ENGL217: Analyzing Pressures and Conflicts in a Relationship Story

This assignment presents a creative story exploring the pressures within a marriage, focusing on the relationship between Joe Gomes and Elizabeth D Cruz. The story delves into the challenges they face, including religious differences, differing work schedules, and financial stress, which lead to communication breakdowns and misunderstandings. The narrative highlights how societal expectations and external pressures impact the couple's relationship, causing them to lose their sense of self and experience emotional distance. The assignment also examines the additional stress of differing career levels, and Elizabeth's pregnancy. Ultimately, the story portrays the couple's struggles to navigate these issues and maintain a healthy relationship, emphasizing the need for adjustment and resolution amidst various pressures. The story is written in MLA format and includes references to relevant sources.

Running head: ENGL217
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Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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A relationship is considered to be the bond in which two or more people tend to stay
connected or are in the state of being connected. However, an individual can be in a relationship
with that of the family, in friendship, with their acquaintances and as well as in romantic
relationship (Kelley, Harold). This story will be focusing on the pressures in the relationship
between that of a husband and a wife.
Joe Gomes and Elizabeth D Cruz were two friends since their time of college. As they
studied together and used to spend the time in college together, they got to know each other well,
and they decided to marry one another. In the initial stage of their life when they were in college,
they shared various happy moments as a result of which attachment grew among them, and they
decided to marry one other. However, things changed between them as they married, and
maturity began to develop among one another. Both of them were of different religion, and
therefore they had to face various forms of hardship from their parents. Since the girl used to fail
to perform as per the expectations of the family of the boy, the family members used to say
various sorts of negative things to the boy about the girl. As a consequent of this, both the boy
and the girl used to fight daily, which brought a huge amount of gap in their relationship.
However, since both of them were working, it was very hard for both of them go to spend time
with each other. The boy and the girl had different hours of a shift in the office. While the boy
worked in the day shift, the girl used to go out in the night in order to do her night shift duty in
the office or the organization in which she works. It’s because of the different hours of working
life, both the husband and the wife couldn’t spend time with each other or even give time in their
respective relationship. It is because of the lack of communication between they were failing to
understand each other, it is, however, to be noted that the lack of communication between both
of them also tend to the rise of the negativity among the each other. It created misunderstandings

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as they were failing to communicate with each other in the proper way. Apart from this, it also
leads to the rise of the resentments. Despite sharing a very good bond in the initial time of life,
both of them started having resentment for one another. It is mainly to be noted that the lack of
communication and the negativity around them that made them believe that they are not more
being loved. They started believing the fact that they are getting emotionally far away or are
being in distant from one another. Once the friends who could not stay away from each other and
waited for the next day to arrive in order to meet up and spend more good time, now used to feel
bad in the company of the one another. One of the main reason that tends to lie behind this is
that in the initial stage of their lives, they represented their true inner self. However, after the
marriage, the pressure of maintaining things as per the norms of the society started creeping up.
The couple had to act and perform in a way in order to please the society as well as each other;
they had the constant pressure to act in accordance with the want of the other. Therefore the
pressure of satisfying the other, the individuals lost their own self-esteem and their own “self” in
the long run, which ultimately brought huge problems and difficulties in their relationship.
(Seiffge-Krenke, Inge). However, apart from sharing the relationship of a husband and that of a
wife, both of them even had responsibilities towards their parents which they need to fulfil. It is
the pressure to satisfy the parents as well the relationship that both of them suffered
tremendously. Apart from this, the economic problem was one of the other problems. They had
to work really hard in order to gain the money so that they could lead the life which they wanted
to have and wanted to give to their parents. It is because of the economic pressure in life; they
had to devote themselves in work and share very little time among one another. However,
another factor that brought about great pressures in the relationship between them is that despite
being a girl, Elizabeth was in the higher position in the office and even earned a lot I comparison

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to her husband, Joe. Though initially, it was never a cause of the building pressures in the
relationship, with time, it did bring about huge pressures in both of their respective lives as it
brought about jealousy mentally among Joe over Elizabeth. In the initial stage of their
relationship of marriage, they did not face such issues; however, with the passing of the time,
more fights and resentments started taking among the one and the other. The pregnancy of
Elizabeth brought another reason to fight between both of them. Since she was very much
dedicated to her work, she was not keen on taking leave for her pregnancy as she was about to
get a promotion in her company. However, Joe did not agree with this as there were many
complexities in the pregnancy. The decision to choose between professional and personal life
was very much difficult for Elizabeth. However, Joe was very much adamant. This brought
about great arguments and fights in their relationship with the marriage.
A relationship tends to have various ups and downs. This is one of the reasons for which
both of them had a severe fight among each other. However, the result is not known. However,
one can just be hopeful that by adjusting with all the pressures in the relationship and by working
out the problem which they are facing, both of them will be able to maintain a healthy
relationship along with a beautiful child in their upcoming future.

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References
Kelley, Harold H. Personal relationships: Their structures and processes. Psychology Press,
2013.
Seiffge-Krenke, Inge. Stress, coping, and relationships in adolescence. Psychology Press, 2013.