1) Rigid Complementarity, Competitive Symmetry, & Submissive Symmetry

I think the most difficult one to change is submissive symmetry. I am an extremely submissive person; I rarely like to make the decisions when it comes to being in a relationship with a significant other, or just in a friendly friendship. I need the other person to be the opposite of me and help me make the discussions rather than setting there, going back in forth trying to force one another to decided something. I don’t think anything ever gets done that way. I believe that most relationships are rigid, which is okay because most of the time each person takes a turn being dominate. Competitive can be a difficult one as well, but I am an athlete and I can easily change my competiveness on and off, especially if it might hinder a relationship. However, I do think that competitive symmetry is the most damaging. Unlike the submissive symmetry where the partners are trying to make one another happy, usually in a competitive symmetry relationship the people in it are only focusing on themselves. They don’t realize that it’s taking a toll on each other because they are so caught up in “winning”. When the realization happens, it’s usually too late to fix. I think rigid complementarity is extremely damaging to an individual’s self-esteem, especially if you aren’t the dominate one in the relationship. If you’re in a relationship, which I myself have been in where the other person takes control and basically tells you what you need to do, you’re always wrong, you start to believe it as well as start to think badly about yourself because you seem to be doing nothing right. There are ups and downs to all three patterns and it depends on the type of relationship to realize which one is damaging to the relationship, oneself and which one is difficult to change.