Marriage and attachment: The inner worlds of happily married couples

Attachment behavior (Bowlby, 1969) is considered an integral part of intimate human relating throughout the life span. This research examined the subjects\u27 recollections of their attachment experiences in childhood, and their current attachment experiences in marriage. Ten happy couples in long-term marriages (mean = 27 years) who were nominated by clergy and mental health professionals and screened with the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) were interviewed in depth using a semi-structured inventory. Eight major themes were explored: availability, understanding, separation and reunion behavior, loss, support receiving, support giving, autonomy, and the subjects\u27 explanation of their lives. Surprisingly, the findings indicated that none of these happily married subjects were raised in homes where both parents were physically and emotionally available. Yet, in adult life they had clearly succeeded in establishing fulfilling long-term relationships. Moreover, 15/20 subjects reported feeling understood by their spouses even though many of them lacked that type of understanding from parents. In seven couples there was a reciprocal relationship where each perceived the other as a primary source of comprehension and compassion. Eleven subjects who reported that in childhood they did not turn to a significant other when emotionally distressed, indicated that they did turn to their spouses for emotional support. These findings suggested that attachment behavior is subject to modification throughout the life cycle and is not rigidly fixed in childhood. It was also tentatively concluded that the majority of the subjects had modified to some degree their internal working models vis a vis attachment during adult life. The data suggested that insight, changes in the parent/subject relationship, and the marital relationship were some of the primary factors which could account for the changes in attachment behavior