Abstract
In romantic relationships, individual differences are determinant factors for relational quality. Specifically, romantic attachment (RA) and difficulties in emotional regulation influence each other and may have predictive potential for the perceived dyadic adjustment (DA) level. This paper aims to identify the developmental parallel between behavioral patterns built since childhood and the construction of the emotional regulation skills that characterize them. Our analysis was based on the attachment theory and the concepts of romantic relationship and DA. In this way, we sought to further the understanding of relationship dynamics, beyond the usual focus on a single element and on associative relationships, and by exploring other effects among the different dimensions of relational functioning. In particular, we explored the predictive ability of emotional regulation patterns (more flexible individual characteristics) in discriminating between RA styles (more perennial influences), and their impact on the quality of romantic relationships, in the anticipation of dyadic adjustment variations.
Highlights
A romantic relationship is characterized by feelings of trust, as well as close and intense interaction (Regan et al, 1998; Muise et al, 2018), generally including an intimate sexual dimension as a distinctive element (Meltzer et al, 2017; Maxwell and McNulty, 2019)
A trusting relationship is expected to have a certain degree of predictability, with expectations being created about fulfilling each partner’s needs, and creating a balance between a necessary and sufficient degree of relational dependence and the autonomy of each partner (Coimbra de Matos, 2017; Finkel et al, 2017; Overall and Cross, 2019), contributing to stability, commitment, Romantic Attachment on Dyadic Adjustment and satisfaction (Spielmann et al, 2013; Wang, 2019, Unpublished)
Despite some theoretical and conceptual dispersion, the findings from research on romantic relationships tend to be coherent (Rogge et al, 2017). They focus on concepts related to relational quality (Fowers et al, 2016), frequently quantified by dyadic adjustment (DA) – a concept of difficult interpretation – which describes the dynamic process of the romantic partnership interaction and relation (Gomez and Leal, 2008; Rosado and Wagner, 2015; Rosado et al, 2016)
Summary
A romantic relationship is characterized by feelings of trust, as well as close and intense interaction (Regan et al, 1998; Muise et al, 2018), generally including an intimate sexual dimension as a distinctive element (Meltzer et al, 2017; Maxwell and McNulty, 2019). When targeting relational difficulties or conflicts, the benefits and effectiveness of therapeutic interventions (Snyder and Halford, 2012; Davila et al, 2017; Wiebe et al, 2017) are still insufficient to mitigate negative consequences, namely regarding dissolution of relationships, including divorce (Røsand et al, 2014; Pordata, 2020) This emphasizes the relevance of research in this field, to guide practice at the individual, family, and/or couple level, as well as help identify and characterize mechanisms and models that govern or allow to predict how relationships develop, evolve (Consoli et al, 2018; Farero et al, 2019), and are reconstructed (Limeira and Féres-Carneiro, 2019). They focus on concepts related to relational quality (Fowers et al, 2016), frequently quantified by DA – a concept of difficult interpretation – which describes the dynamic process of the romantic partnership interaction and relation (Gomez and Leal, 2008; Rosado and Wagner, 2015; Rosado et al, 2016)
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