Throughout our lives, we love others. First we love our parents or caretakers and then siblings, friends, and lovers. At each stage of life we learn lessons about love that help us mature into the next stage. Love gets more complex as we get older. Let us walk through the different stages of individual development and look at the different ways love manifests itself as we grow.
Childhood
In infancy, the nature and quality of the bond with the caregiver can have profound effects on the ability of the person to form attachments throughout life (we will discuss this more in the next chapter, “Childhood and Adolescent Sexuality”). Loving, attentive caregivers tend to produce secure, happy children. Our parents, or the adults who raised us, are the very first teachers of love and intimacy. In fact, we tend to relate to others in our love relationships much as we did when we were young. If you grew up in a family in which your parents were unemotional and distant, you learn that love is dangerous. Researchers used to believe that mother love was more important than father love, but today we know that both are equally important to the development of healthy, intimate relationships (Rohner & Veneziano, 2001).
Those who do not experience intimacy growing up may have a harder time establishing intimate relationships as adults (Perry, 1998). Of course, it is also true that many people who had difficult upbringings are successful at developing deep and intimate relationships.
The type of intimate relationships you form as an adult may be due primarily to the type of attachment you formed as a child (Burton, 2005; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2005). Hazan & Shaver (1987) and Shaver and colleagues (1988), building on the work of Ainsworth and her colleagues (Ainsworth et al., 1978), suggest that infants form one of three types of attachment behaviors that follow them throughout life. Secure infants tolerate caregivers being out of their sight because they believe the caregiver will respond if they cry out or need care. Similarly, the secure adult easily gets close to others and is not threatened when a lover goes away. Anxious/ambivalent babies cry more than secure
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Question: I have always had a tough time trusting in relationships. Could this have anything to do with the fact that my parents divorced when I was quite young?
It is possible that the divorce of your parents has made it difficult for you to trust your intimate partners. Research has found that divorce affects a young adult’s level of trust in intimate relationships (Ensign et al., 1998). Women whose parents have divorced (compared to women whose parents maintained stable marriages) typically report less trust and satisfaction in intimate relationships (Jacquet & Surra, 2001). Men whose parents have divorced are less likely to experience problems in their intimate relationships unless their female romantic partner is also from a divorced family (because women with divorced parents tend to have less trust). Overall, parental divorce may affect trust and intimacy in a close relationship, but it does not put children at an overall disadvantage in the development of love relationships (Sprecher et al., 1998). It may not be the divorce itself that interferes with people’s ability to form intimate relationships, but rather the quality of the relationships they have with their mother and father. If they have a good relationship with at least one of their parents, the negative effects in intimate relationships may be reduced (Ensign et al., 1998).