Love & Marriage & Attachment

A very interesting and thorough look at the mechanics of love over at Psychology Today, "In The Name Of Love," from an attachment theory perspective. There are more than a few echoes of vertical, (Winwood-esque) higher love, not to mention a healthy dose of human bondage...  Though a Mockingbird might maintain that love precedes vulnerability, not the other way around. But certainly the intimate link between the two is inarguable. Some gems:

Our attachment needs make dependence on another person an integral part of being human. Self-sufficiency is a lie.

The couples I see have taught me that it is almost impossible to be accessible, responsive, emotionally engaged with someone if you are not able to experience and express your own vulnerabilities. If you cannot allow yourself to experience and show your vulnerability, you cannot tell others what you need and explicitly ask others to respond to you. But troubled couples naturally want to hide and protect their vulnerability, although that usually precludes any satisfying kind of emotional contact.

Love is transforming—not just of the world but of the self. We find a whole new way of contacting another human being, and this emotional engagement opens up new possibilities of becoming ourselves. That is the intoxicating thing about the relationship. It modifies how people experience themselves and how they see other people.

What couples are really fighting about is rarely the issue they seem to be fighting about—the chores, the kids. It is always about separateness and connectedness, safety and trust, the risk of letting someone in to see the exposed, vulnerable self... Self-defeating as it may be, anger is an attempt to discourage a partner from further distancing.

The language of love is the language of vulnerability. While Western psychology focuses on the value of self-sufficiency, in our personal lives we struggle to integrate our needs for contact and care into our adult experience.