The question is what the costs of such a relationship model are - one wonders whether both parties are satisfied. Some open relationships conceal/cover up the sexual identity of the partners; for example, a woman is in a relationship with a man, and her partner in an open relationship is a woman (they are in a same-sex relationship). A man is in a heterosexual relationship, and the partner in an open relationship is a man (homosexual relationship). An open relationship can take the form of both partners having another relationship, or only one partner having another relationship.
   An example of a triangular relationship as an open relationship:
   A married couple stopped having sexual intercourse. The woman entered into a sexual relationship with another man. She spent her free time with her lover and lived with her husband. Both men knew about each other and accepted this situation.

• When you feel like you're in the background in your own relationship
• When you often adapt to your partner's needs
• When you don't understand their behavior
• When your partner hurts you
• When you feel anxious
• When you feel embarrassed in your relationship with your partner

1. Learn the history of marriages and the relationships that exist within the family.
   In many families, marriages and relationships were not peaceful cycles of life, emotional exchange between men and women, or spiritual exchange within a creative couple. Relationship histories were more stories of survival, where the man had to work for the family and bring money home.
   In these families, the emotional needs of women and men in relationships were not recognized. Descendants of such families need to learn to recognize the other person's needs in the relationship, as well as to recognize and communicate their own.
   If you look at the sexual act itself, it somehow encompasses the history of the woman's lineage, her previous relationships, pregnancies, miscarriages, and abortions. The sexual act encompasses the history of the man's lineage, his desire, his previous relationships, the history of the men in his lineage, and how he imagines his role in the relationship.
2. Recognize the types of relationship difficulties that occur in your own family.
   It's important to remember that everything we bring from our parental home is normal for us, but not necessarily for our partner. If we exploded during conversations at home, such behavior is normal for us.
   When we did not express any of our own feelings at home, only those expected of us, such behavior is normal for us.
   In many homes, anger levels in families are high. Often, anger is masked by perfectionism and expressed through high expectations for success in life.
   Other families rarely speak openly, rarely calling situations by their proper names. In these families, many situations are unclear and uncertain. Therefore, family members find it difficult to cope with more difficult, more complex life situations.
   Some families demand almost nothing from children and do not require them to help with household chores, maintain order, or attend school. When a young man or woman from such a family has to take care of something, or supervise something in a new relationship, they don't know how to do it. They have to learn.
3. How can individual and group therapy help?
   Individual or group therapy can help people realize the kind of partner they've chosen and whether positive changes in their lives are realistic to expect with this partner. What are the chances that life will be simpler, more enjoyable, warmer, lighter, and more meaningful in this relationship? Moving from self-discovery to accepted change in the relationship isn't instantaneous. What is invaluable in therapy is focusing on oneself, gaining deeper self-knowledge, and seeing other ways of looking at life than those learned in the family home. Self-improvement, which begins with relationship problems, can become good practice in learning to understand oneself and finding other ways of understanding communication than those available within the family.
4. Social Reality
   Over the past 20 years, it has become more difficult for young adults to be economically independent and have a stable source of income. This is a significant obstacle to establishing and maintaining stable partnerships. Another important factor is the greater availability of opportunities for education, further education, personal development, and postgraduate studies, as well as entry into the job market. As people move, young people move more frequently. This often brings changes in partners and relationship confusion. These factors reduce relationship security and strength.
   Young people seeking relationship support can do so by focusing on partnership patterns and male-female relationships within the family.
5. What is indicated by the behavior of young people who avoid committed relationships and do not want to settle down?
   1. Parents' and family members' expectations of young people are unclear and unrealistic.
   2. Young people's relationship difficulties, to some extent, reflect the difficulties their parents face in their partnerships and social relationships.
   3. These parental difficulties stem from a high level of insincerity in the relationships of their parents' generation. The parent generation often functions, does business, and tries to survive. Still, they don't engage in social discussion about what is necessary in life, what is true, what transcends boundaries, what is possible in a relationship, and what inspires trust.

Prepared by
Teresa Ossowska
Małgorzata Krupińska