Attachment in Love Relationships - Essay Example

How Individuals Attachment Styles Affect the Type of Love Relationship Attachment Human beings are social beings molded by a number of personal encounters with fellow human beings, which is a process that starts during infancy. Long term relationships are heavily affected by the type of relationship encounters held at early infancy stages. Attachment entails the close emotional connection and closeness that an infant develops to a caretaker mainly due to the realization of their responsiveness in meeting their survival needs. Relationships become a factor of the close trust an individual perceives from a relationship to such an extent that the attachment figure will always be sought in the relationship. Personal Attachment Description 1. My attachment with was warm/responsive 2. My attachment with father was ambivalent/ inconsistent Attachment forms experienced at a tender age become very instrumental in the way individuals perceive nearly all the other relationships. Perhaps the strongest determinant on later life relationships remains to be the attachment that an individual makes with the caregiver, who almost certainly becomes one of the parents. An illustration of the above personal description is that my mother was closer to me thereby influencing my relationship perceptions within and outside the family. As individuals develop, they extrapolate their personal attachment accounts to other relationships which depend on the acquired closeness deliberations with others to define comfort in their company. In a similar way, the level of anxiety as well as perceptions of abandonment by relationship partners becomes entrenched at the very tender age (Adams and Jones, 1999). Attachment in Love Relationships The quality of emotional attachment that individual makes in early life defines the sort of expectations that one enters a romantic relationship with. According to Edwards (2007), romantic relationships satisfy attachment security and determine a number of other individual perceptions of their emotions. Personal preparedness to deal with conflicts, forgiveness and other emotional attributes depend on the nature of attachment experience developed during development at the infancy stage. Individuals’ perception of the attachment figure in a romantic relationship can be an extrapolation of an attachment figure during infancy. An individual’s perceptions on the ideal attachment figure in a romantic relationship may dictate the type of a partner chosen. From the personal description in the beginning of this article, future attractions to relationships can be derived from the type of attachment formed. A girl, for instance will look for a man with attractive qualities such as those possessed by the father in order to sustain emotional development achieved in the attachment patterns. In case the girl engages in a relationship with a man off the attachment expectations, the romantic relationship may face several hurdles as satisfaction is sought. In a similar way, a young man looking for a romantic relationship will look in a partner for qualities that resemble those of the attachment figure who could be the mother. In case a prospective partner does not offer these qualities, the apparent satisfaction in the romantic relationship drops. According to Goodman and Mikulincer (2006), the establishment, sustenance and dissolution of romantic relationships depend on the sustainability of the romantic bond which is a factor of attachment patterns. According to the author, adult attachment depicted in romantic relationships is built on the infancy attachment with slight modifications due to changes in motivational systems between the parties involved in the relationships. Proximity between attachment parties and distress occasioned by physical separation are perhaps some of the most generalizing features of attachment in various relationships. However, due to the motivational systems between the parties, there are changes in the actual direction of the relationship. Similar sentiments are held by Verdino (2009) in explaining the role of attachment in major life interpersonal relationships such as in young adults. The author reckons that the changes in objectives relationships make the role of attachment either favorable or unfavorable. Romantic relationships are among the long term relationships established on a number of trust factors where individuals seek to achieve satisfaction in different ways. Attachment defines the manner in which the relationship is shaped, with satisfaction of basic survival adaptation carrying more weight than incidental benefits of such a relationship. The individual psychological processes become developed into a strict system that discriminates against unfavorable survival conditions in terms of relationships, as the individual establishes unique social adaptations to the environment. In love relationships, individuals begin to build relationship bonds that heavily rely on the past experiences with an attachment figure. According to Adams and Jones (1999, p111), when romantic relationship are established, the childhood attachment forms are transcribed into the more mature engagement in many respects. Just as in infancy, romantic relationships develop a functionality that resembles that of the attachment with a caregiver. Stronger bonds are built in the romantic relationship, with a few modifications being introduced to distinguish between the two, but they remain similar in terms of the bond created on trust and satisfaction. The complexity of attachment features in a romantic relationship can be defined by existence of three behavior systems. First, attachment characteristics that closely resemble those in an infant and a caregiver become manifested in the relationship. This implies that a strong bond with endurance capacity is established irrespective of the attachment figure’s behavior. Secondly, caregiving is an integral determinant of the romantic relationship in a way that closely resembles that in infant-caregiver attachment. Although the needs of an adult engaging in a romantic relationship change considerably, the caretaking closeness and dependence that romantic partners have are reminiscent of the infancy attachment. Thirdly, perhaps a huge deviation and modification of the earlier attachment is the presence of sexual intimacy in romantic relationships. Sexual relationship relies on many trust factors that are well developed in the attachment and attraction dynamics. Attachment in infancy therefore molds and influences romantic relationships in a countless ways. According to Jones (1999) one of the attachment features is the apparent trust on the attachment figure despite their personal weaknesses. It is astonishing how romantic relationships manage to carry on even if it is abusive or one of the partners is insensitive. During loss of a romantic partner, it is also manifested that grieve from the loss breaks a strong bond as defined in infancy attachment. References Adams, J. & Jones, W. (1999) Handbook of interpersonal commitment and relationship stability. New York, NY: Springer Edwards, J. K. (2007) Relationship satisfaction: the role of attachment, conflict, empathy and forgiveness. Purdue University: Proquest Goodman, G. & Mikulincer, M. (2006) Dynamics of romantic love: attachment, caregiving and sex. Guilford Press Verdino, J. (2009) Attachment and the quality of romantic relationships of young adults with same sex parents. 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