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The need for adult attachment
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Published: September 10, 2009
"Failure to develop a satisfying intimate relationship with one's marital partner has been the single most frequently presented problem in therapy." This is a quote from Greenberg and Johnson, in their book, "Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples."
The quote points to the adult need for attachment. We all know about the need for attachment in children. There have been numerous studies proving that infants are hardwired to attach to their caregivers. As a parent or as an observer of small children, we have all seen the desperation on the face of a child who is left at a day care for the first time. This detaching experience validates the reality of an intense attachment need. Healthy children learn to adapt after a while and adjust to being left with others, even learning to transfer that need for attachment to other caregivers.
We often think we outgrow this need for attachment when we move into adulthood. After all, by the time we become adults we have experienced the attachment/detachment experience thousands of times — as we come and go during the teen years and college years and as we move away and come back for short stays or visits.
However, Greenberg and Johnson believe we never outgrow this need for intense attachment. That is what dating is all about. Sexual attraction is sexual attraction, but it is also about the search for bonding, to be emotionally connected to a special person. When we find the right person, the right fit, we move into marriage, the ultimate adult attachment. Love stories in novels, movies and television specials mesmerize all of us when we read or view couples intently connected. Seeing other couples "in love," "committed" and "forever attached" fulfills vicariously our own desire to be a soul mate to someone.
On the flip side, these Hollywood versions of adult attachment, compared to the routine of marriage, might make us feel, "There is something missing in my marriage! I don't feel the whirling, dizziness and explosiveness." We might wonder, "Where did the magic go?"
We need to realize that the dimensions of attachment are broader and deeper than sexual attraction or sexual fantasy. The daily grind of making a living, raising kids, paying the bills, cleaning the house and cutting the grass, aren't all that tantalizing but they are part and parcel of the adult attachment we call marriage. The lure of an affair is really the lure of a fantasy world, where you get the feeling you are attached to another adult without the trappings of menial domestic tasks, deadlines and whining children.
Part of genuine adult attachment is going to work everyday for your spouse and children or changing the 12th diaper for your baby who has a severe case of diarrhea. Real adult attachment is being willing to take the bad with the good, the mediocre with the magnificent. Real adult attachment is knowing your spouse will be there through the thick and thin; will not forsake you when you get ill; will not abandon you when you get old; will not call you weak when you cry; will not seek to punish you when you fall short of their expectation; will tolerate boring days with you; will laugh at the vacation that was a pure disaster; will believe in you when you have lost belief in yourself; will cry with you when a parent dies; and will allow you to ride on their faith in your periods of doubt and despair.
So, there is more to adult attachment than Hollywood portrays. It is a consistency of being there for each other come what may. Couples who create this "you can count on me" quality of marriage are most fortunate and wild horses can't pull them apart.
dr. bill mitcham is the Director/ Therapist at The Marriage Maintenance Center in Davidson. He can be reached at 704-408-4187or e-mail at bmitcham@bellsouth.net.
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