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Frank B Kermit
writes:Moving To The Next LevelUnderstanding The Hierarchy of RelationshipsBy Frank Kermit, RelationshipsOne of the biggest mistakes people make in relationships is to promote someone up the hierarchy of commitment that has not really earned it. In the hierarchy of relationships (specifically romantic relationships), the bottom starts out with the friend that you would like to date but that does not return your affections, and at the top of the hierarchy is your spouse (or life partner for those of you that do not believe in marriage). In between, from least committal to most committal are friends-with-benefits, non-exclusive partner, exclusive partner for monogamists and primary non-exclusive partner for open relationships, followed up by fiancé.One of the keys to successful relationship management is not to commitment your time, energy and attention to a person just because you feel something for that person. You must also take into consideration if that person has earned your commitment in the manner with which they satisfy your criteria for each level of the relationship hierarchy. For example, let’s say the person you are casually dating (non-exclusive partner) is someone that drinks alcohol regularly, but your personal criteria for a spouse is someone that rarely drinks at all. Given that your criteria clearly indicates that you have no long term future with that person, under the rules of the hierarchy, you must never promote that person to an exclusive partner. The reason being that there is no point in getting exclusive with someone if there is no long term possibility with that person. Even if you are madly in love with that person, you still must resist the temptation to seek a stronger commitment with that person. In time, it will become more evident if you continue to commit to the wrong person, that love alone is not enough to make long term relationships work because those criteria you have set, will have been based on your personal values. If your chosen partner violates your values over the course of your relationship, then it is just a matter of time before your own resentment towards your partner overtakes any notions of your original romantic love that motivated you to choose to seek a commitment from someone that did not reflect your values.At each level of the hierarchy are distinct criteria. Each criteria level will include criteria from the lower levels, and are missing criteria from the levels above. This means that the criteria for one-night-stand partners must be the category with the least criteria, and as you move up the hierarchy, the criteria for friends-with-benefits will include the same criteria as one-night-stand partners as well as a few more, but not as many as the criteria for non-exclusive partner. The spouse criteria should be your most abundant list of requirements, because that is the highest level that a partner can hope to earn in your life. When you take your relationship to the next level (promote your partner up the hierarchy) it has to be based on how your partner continues to prove he or she satisfies your personal criteria. And when you demote a partner down the hierarchy (from exclusive partner to friends-with-benefits) it cannot be because you “just aren’t feeling it right now”. It has to be because they have stop satisfying your criteria. During the course of any relationship, there will be times you will not be “feeling it right now”, and there is no way of being sure that the lack of emotion doesn’t stem from your own issues (for example, weather-related mood swings) rather than a partner failing to meet your emotional needs. How you feel about a person plays less of a role in emotionally healthy relationships that most people think. Reply to this Article
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reader, jasonvpn  +, writes (22 May 2012):
By the way Frank, I really like this article. I'm saving it for future reference.
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reader, jasonvpn +, writes (22 May 2012):
@Bettyboup "Also I think having some degree of emotional, intuitive gut connection/feeling for the person is important. Someone can fit all of your criteria, but if that feeling is missing, then, well, isn't that like living life without eating chocolate(or something else that gives you true joy)?"I think the relationship hierarchy model that Frank is talking about is flexible in that it allows you to choose what the criteria are for advancement. To use Franks example, a potential partner who drinks too much may not qualify for "life partner" status because they do not fit the requirement of "only drinks very rarely." Likewise, in the model as it applies to you, a person with whom that gut feeling is missing may not qualify for "life partner" status, and may be doomed to eake out an existence as a mere "one-night stand" nominee.
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reader, BettyBoup  +, writes (7 May 2012):
 Very interesting article. My question is how do you choose these criteria? You mentioned it is foolish to end a relationship when you are not feeling it emotionally, which suggests that humans are very changeable creatures. How can you decide what criteria are most important and how many should there be?
If we keep waiting around for someone who fits all our criteria, we may miss opportunities for happiness with someone who may not be our ideal perfect partner, but who has many good qualities and who makes us happy.I can understand that the resentment builds up when the relationship is lacking things which may be very important to an individual, such as the frequency of sex and religious beliefs. However, some things about people change over time, so the shared love of a type of music or frequent sex may continue for some time, however, if one person changes in this area, what happens then? Do you divorce them?
People change and you cannot expect someone to be your ideal partner in every way always, you have to allow that person to grow and change and still love them.
So how do you isolate the key criteria? Surely these are most important and anything else is a bonus. Also I think having some degree of emotional, intuitive gut connection/feeling for the person is important. Someone can fit all of your criteria, but if that feeling is missing, then, well, isn't that like living life without eating chocolate(or something else that gives you true joy)?
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