Attachment Style and Marital Conflict

A happy marriage can increase joy in life, while a poor marriage can lead to health issues such as depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and other serious problems.^8,12 Since differences of opinion are an inevitable part of the couple experience, those who wish for a happy marriage and a healthy life should focus of developing strong conflict resolution skills. Conflict resolution skills are an important predictor in marital happiness.^6,7,10

Arguments arise when there are differences in goals and ideas between spouses.¹⁰ When these issues aren’t resolved in a constructive manner, they can result in marital discord. This can be detrimental to the relationship.³ Although conflict with a spouse can be very stressful, skillful handling of conflict can actually lead to greater happiness and success in marriage.^8,10,12,17 To begin, understanding the reason a person may react the way they do in conflict, including their history, may help a spouse better handle the conflict and increase overall marital happiness.

Three Types of Attachment

Three types of attachment influence the way a person reacts to marital conflict: secure, anxious, and avoidant, which are explained below.^2,5 For example, those with a secure attachment most likely had healthy relationships with their family members as a child and have a healthy marital security. By discovering which type of attachment style a partner displays, the other spouse can be more understanding of the steps to take to create a more secure relationship.

Within a romantic relationship, a person’s attachment security is the level of acceptance, trust, positivity, and understanding of the spouse.^2,6,12 For example, someone with greater attachment security feels greater positivity and trust in his or her relationship compared to an insecure individual. Improving the attachment security level can in turn improve the reaction to conflict. The greater the security, the better the argument outcome and relationship quality. But the greater the insecurity, the poorer the argument outcome and relationship quality.^12,17

Securely attached individuals respond best to conflict and are most likely to have had healthy childhood relationships.¹⁸ These individuals typically have the following characteristics:

• Have low anxiety and avoidance in their relationship.¹⁵
• Tend to respond to conflict by viewing it in a positive way.^3,18
• Have good communication, are confident in their coping abilities, and express their emotions clearly.^6,7
• Tend to be more willing to try to improve their relationship.¹⁰
• Can balance togetherness and individuality in the relationship, providing stability.^6,12
• Are seen by their spouse as available and responsive and aren’t worried about being abandoned.^3,5
• Are more trusting, respectful, positive, and loyal.⁸

Those with an anxious attachment most likely have experienced unreliable relationships with close family members. In their family of origin, they had a disrupted style of attachment security.¹⁹ Due to attachment insecurity, these individuals often display the following characteristics:

• Experience fear of being left or rejected by their partner.³
• Have low self-esteem.^3,6,13,15
• Feel threatened by their spouse.
• Feel undeserving of their spouse’s love.
• Have difficulty listening during conflict due to anxiety.^6,15
• Seek closeness and constant reassurance from their significant other.^6,7,15
• Feel anxious no matter how good the relationship is.¹²
• Monitor the availability and responsiveness of their partner, often looking for problems.³

Like those with anxious attachment, those that are avoidant also have display characteristics of insecurity. These individuals were most likely repeatedly rejected or ignored by close family members as children.¹⁹ Those with an avoidant attachment typically demonstrate these characteristics:

• Feel uncomfortable in intimate situations, even with their significant other.
• Are slow to trust or open-up in their relationships.^3,6
• Tend to stay away from possible causes of an argument, but when there is conflict, they often control the argument.^3,7
• Are less likely to make the effort, or take risks, to improve their relationship.¹⁰
• Have a hard time expressing love or support and try to be independent.⁶
• View others, including their spouse, as untrustworthy, and avoid closeness in their relationships.¹⁵

Although secure attachments result in the most positive outcomes compared to the negative outcomes of insecure styles,⁷ one may improve his or her attachment over time and become more secure.

Family Influence

The way in which an individual reacts to and resolves conflict can be understood through their attachment style.^{2, 5, 6} Attachment theory suggests that humans, from infancy, seek warmth and security in forming their closest relationships. The attachment style of an individual is created over time through both positive and negative interactions with loved ones.^2,12,15 These experiences in an individual’s family-of-origin can influence a person’s marital relationship. Although this family-of-origin style can become less influential as an individual grows older, it may reveal itself in times of marital stress and conflict.¹⁹ Although an individual’s family of origin influence can play a large role in his or her marriage, therapeutic interventions can help improve potential negative impacts. This idea will be further discussed below.

Although marital happiness is influenced by several factors, the influence attachment security has on conflict is an important predictor in increased marital happiness. This is due to the positive or negative impact based on each spouse’s perception and reaction to conflict.

Differing Perceptions of Conflict.

