The Relationship Between Attachment Styles and Lifestyle With Marital Satisfaction

Iran Red Crescent Med J. 2016 Jan 16;18(4):e23839. doi: 10.5812/ircmj.23839. eCollection 2016 Apr.

Abstract

Background: Marital satisfaction is one of the deepest and the most basic human pleasures and should be established within the family environment; if not, couples might suffer emotionally. Several factors are involved, including attachment and lifestyle.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between styles of attachment and lifestyle with marital satisfaction.

Materials and methods: The population in this study included all of the Bandar Abbas oil refining (BAOR) company employees, for a total of 292 people (146 couples). They were selected by multistage random sampling. The enrich marital satisfaction scale was used to measure marital satisfaction, the Collins and read's revised adult attachment scale (RAAS) for adult attachment to determine attachment style, and the life style questionnaire (LSQ) for lifestyle. This research was a descriptive-correlative one, and for the data analysis, we used Pearson's correlation factor and multivariable regression.

Results: The results indicate that attachment style and lifestyle factors can predict marital satisfaction. There was also a meaningful negative relationship between insecure attachment avoidant and insecure attachment anxious-ambivalent styles and marital satisfaction. However, there was no meaningful relationship between secure attachment style and marital satisfaction.

Conclusions: The results showed that the early relationship within the family environment supports a certain attachment style and the effects of the avoidant insecure and ambivalent insecure styles affect the interpersonal relations of the couples in adulthood. The effect of attachment styles on interpersonal relations is far greater than that of lifestyle.

Keywords: Attachment; Lifestyle; Marital Satisfaction; Secure, Avoidant, Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment Styles.