The Case Study
The provided case study describes the romantic relationships between Anthony, a well-educated, financially stable Caucasian man, in his late twenties, and Michele, also well-educated, black woman, in her early twenties. Both Anthony’s and Michele’s parents do not comply with their choices. Michele feels that their couple started drifting apart, and she thinks that this is because of her race that makes them so different. She tries to speak with Anthony about it, but he rejects to hear anything about her embarrassment with her race. Michele understands that as time passed, she was left alone in these relationships, and that Anthony is more immersed with other aspects of his life. He avoids any conversation regarding living together and marriage and has become more aggressive towards Michele lately. Michele believes that all this happened because of her skin color and feels that their relationships need to change.
Initially, Michele and Anthony seemed to have many common interests, and that their views on building a family, work, and settling down aligned. The fact that they work in one place also seemed to unite them. In addition, they both loved same aspects of life: their jobs, the beaches, the outdoors, reggae music, and binge-watching TV series. They enjoyed much time together, going on vacations, and spending time visiting each other, and this seemed to be enough at the beginning. However, when Michele started to consider her race as a distinguishing factor between her and Anthony, she felt embarrassed about her identity and started getting apart from him. The external forces like society, culture, and art made her think that a skin color did not allow her to fit in Anthony’s life. In reality, Anthony did not think of her race as something that mattered and distinguished them. Michele’s own perception of herself started to disconnect her from Anthony.
As a psychologist, the main question that I would ask Michele is whether she saw the real signs that Anthony was embarrassed with her race or avoided introducing her to his family or friends. This question can help her to understand that she is the only person who is really concerned with their racial difference. If Michele wants to save these relationships with Anthony, she needs to stop perceiving her race embarrassing and accept herself the way she is. Through the psychological assistance like meditation, I can help Michele to build up a self-acceptance and better self-esteem (Huseyin, 2017). In case she decides to stop these relationships, I would help her to leave them painlessly and teach her self-love. The main aspect in her therapy is not to allow her to feel alone and let her dive into depression and self-flagellation.
The Interview
I interviewed a friend of mine about her perspective on her previous relationships. She told that at the beginning the relationships with her partner seemed ideal to her: they had common interests, goals, and principles. They especially enjoyed discussing and debating on different books, watching films, and sharing the ideas that no one else could understand. However, after some time, she felt that her partner was not dedicated to their relationship as she was and did not give anything to the exchange of her actions. She felt that her desire to be in these relationships was not mutual, and it was the main source of conflicts. As the number of misunderstandings between them grew and they failed to maintain open communication, they decided to break up.
In addition, I managed to interview another friend of mine who failed in a relationship because of similar motives. In this case, it is worth noting that he was in a homosexual relationship. These interviews have taught me that regardless of sexual orientation, the root of problems often has similar features. This leads to problems related to misunderstanding the true goals of the relationship between the two partners since they have different expectations. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to the psychological and mental part of the problem, not differences in race and orientation.
Reference
Huseyin, R. (2017). A guide to practicing acceptance, the game-changing habit. Art of Wellbeing with Rezzan Huseyin. Web.