Perception or the way an individual sees the relationship is an influential factor in marital happiness.^9,18 Attachment style plays an important role in perception because individuals often perceives their partner in a way expected by their own attachment style.^1,3 The type of attachment a spouse has may affect the way he or she perceives the relationship and conflict, whether in a positive or negative manner.^1,15 A positive perception of one’s relationship is related to greater marital happiness, whereas a negative perception of the relationship is related to lesser marital satisfaction.^6,9,18 In addition, perception influences marital happiness in the way an individual views the intentions, feelings, and thoughts of his or her spouse, as well as how the conflict began, ended, and the relationship as a whole.^2,6,9,18

Marital satisfaction is damaged when an individual views the relationship with an inaccurate perception.⁹ Since negative or skewed perceptions can come from insecure attachments, having an accurate, clear perception of the messages the partner sends during conflict is important to marital satisfaction.⁹ The way an individual perceives his or her partner’s intentions, thoughts, and feelings affects how the individual reacts to argument; if he or she perceives it positively, he or she reacts well to the argument; if he or she perceives it negatively, he or she may react poorly to conflict.⁹ Knowing more about typical ways that those with secure and insecure attachments from childhood may perceive conflict, spouses may be able to reevaluate the true meaning of the argument and their partner’s words and actions.

Individuals with a secure attachment have a clear perception of their partner, the relationship, and conflict. ^3,6,16 They perceive their partner and the relationship more positively.⁸ In turn, securely attached individuals have a more positive perception of conflict and argument outcome.^8,11,16 Individuals with a secure attachment still experience negativity during conflict, but they are quicker to move from negativity to positivity, and forget negativity faster.^11,16 Those with a secure attachment can better perceive their partner for what they are genuinely thinking and feeling.^3,6 Individuals that perceive their partner in a more positive manner are more willing to make an effort to improve the relationship.^8,10,15

Individuals with an anxious attachment perceive their partner’s actions, intentions, and messages, as well as the relationship, in a more negative manner.^3,6,11,13,16 Anxiously attached individuals do not perceive disagreements clearly. ^3,9,16 The more anxiously attached an individual is, the more negativity they perceive in conflict.^13,16 They can become distracted by any negative element in conflict, and then focus on that thing. ^3,13,16 Individuals with an anxious attachment can perceive negative messages from their partner to be more negative than they truly are.^1,3,6,11 In turn, they also perceive positive messages and loving gestures during an argument to be less positive than they truly are.^1,3,11

Anxiously attached individuals also perceive their partner’s negative behaviors as intentional and perceive their partner to be quicker to end the relationship than they actually are.³ Individuals with an anxious attachment perceive arguments to be more frequent and more intense than they truly are, which can lead to increased stress and greater negative views of the relationship.^6,13 Those with an anxious attachment feel more anger towards their spouse, are more attacking, and are less likely to use compromising communication during conflict.^6,13 Anxiously attached individuals feel more distress, anxiety, and negativity during and after conflict, often basing perceptions on the results of previous arguments.^3,6,11

Despite these negative impacts, those that have an anxious attachment try harder that other insecurely attached individuals to perceive and understand correctly their partner’s thoughts and feelings during conflict.³ Although individuals with an anxious attachment perceive more negativity during negative conflict, they also tend to more clearly perceive positivity during positive interactions.^3,13

Those with an avoidant attachment perceive their partner’s messages in a more negative manner but put in less effort to truly perceive their partner clearly compared to anxiously attached individuals.^1,3,16 These individuals do not generally perceive their spouse clearly or correctly ^1,3,9 due to their desire to keep distance and maintain independence from their partner.^1,3,11 Avoidantly attached individuals do not recognize sadness, anger, or pain in their partner because they underestimate negativity in their perceptions of their partner.^3,6,15,16 In part, this perception is due to the lack of effort to understanding their partner’s intentions, thoughts, and feelings.^3,15

Those with an avoidant attachment also perceive their partner’s positive messages to be less positive than they genuinely are.^1,3 They tend to perceive their partner to have more negative intentions than they actually do because they assume what they perceive is correct, rather than trying to understand what their partner is truly trying to communicate.^3,11 Avoidantly attached individuals perceive their partner’s actions to be more out of obligation rather than love, which results in the perception that their partner is only trying to benefit himself or herself rather than the couple as a whole.^1,3 These skewed perceptions result in a desire to protect one’s self, as well as to avoid conflict altogether.^1,3,9,16

Spousal Reaction to Conflict

An individual’s attachment style can both influence the way he or she perceives conflict but also influence how one reacts to conflict.^3,9 A secure attachment is related to positive behaviors during and after conflict, which can lead to better conflict management and increased marital happiness. An insecure attachment can result in negative behaviors, triggering worse conflict management and decreased marital happiness.^1,6,11,18 As expected, those with a secure attachment tend to respond to marital conflict with more positive behaviors.^3,6,18 They show better communication during arguments by expressing their emotions accurately, constructively, openly, and by attentively listening to their spouse.^3,6 Those with a secure attachment are better able to restore harmony to the relationship because they are quicker to forgive.⁶ Since these individuals perceive their partner in a more positive manner, they are more willing to try to improve the relationship.^8,10,15 Individuals with a secure attachment have more confidence; therefore, they are not afraid to be honest with their partner during conflict.^10,12

