No Matter How Far

             “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” - Maya Angelou  

As a college student, long-distance relationships are more common with high school couples moving away from each other to go to college or follow different career paths. Approximately one-third to 75% of college students are either in a long-distance relationship or have been in one in the past (Bouchard, et al., 2023). There are many reasons why long-distance relationships may be complicated or hard to maintain. Not having physical contact can be really difficult for some people when in a long-distance romantic relationship. Physical contact and being able to go to your partner when you need help are both crucial components of attachment. If partners do not live near each other, it can be easier to go to someone in closer physical proximity when they need something rather than burdening their partner with that information.  

Long-distance can cause stress for a couple because of the uncertainty of the relationship or the possibility of there being an affair (Bouchard, et al., 2023). In addition to this, those with insecure attachment styles were more likely to experience less satisfaction with their long-distance relationships (Bouchard, et al., 2023). This makes sense because of the lack of physical security and touch which can heighten the fears of those with an insecure attachment style. While geographical separation can be a stressor for some, there are other people who have great strategies to keep their relationship healthy and secure. For example, one of my friends has been married for 29 years. She and her husband lived in a long-distance relationship for six out of those 29 years. As far as I can tell, they are in a secure relationship. They recently moved back in together and have been adjusting very well to being back with each other. In addition to this, when asked how often she felt her partner was available when she needed him, she replied:  

I feel like he's always available when I need him. I don't always go to him because I don't want to burden him, but if I ask, he's there. That makes me feel supported.  

Being available for a partner when they need you and vice versa is so crucial to attachment relationships, and feeling supported by your partner definitely indicates a secure attachment relationship. When asked what strategies they used to keep their relationship stable while they were long-distance, she responded:  

We talked on the phone about 3 times every day. We liked to plan our next visit. We also liked to take trips together, so we weren't always seeing each other here or there.  

The act of just hearing each other’s voice can do wonders for attachment. One of Bowlby’s attachment behaviors is thinking of your partner as a safe haven and a place for comfort (Murray-Perdue, 2025). It can completely change your day for the better just to hear your partner’s voice or think about your partner in a positive way. As my friend described above, talking on the phone can be extremely beneficial to a relationship. There are many strategies that can be used to decrease the stress that is sometimes put on a long-distance relationship. It is crucial to exhibit positivity and for the individuals in the couple to be safe havens for each other (Pistole et al., 2010). If you want to have a positive long-distance relationship, perhaps consider how you and your partner can be safe havens for each other and how that translates for both of you.  

References 

Bouchard, G., Gaudet, M., Cloutier, G., & Martin, M. (2023). Attachment, relational maintenance behaviors and relationship quality in romantic long-distance relationships: A dyadic perspective. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships 17(2), 213-231. https://doi.org/10.5964/ijpr.9771 

Murray-Perdue, S. A. (2025). Couples and Attachment [Lecture]. HDFS 402 Class, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States.  

Pistole, M. C., Roberts, A., & Chapman, M. L. (2010). Attachment, relationship maintenance, and stress                 in long distance and geographically close romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Personal                 Relationships 27(4), 535-552. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407510363427open_in_new 

Angels on Earth

            Nurses carry a lot in this world. They are constantly burdened by grief, illness, tragedy, and death. I have a few friends who are currently nurses. I also have two friends who are in nursing school right now. One of those friends is currently struggling with balancing her marriage with nursing school. This struggle she is having made me interested in the research surrounding how nurses form attachment to their partners.  

Nurses must have extreme emotional strength and maturity to do the work they do. Throughout their day, they have to interact with patients and families in hard situations. I asked a nurse how she would describe her relationships with her patients. Her answer was...  

I feel a connection to patients in a way to serve them by being an advocate, by being a friend that they wouldn’t have in any other situation. 

Some would refer to nurses as Earth’s angels just because of how much they deal with on a day-to-day basis. Nurses deal with everything from joy to extreme grief. They handle losses, stand with family members and patients, monitor their patients, and save lives every day. But how does this extreme emotional strength and maturity translate to how nurses interact with their partners at home? How does nursing school affect nurses and their relationships versus actual nursing hours? 

I asked the friend mentioned above who is currently a nurse some of these questions. This friend has been with her current partner for 20 years. She had some great insight into how she interacts with her partner. For example, she mentioned how nursing school taught her to not see her partner as her patient and how to separate her work life from her personal life. Based on the questions I asked her, this person has a very secure attachment to her partner: she ranks her satisfaction with her husband as extremely high, she feels that her partner is very rarely not available when she needs him, and she mentions that her partner is “always a safe place despite emotions.” She also mentioned how the length of one’s relationship affects how satisfied that person is with their romantic relationship.   

