Attachment styles and their relation to patterns of extradyadic and extramarital involvement

Understanding the reasons for extradyadic involvement is an important question for those faced with this issue. The current study examined the relationship between patterns of extradyadic involvement and adult romantic attachment in a sample of undergraduates reporting dating infidelity and community adults reporting marital infidelity. Attachment was assessed using the Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) which yielded two attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) and four types of attachment (secure, fearful, preoccupied, dismissive) based on combinations of these two dimensions. Patterns of infidelity were assessed using a measure developed for the current study, the Extradyadic Experiences Questionnaire, which assessed issues such as reasons for the involvement, feelings about intimacy with the primary and the extradyadic partner, and overall remorse and specific types of distress regarding the involvement. After a process of scale refinement, all subscales on this measure proved to be reliable in the two samples. The dismissive type was most likely to describe the primary relationship as uncomfortably close and to endorse reasons for extradyadic involvement related to exercising or achieving autonomy.{09}Types high on avoidance were generally more likely to experience relief that the affair gave them some space from their primary partner. The attachment dimension of avoidance predicted less concern about hurting the primary partner as a result of the affair, and dismissive undergraduates were relatively unconcerned about losing either the primary partner or the affair partner. Conversely, the attachment dimension of anxiety predicted the description of the primary relationship as too distant and predicted intimacy and self-esteem boosting reasons for the infidelity. Anxious attachment generally predicted an obsessive affair relationship and fear of abandonment as a result of the affair, although this was true in the marital sample for males only. Preoccupied undergraduates and anxiously attached married persons were also more likely to fear disapproval from others as a result of the infidelity. Understanding these relationships between attachment dynamics and patterns of extramarital involvement may prove helpful in therapeutic interventions with couples and individuals who have experienced this event.