Women’s Narratives of Marriage to Men with Avoidant Attachment Style

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze women’s narratives of being married to men with avoidant attachment style and to explain the emotional, relational, and identity-related consequences of this experience within marital life. This qualitative study was conducted using a narrative inquiry approach. Participants were 18 married women living in Tehran who reported marital experiences with husbands showing prominent features of avoidant attachment. Purposeful and snowball sampling were used, and interviews continued until theoretical saturation was achieved. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews lasting between 55 and 90 minutes. After obtaining informed consent, all interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded. Data analysis was conducted through narrative analysis and reflexive thematic analysis, while NVivo software was used for data management, coding organization, and retrieval. Trustworthiness was enhanced through member checking, prolonged engagement with the data, reflexive memo writing, peer review, and thick description of the research context. Analysis of the narratives showed that women’s experiences of marriage to men with avoidant attachment style were organized into five main categories: “entering the relationship with hope for emotional openness,” “the cycle of proximity-seeking and withdrawal,” “loneliness in the presence of the spouse,” “erosion of self-worth and reconstruction of feminine identity,” and “coping strategies, boundary setting, and relational reconstruction.” Participants described a form of emotional confusion in which the husband was physically present in the marriage but emotionally unavailable during moments of vulnerability, intimate conversation, marital conflict, and shared decision-making. Over time, this pattern generated feelings of rejection, doubts about personal attractiveness, decreased intimacy, emotional exhaustion, and changes in women’s communicative behaviors. The findings indicate that avoidant attachment in husbands may affect not only marital interaction quality but also women’s narratives of self, love, emotional safety, and the meaning of marriage. Attachment-based couple therapy, emotional communication training, enhancement of empathic responsiveness, and support for women in reconstructing healthy relational boundaries may help reduce the psychological and relational consequences of this pattern.