Sandra Spade Relationship Paper

Words: 514
Pages: 3

For this assignment I decided to interview Sandra Spade, who is Somerville Hall maintenance help. I was told to interview someone who is married and knows about marriage conflict, but there was something special about Sandra. She has been married three times and is still technically married to her third husband, however, they have been separated for two years. I first asked Sandra, to describe how her first romantic relationship lead to a marriage. At the age of 16 she was already in a romantic relationship, and moving in with her boyfriend. After a ten year on and off relationship she finally got married at the age of 26. I got curious, and asked Sandra what took her so long to get married, and how did she finally know that she was ready …show more content…
This lead to conflicts in their marriage, which lead to outrageous arguments, which also lead to them not talking for days, refusing to talk about the issue, and just waited until they got over it. In chapter nine, I learned about the responses to conflict, and from the information she gave me, I think Sandra, and her first husband were visible examples of an exit (psychological) response. An exit (psychological) response is when you refuse to talk about the issue, or don’t address the problem, and try to avoid it because they assume nobody can benefit from the conflict which is a lose-lose orientation, so why try. As time went by in Sandra’s life, she married two more times, and she quoted that her conflict skills increased since her first marriage. She tries not to argue as much, and actually try to talk about the conflict loyalty response instead of just walking away, and avoiding it. When I asked her if she thinks relationships would be better if people solved their conflicts individually instead of sharing them with their relational partner, her response was “well sometimes you can’t if it involves your significant