Epilogue
For us, the most important take-home message from this book is that relationships should not be left to chance. Relationships are one of the most rewarding of human experiences, above and beyond other gifts that life has to offer. In fact, one study found that 73 percent of over three hundred university student participants were willing to sacrifice the majority of their goals in life for a romantic relationship. But despite the importance we assign to our most intimate bonds, most of us still know very little about the science behind romantic relationships and allow ourselves all too often to be guided by misconceptions and myths.
Even the two of us, having thoroughly studied the science behind adult attachment styles, occasionally find ourselves falling back into familiar patterns of thinking when we hear a certain love story or watch a romantic movie that pushes all our old buttons. We recently saw a popular boy-meets-girl film that did just that. A young man falls passionately in love with a beautiful and intelligent woman. He becomes consumed by the desire to spend the rest of his life with her. She, on the other hand, is determined to stay free and unattached—and tells him so from the start. Throughout the story, she sends mixed messages; she flirts and strings him along, which allows him to keep hoping for a happy ending. But in an atypical Hollywood twist, she breaks his heart. He later discovers that she has gone on to marry the man of her dreams and is living happily ever after. (Well, to the best of his, and our, knowledge, because the movie ends there.)
Our first reaction, along with the rest of the audience, was to fall in love with the woman. She was strong, passionate, independent—a truly free spirit. And she was honest; she warned him in advance that she wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. We certainly couldn’t fault her for that. Besides, he obviously just wasn’t “the one” for her (after all, we were told she later found “the one”). For much of the movie we were also enthralled with the romantic possibility that she might open up to him and he would win her over. Although the film started with a spoiler—saying that it wasn’t a love story—we never stopped wishing for its two stars to ride off into the sunset together.
But on second thought, we quickly realized we had bought into every possible relationship fallacy. Even we, with our professional understanding of the science behind romantic behavior, had reverted to our old—and very unhelpful—beliefs. We allowed some deeply ingrained misconceptions to influence our thinking.
The first misconception is that everyone has the same capacity for intimacy. We’ve been raised to believe that every person can fall deeply in love (this part might well be true) and that when this happens, he or she will be transformed into a different person (this part is not!). Regardless of what they were like before, when people find “the one,” they supposedly become adoring, faithful, supportive partners—free of qualms about the relationship. It’s tempting to forget that, in fact, people have very different capacities for intimacy. And when one person’s need for closeness is met with another person’s need for independence and distance, a lot of unhappiness ensues. By being cognizant of this fact, both of you can navigate your way better in the dating world to find someone with intimacy needs similar to your own (if you are unattached) or reach an entirely new understanding about your differing needs in an existing relationship—a first and necessary step toward steering it in a more secure direction.
The second common misconception we fell victim to is that marriage is the be-all and end-all. Romantic stories tend to end there, and we are all tempted to believe that when someone gets married, it’s unequivocal proof of the power of love to transform; that the decision to marry means they’re now ready for true closeness and emotional partnership. We don’t like to admit that people might enter marriage without having these goals in mind, let alone the ability to achieve them. We want to believe, as we had hoped for in the movie, that once married, anyone can change and treat his/her spouse like royalty (especially if two people are deeply in love with each other).
In this book, however, we’ve shown how mismatched attachment styles can lead to a great deal of unhappiness in marriage, even for people who love each other greatly. If you are in such a relationship, don’t feel guilty for feeling incomplete or unsatisfied. After all, your most basic needs often go unmet, and love alone isn’t enough to make the relationship work. If you’ve read this book and understand where you are each coming from in terms of your attachment styles, you can now tackle this problem from a completely different angle.
The third hard-to-shed misconception we fell for is that we alone are responsible for our emotional needs; they are not our partner’s responsibility. When potential partners “Mirandize” us and “read us our rights” (see chapter 11) early in a relationship by telling us that they aren’t ready to commit, thereby renouncing responsibility for our well-being, or when they make unilateral decisions in a long-standing relationship without taking our needs into account, we’re quick to accept these terms. This logic has become very natural to people, and our friends might say, “They told you in advance they didn’t want to commit,” or “They always said how strongly they feel about this issue, so you have no one but yourself to blame.” But when we’re in love and want to continue a relationship, we tend to ignore the contradictory messages we’re getting. Instead of recognizing that someone who blatantly disregards our emotions is not going to be a good partner, we accept this attitude. Again, we must constantly remind ourselves: In a true partnership, both partners view it as their responsibility to ensure the other’s emotional well-being.
Once we let go of these delusions, the movie, like many situations in life, takes on a very different meaning. The story line becomes predictable and loses much of its mystique. It’s no longer a boy-meets-girl story, but an avoidant-meets-anxious one; he has a need for intimacy and she shies away from it. The writing was on the wall from the beginning, but the movie’s male hero couldn’t see it. That the woman he loved went on to marry someone else doesn’t change the fact that she was avoidant, and it predicts nothing about her happiness (or her husband’s) in the marriage. It’s very likely that she continued her behavior and distanced herself from the husband in many ways. For all we know, the hero became her phantom ex.
What we learned from watching the film is just how hard it is to let go of concepts we’ve believed in our entire lives—no matter how unhelpful they’ve been. But jettisoning these ideas is a necessary step; holding on to them can be highly destructive. They encourage us to compromise our self-esteem and happiness by ignoring our most basic needs and trying to be someone we’re not.
We believe that every person deserves to experience the benefits of a secure bond. When our partner acts as our secure base and emotional anchor, we derive strength and encouragement to go out into the world and make the most of ourselves. He or she is there to help us become the best person we can be, as we are for them.
Don’t Lose Sight of These Facts:
• Your attachment needs are legitimate.
• You shouldn’t feel bad for depending on the person you are closest to—it is part of your genetic makeup.
• A relationship, from an attachment perspective, should make you feel more self-confident and give you peace of mind. If it doesn’t, this is a wake-up call!
• And above all, remain true to your authentic self—playing games will only distance you from your ultimate goal of finding true happiness, be it with your current partner or with someone else.
We hope you will use the relationship wisdom distilled in this book, from more than two decades of research, to find happiness in your romantic connections and to soar in all aspects of your life. If you follow the attachment principles we have outlined, you will be actively giving yourself the best shot at finding—and keeping—a deeply gratifying love, instead of leaving one of the most important aspects of your life to chance!