A Psychologist Urges You To Follow This One Step If You Have An Avoidant Romantic Partner
Dr. Gul Gunaydin explains why sharing the happy moments can lead to a more secure relationship over time.
By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | June 2, 2023
A new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology explains how the little things in your romantic relationship can lead to big changes, like making an insecure partner feel more secure.
I recently spoke to psychologist Gul Gunaydin of Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey to understand how positive romantic experiences can overturn an avoidant attachment style. Here is a summary of our conversation.
What prompted you to investigate the effect of positive romantic experiences on romantic attachment?
An essential ingredient that contributes to a happy relationship is experiencing positive relationship events. Although the role of positive relationship experiences in relationship quality, satisfaction, intimacy, and commitment are well-established, their role in adult attachment processes has been understudied. That’s why we wanted to undertake this research question.
Could you give us an overview of what constitutes a positive romantic experience with some examples? Why was it necessary for you to study them outside of distressing contexts?
Some examples of a positive romantic experience are:
- Doing something fun with your romantic partner
- Expressing your love or gratitude to them
- Disclosing personal information (including good news about yourself) and seeing them respond enthusiastically to sharing of good news
It was important for us to study attachment change in positive contexts as opposed to distressing contexts because most past work has already focused on the latter. Daily positive relationship events are as common as daily hassles. Yet, their contributions to attachment change are not well-understood.
What was the methodology of your study and what would you say was your most critical finding?
In some of our studies, we asked fledgling couples and newlyweds to fill out daily diaries for three weeks. Every evening, our participants reported whether they had any positive experiences that day that involved their romantic partner. They also reported their feelings of romantic avoidance — once before the three-week diary period started and then a second time after the diary period was over.
This allowed us to test whether couples’ experiences during the diary period were associated with changes in their attachment orientation.
Our most critical finding in these studies was that participants who reported a greater number of positive relationship experiences showed declines in romantic avoidance — that is, they reported being more comfortable trusting and depending on their romantic partner at the end of the diary period.
But positive relationship experiences were not significantly associated with declines in attachment anxiety — that is, worries about abandonment.
In another study, we asked fledgling couples to visit our laboratory to discuss a shared happy memory while being videotaped. This way, we were able to examine what type of behaviors during a positive exchange were associated with declines in romantic avoidance.
The critical finding from that study was that behaviors validating the partner and the relationship — such as expressing gratitude about the experience or expressing enthusiasm about the future of the relationship — were linked to decreases in attachment avoidance over a month.
And, our findings suggest that these positive behaviors are reciprocal. When your partner validates you or the relationship, you respond by validating your partner, and this, in turn, helps reduce your romantic avoidance.
What do you think it is about positive romantic experiences that brings down romantic avoidance? Why do you think they were not able to affect romantic anxiety in a meaningful way?
Our results suggest that one mechanism might be a positive mood.
When you go through positive experiences with your partner, this makes you feel good. In time, you come to associate these positive feelings with the relationship and end up being more comfortable trusting and depending on your partner.
In our research, positive relationship experiences contributed to lower romantic avoidance, but not lower romantic anxiety. Romantic anxiety is characterized by worrying that your partner might reject or abandon you. Experiencing positive things in your relationship doesn’t seem to significantly alleviate these worries.
According to recent theorizing (Attachment Security Enhancement Model by Ximena Arriaga and colleagues), anxious attachment is linked with having negative self-views. So, based on this framework, behaviors counteracting negative self-views (such as encouraging your partner to independently pursue their own goals) likely play a more pivotal role in reducing romantic anxiety.
Does your study have any practical takeaways for people who (or whose partner) struggle with an avoidant attachment style?
Based on our findings, we encourage couples to look for opportunities to engage in pleasant relationship experiences in daily life. These don’t have to be grand things such as organizing a surprise romantic getaway with your partner. It could be something as simple as going out for a walk while holding hands.
And when jointly reminiscing about these positive experiences, partners can try to validate one another and the relationship — for example, by telling how grateful they are for sharing the experience, disclosing positive emotions they felt during the experience, or expressing how much they look forward to similar experiences in the future.
As positive relationship experiences accumulate over time, this will likely help build a more trusting, secure relationship.
Would you have any words of wisdom for someone who believes that they are 'stuck' with their insecure attachment style for the rest of their life?
This is actually a question we constantly get from our students and people interested in our work. There is no need to feel 'stuck’ with an insecure attachment style because attachment styles do change over time depending on life circumstances.
For example, if an avoidant person finds themselves in a new romantic relationship imbued with many positive experiences, they might come to feel more secure as the relationship progresses.
We should also keep in mind that tje affectional ties we form might vary from one relationship to another — for instance, one might have an insecure relationship with their parents but a perfectly secure relationship with their romantic partner.
How do you wish your research contributes to intervention efforts on couples’ and individual therapy?
Many couples suffer from low relationship satisfaction and high conflict because they have difficulties trusting and depending on one another, which manifests itself as high romantic avoidance.
Our findings suggest that typical, daily-life positive relationship experiences offer a pathway by which couples may foster trust and security in their relationships. So, if a couple is struggling because one or more of the partners show high romantic avoidance, an intervention that encourages the couple to create opportunities to engage in day-to-day positive relational experiences might be helpful in the long run.
Do you have plans for follow-up research? Where would you like to see research on this topic go in the future?
All participants in our studies experienced a relationship transition as they were in the initial months of either a new dating relationship or a marriage. Starting a new relationship, getting married, becoming parents, or breaking up are often seen as key events that offer greater possibilities for changing attachment patterns.
So, our participants were at an ideal time in their relationship to test the links between positive relationship events and romantic avoidance. However, further research is needed to see to whether our findings would hold for couples in more stable periods of their relationship.