Anxiously attached individuals are more likely to respond to arguments with negative behaviors.^1,11,15 Those with an anxious attachment are afraid of being left or rejected, therefore they use certain behaviors to obtain constant closeness and reassurance from their partner.^3,6,13,15 These behaviors include inflicting guilt and blame during conflict to encourage his or her partner to reassure the anxious individual.^3,6 They may view the source of the conflict as their spouse’s fault, and therefore focus on blaming or hurting the other spouse during conflict.^3,6 Not only do anxiously attached individuals blame their partner, they also demonstrate high self-blame and guilt themselves, resulting in lower self-esteem.⁶ Anxious individuals often focus on the couple, rather than the individual, so much so that they lose a sense of self. ^3,6

Individuals with an anxious attachment are more aggressive and demanding during conflict and are less compromising.^8,15 This lack of compromising behaviors comes from the focus anxious individuals place on their partner’s mistakes and behaviors.^3,15 During conflict, individuals with an anxious attachment show more distress, anxiety, and intimidation; these behaviors carry on into conflict resolution as well.^3,8 They are less quick to forgive and often remember the words and actions of their partner for future conflict.^13,16 Resolution is also difficult for anxious individuals because they are less likely to make the effort and sacrifices necessary to improve the relationship.^3,10 But because of their anxiety of being abandoned they often give into their partner’s wishes.^3,6

Those that have an avoidant attachment are often negative in their behaviors toward their spouse during conflict.^3,15 Anxiously attached individuals have a hard time opening up and expressing emotion in relationships, especially during conflict.^1,6,15 Individuals with an avoidant attachment minimize their emotions, express their emotions less during conflict, as well as offer less emotional support to their spouse.^{1,3 ,15} They behave this way to regulate their distance and individuality.^1,6,15 They also behave aggressively and angrily, offering less love or warmth to their partner, often increasing the negativity of the conflict.^1,6,15 Those with an avoidant attachment are often unable to manage their anger during conflict and become controlling.^6,8 Individuals with an avoidant attachment behave this way to protect themselves.¹ Avoidantly attached individuals are less likely to try or take risks to improve the relationship during conflict resolution.¹⁰

Increasing Attachment Security

Research shows that there a several ways that an individual may increase security in a relationship to help a spouse overcome some negative perceptions or behaviors that may come from the individual’s earlier attachment style built in childhood.

• Increase Autonomy. A person’s autonomy is made up of his or her self-confidence and independence. Increasing one’s self confidence increases his or her security in the relationship as well.¹⁹ This may include taking time for hobbies, using self-affirmations, or making a list of positive personal qualities. These things can be done individually but may be more beneficial when done as a couple. For example, individuals can teach their spouse how to play their favorite sport or spouses can make lists of their partners’ positive personal qualities.

• Increase Relationship Involvement. By investing deeply in the relationship in terms of time and effort an individual can improve the quality of interaction.¹⁹ A few examples of how this can be done are to set aside time to be together, encourage a spouse’s interests or positive attributes, or reflect on positive memories as a couple.

• Individual and Marital Therapy. Seeking guidance from a counselor can greatly improve the couple’s marital satisfaction, attachment security, and decrease the impact of insecure family of origin experiences. This can be accomplished through seeking a qualified professor that is properly trained to assist individuals and couples with their unique situations. Therapy can be beneficial for individuals and couples.

• Increase Communication. Couples may increase their attachment security by improving communication in the relationship, especially during conflict.²² Rather than using negative speech and body language, quality marital communication can be increased by having a problem-solving discussion. This includes focusing on the solution of the issue, rather than who is at fault or what prior mistakes were made. This may also include allowing each spouse the opportunity to share his or her feelings without fear of criticism. This can be accomplished by taking time each day or weekly to check-in with one another and discuss important topics and feelings.

It is important to note that spouses’ attachment security can influence each other, in turn influencing their marital satisfaction.²¹ While those with a secure attachment handle conflict the best, and therefore have greater marital happiness, this does not mean individuals with an insecure attachment can’t have happy marriages.^3,6,18 Those with an insecure attachment, anxious or avoidant, can improve their perception and reaction to conflict, in turn improving their marital happiness.^1,3,11,15

Written by Mikelle Thorpe, edited by Brittany Passmore and Professors Julie Haupt and Stephen F. Duncan, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University. July 10, 2019.

References

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