Home > Interpersonal relationship

1 Types of relationships

• Formalized relationships, such as marriage, civil union
• Intimate relationships, such as loving relationships or romantic relationships with or without living together; the other person is often called lover, boyfriend or girlfriend (not to be confused with "just" a male or female friend), or significant other; there is usually sexual behavior, but often in the beginning only limited forms of that. If the partners live together the relationship may be similar to marriage, and the other person may be called husband or wife, and regarded as such in common law. The term sexual relationship may be used, even if it involves more than sexual behavior, if the latter is perceived as the most important distinction from friendship. Mistress is a somewhat old fashioned term for a female lover of a man who is married to another woman, or of an unmarried man. She may even be an official mistress (in French maîtresse en titre); an example is Madame de Pompadour.
• A sexual relationship in the more literal sense: one that mainly involves sexual intercourse.
• Friendship
• Acquaintanceship
• FamilyThis article is about the domestic group. For other uses, see Family (disambiguation). Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family is a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups linked through descent (demonstrated or stipulated) from a comm tie, being relatives, kinship, biological relationship
• BrotherhoodBrotherhood has multiple meanings: Siblings: The relationship between male offspring, Fraternity: Sodality, or people engaged in a particular occupation; "the medical fraternity" Brotherhood: The feeling that men should treat one another as brothers Labor and sisterhood
• Establishment of common groundIn communications, finding common ground is a technique for facilitating interpersonal relationships. In order to find common ground between parties, the participants must search for signals of recognition, which are often subtle and cause for misundersta between parties, although fundamental to an interpersonal relationship, does not connote a timeless relationship, and might even disappear over time. Thus common ground must be maintained, in this case, for a relationship to endure.

A friend of a friend of someone may be a friend of the latter person -- there is some transitivityIn grammar, a verb is transitive if it takes an object. See transitive verb. In mathematics, a binary relation R is transitive if xRy and yRz together imply xRz''. For example, the less-than relation is transitive. See transitive relation, intransitivity.. However, if two people have a sexual relationship with the same person, they may be competitors rather than friends. Accordingly, sexual behavior with the sexual partner of a friend may damage the friendship.

In intimate relationships there is often, but not always, an implicit or explicit agreement that the partners will not have sex with someone else. The extent to which physical intimacyPhysical intimacy in increasing degree is: #Physical closeness # Touching, especially tenderly #Touching intimate parts, outercourse #Sexual penetration Touching may include: Holding hands Hugging: gently enclosing the arms around the trunk of each other with other people is accepted may vary. For example, a man may accept more physical intimacy between his wife and a female friend of her than if it is a male friend (see also jealousyJealousy is an emotion experienced by one who perceives that attention, love or affection is being given to a third party when it should rightfully be given to them. For example, a jealous lover might dislike their partner spending time with other members).

The rise of popular psychologyPopular psychology refers to concepts and theories about human mental life and behaviour that come from outside the technical study of psychology, but purport to go beyond everyday knowledge. Popular psychology should be distinguished from naive psycholog has led to an explosion of concern about one's interpersonal relationships (often simply called: "relationships"). Intimate relationships receive particular attention in this context, but sociology recognises many other interpersonal links of greater or less duration and/or significance.

Relationships are not necessarily healthy. Examples include abusive relationships and co-dependency.