CONTACT
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE?
When couples seek to deepen their relationships by learning more about communication, intimacy and sex, lessons from experts can strengthen the bond or dismantle the relationship
by Matthew Foster
Last spring Stuart Tioaeller staff senior attended a course on human sexuality. He thought that taking the course with his grieffriend would improve their relationship. To hear him talk, you would think that he was the key to the success, he said of the many key terms relationship experts would use to improve a relationship
"THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO YOU ARE OR ARE NOT ATTracted TO AND YOU AREN'T AS ATTRACTED TO THAT PERSON AS YOU NEED TO BE WHEN THE RELATIONSHIP ISN'T GOING TO WORK OUT, AND I THINK THAT CLASS KIND OF TAUGHT ME THAT."
ABOUT ME THAT:
— TIM STAUFFER, IOLA SENIOR
In Professor Eudenius D黛丽's "Human Sexuality in Everyday Life" course, Stauffer learned what it means to be intimate and how to figure out what he value in a partner He also says he learned how to tell when he is the wrong relationship.
Couples seek counseling and take courses to learn about sexuality and deepen their relationships, but sometimes lessons learned do the opposite.
Stauffer, who has attended the course multiple times, says that this is exactly what happened to him while attending Dalley's course at the Ecumenical Christian Ministry center, 104 Oread Ave. With the improved communication encouraged by the course came the realization that he and an girlfriend viewed as commitment differently. He also found out that he placed a different value on intimacy than she did and learned how much he valued attraction in a relationship.
"There are certain people who you are or are not attached to and if you aren't as attached to that person as you need to be, then that's better to work out. And think that class kind of taught me, that he says
ns girlfriend shortly before their relationship hit the one-year mark.
Stauffer broke things off with
better self-aware than sorry
Stafer stresses that it is
better to learn these things
about yourself and your mate
to be in a relationship that
is unwaiving. Experts agree
Most counseling has to do with patient self-awareness and couples counseling is no exception, says John Wade.
Daley says that he also sees couples separating after becoming self-aware.
a counseling psychologist at Watkins Health Center. It is not uncommon for the couple to just not compatible, he says.
"One of two patterns emerge when these issues are addressed." Dalay says, "it either enriches and deepens the relationship or there is a realization of non-
compatibility. One of the things that therapy could result in is growth that culminates in not staying together."
The couple that learns together stays together
Despite the possibility that what is learned in his human sexuality course may cause relationships to break, he has a Daley that he has a few couples who take the course together and insists that they should take the course together. He says that this is useful because the couple will speak their language and will begin discussions with a basic understanding of the issues.
Nikki Tayler, Wichita junior, and Michael Garfield, 2005 graduate, took the course together last spring. The
couple has been together for two-and-a-half years. Taylor says that the class prompted better communication and intimacy and showed her how to interact within a relationship.
Taking the course with his girlfriend was necessary to the relationship, Garfield says.
Definitely, no matter who you are you are going to come to know your through that class in a way that may seem uncomfortable to you and it may change your personal boundaries that you draw between yourself and the people you have consulted. Gifted most intimate, it's a good thing that she "is a good teacher" and course together because if either one of us had taken it alone, it might have torn us apart."
02. 08.2007 JAYPLAY 15