As said above, the person I interviewed reminisced about how much nursing school taught her about being attached to her partner. Similarly, in a study done by Kaya, it was found that after nursing school nursing students were more securely attached to their significant others than before nursing school (Kaya, 2010). This could be because of what nursing school teaches nurses about work-life balance. 

In a study that observed nursing students, it was found that there is a high importance in nurses having a secure attachment to their partner because that relates to their emotional maturity with their patients (Kaya, 2010). There is a high level of emotional maturity that is needed for nurses to be nurses because of the need to separate their personal life from their professional life. As described above, nurses also have a lot to deal with on a daily basis at work, so having a secure attachment to their partner is crucial for nurses to be able to separate their professional life from their personal life.  

My friend who is currently a nurse provided some of her strategies for keeping her personal and professional lives separate. For example, she reminds herself that she has many identities other than being a nurse. She is also a mom, a wife, a daughter, a Taekwondo athlete, and so much more. She also now knows that if she is still thinking about a patient when she gets home that it is because there is something wrong with their care or there is something ethically wrong with the situation. When those cases happen, she takes off her “work shoes” and leaves that problem with her shoes, as she can’t fix it now that she is home.  

I hope some of these strategies may be of some use to you in your future career as a nurse, social worker, psychologist, or other mentally taxing career when considering your romantic relationships.  

References 

Kaya, N. (2010). Attachment styles of nursing students: A cross-sectional and a longitudinal study. Nurse             Educ Today, 30(7), 666-673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.01.001 

Maturity Matters

            There are many different factors that affect attachment, but I found age to be one of the more fascinating of these. Age impacts attachment in many different ways. The experiences we hold shape who we are and those experiences then impact our attachment styles, personality, the way we respond to certain stimuli, and more. Personally, I am shaped by so many experiences and those experiences influence my decisions daily. Due to this, I found an interest in how experience and age influence attachment styles.  

Adolescence is a time of identity creation. Teens are constantly trying to figure out what career path they want to follow, why that is important to them, where they want to go to college, and many more permanent identity factors, including who they may want to spend the rest of their lives with. About 70% of adolescents have a romantic relationship before they graduate (Jorgensen-Wells, et al., 2020), and oftentimes, this relationship is very meaningful and can greatly impact the future of that adolescent’s attachment (Jorgensen-Wells, et al., 2020).  

As previously mentioned, adolescence is a time of identity creation and transformation. Adolescents want freedom during this time, especially freedom from their parents. While dating allows this freedom from their parents, it also connects them to someone else; therefore, limiting their freedom again. Two key processes for having a secure attachment are emotional disclosure and physical affection (Jorgensen-Wells, et al., 2020). This is crucial to keep in mind when learning about adolescent attachment and how age progresses throughout attachment. When asked how often they turn to their partner in times of need, an adolescent responded,  

I turn to him when needed, but I also find myself with a lot of other resources around me that I can use as well. I don’t want that to be my only resource and I don’t want to become a burden. 

A lot of changes happen during adolescence, so having a strong social network is crucial in this period of life. This adolescent is a dear friend of mine and shows great maturity by indicating that they don’t want their partner to be their only resource. This shows that they want to have strong relationships elsewhere in life, and this will positively impact their attachment by not depending on each other too much. 

Emerging adulthood is a relatively new stage of development that serves as a transitional period between adolescence and young adulthood, typically between the ages of 18-25. During this stage, people are often focusing more on their education instead of their love life.  

It was found that the younger the adult was in age, the more attachment anxiety that adult had (Chopik and Edelstein, 2014). Therefore, the older the adult, the more secure their attachment style. This is likely due to the fact that adults, including emerging adults, have more of a capacity to be emotionally and physically attached to their partners. There are also less unknowns about relationships and dating in adulthood versus in the adolescent or early adulthood stages of life. As outlined throughout this post, there is a difference between age and attachment style based on one's maturity, experience, and how well one is able to balance emotional disclosure and physical affection in a relationship.  

References 

Chopik, W. J. and Edelstein, R. S. (2014). Age differences in romantic attachment around the world. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(8), 893-900. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550614538460 

Jorgensen-Wells, M. A., James, S. L., & Holmes, E. K. (2020). Attachment development in adolescent romantic relationships: A conceptual model. Journal of Family Theory and Review 13(1), 1-142. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12409open_in_new