In their investigations, Arriaga et al. (2013) and Joel et al. (2018) examine the problems of maintaining partnerships. The papers emphasize the relevance of personal well-being in relationships and the cognitive processes involved in deciding to stay or break up. These two articles show how people weigh the merits and downsides of sticking with a hostile partner. They weigh reliance, contentment, and options. Both articles reveal the complexities of relationships and the difficult decisions people make in challenging situations. This blog post will discuss how partners with anxious attachment patterns are more likely to experience ambivalence (i.e., contradictory thoughts and feelings—of love and hate, attraction and disgust, excitement and fear, contempt and envy—toward someone with whom we are in a relationship) when deciding to leave or stay.
In both studies, individuals with anxious attachment patterns experience ambivalence when confronted with the choice of whether to continue a relationship with a challenging partner. People might go through emotions like fear of being abandoned and insecurity, but at the same time, they might also feel strongly connected to their partner because of their emotional dependence.
Joel et al. (2018) gathered 150 participants and three samples. A: students; B: couples facing divorce; and C: hesitant Mechanical Turk workers. Every group got attachment-style declarations. express their desire to stay or leave their partnerships and rate it (1–7). One of 18 attachment anxiety items on a seven-point scale was “I worry that romantic partners won’t care about me as much as I care about them.” They found that nervous attachment patterns confuse partner and commitment feelings. Partner validation and commitment are important to anxious attachment types. It encourages connection-keeping. Disagreements and rejection concerns characterize nervous attachment relationships. These concerns make some ponder ending relationships. Their research reveals that anxious attachment patterns make staying or leaving harder.
In 2013, Arriaga et al. examined the mental health and stability of college students with abusive spouses. 171 people reported abuse of their spouses on physical, verbal, and psychological levels. Biweekly online surveys were completed during the experiment. The study examined relationship commitment, contentment, partner aggressiveness, and post-breakup happiness.
One of the results they found from their study suggests that those who anticipate being unhappy in a relationship may stay even if their spouse is aggressive, causing them immediate unhappiness. With regards to this, Arriaga et al. (2013) add that this may be more applicable to particular individuals and situations, such as individuals with anxious attachment, as they may fear ending their relationship and anticipate more unhappiness without an aggressive partner than necessary.
In Bowlby’s attachment theory, it is suggested that individuals with anxious attachment patterns often seek reassurance and validation from their partners while also harboring a fear of rejection and abandonment. When faced with this internal conflict, individuals may find it challenging to reach a definitive conclusion regarding the future of their relationship. Similar to this, Feeney and Noller (1990) discovered that individuals with anxious attachment patterns experience more ambivalence in their relationships than those with secure attachment styles. According to this study, people with anxious attachment patterns have a difficult time deciding whether to stay in a relationship or end it because they suffer from a deep-seated fear of rejection or abandonment.
Citations:
- Arriaga, X. B., Capezza, N. M., Goodfriend, W., Rayl, E. S., & Sands, K. J. (2013). Individual well-being and relationship maintenance at odds: The unexpected perils of maintaining a relationship with an aggressive partner. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(6), 676–684. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613480822
- Feeney, J. A., & Noller, P. (1990). Attachment style as a predictor of adult romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(2), 281–291. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.2.281
- Seth, R. (2022, September 21). What relational ambivalence is and how it can be productive. Mintlounge.https://lifestyle.livemint.com/relationships/it-s-complicated/what-relational-ambivalence-is-and-how-it-can-be-productive 111663736694615.html#:~:text=the%20wrong%20person.%E2%80%9D-,advertisement,we%20are%20in%20a%20relationship.
- Mcleod, S. (2024, January 24). John Bowlby’s attachment theory. Simply Psychology.
- Joel, S., MacDonald, G., & Page-Gould, E. (2018). Wanting to stay and wanting to go: Unpacking the content and structure of relationship stay/leave decision processes. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(6), 631–644. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617722834
I like the connections you made across articles to give a more nuanced view of difficulties faced when considering relationship dissolution, especially with the focus of insecure (anxious) attachment. Like Sydney said, based on anxiously-attached indivdiuals’ working models of self/other, it follows that they would be the most susceptible to ambivalence. I’m interested to see the effect on their attachment style should they decide to break-up. Would they become more anxiously attached because of losing a close other and feeling greater loneliness, or would this not be the case as they may feel greater happiness than anticipated from the dissolution of their relationship?
I thought your post was really interesting, specifically how it highlights the greater likelihood for anxiously attached people to struggle in dissolution consideration. It makes sense that their characteristic internal conflict between wanting closeness and validation while also fearing rejection and abandonment would cause even greater feelings of ambivalence for these types of individuals, which leads to unfortunate mental and physical health outcomes. I wonder what would be the most effective way to help anxiously-attached people through breakups or ending abusive relationships, as I feel like it’s quite often that instead of making a decision, they get “stuck” in that unpleasant in-between of wanting to stay and wanting to go.
I liked how you brought up Bowlby’s attachment theory to summarize the two articles. It is interesting to see how it plays out as people grow older.
I really like your analysis of the papers we read, it really highlights the ideas we’ve been talking about in class about attachment theory. I think it’s really interesting how attachment theory plays a lot into the way we might (or might not) break up with a partner, and it makes me wonder if other life decisions might be affected by your attachment style to your partner (i.e., letting being with your partner affect life decisions outside of the relationship). Although, maybe this just relates more to early-stages of relationships. Great post!