Love Languages

    I spent the past fall semester in Spain with a study abroad program and one of the hardest but most fulfilling parts was learning how to express myself and tell my stories in a language that was not my own. I had one friend who found love in Spain and began navigating a romantic relationship with this same language barrier. This got me wondering about relationships with different first languages and how that affects the attachment between those two people. Is the language difference a barrier to a closer connection, or a hurdle that can be overcome? I interviewed two of my friends—M whose first language is English and was in a relationship with someone who spoke Spanish, and N whose first language is Spanish and was in a relationship with someone who spoke English. Just in case you’re wondering–they did not date each other, they have never even met!

First, let’s look at the research about this situation. In their study, Dewaele and Salomidou (2017)  investigated the effect of language barriers on the emotional connection that people feel towards their partner. Their findings revealed that people feel they are not able to express themselves fully to a partner with a different first language. Especially in high emotional states, people are unable to express the full nuance of their emotions with a language that is not their first. This was reflected in the answers of my friends as well. 

“While some words are synonymous, they carry different connotations and sometimes the extent to which I wanted to say something can’t be expressed either because I lacked the full vocabulary” -M

“It can feel like a task to try and explain what I’m trying to say or translate what I’m thinking to English which can hinder a connection from forming…it feels like a task” -N

Both people that were interviewed expressed having trouble turning to their partner during times of distress. This could become a lack of a safe haven, one of the key features of attachment in adults. However, the results from the study also show that this difficulty of communication did not prevent a relationship or connection from forming and did not affect authenticity between the partners (Dewaele & Salomidou, 2017). My friends also reflected positives in their relationship, becoming closer by learning from each other and overcoming challenges together.

“It always felt like there was something we could learn from one another. Every time we spoke it was like another adventure or challenge we could conquer together, bringing us closer.” -M

“I loved the fact that my partner would want to learn about my culture, how to speak Spanish, how to dance Cumbia…you could see how much my partner wanted to be with me by the effort they put into learning about my language and culture.”-N

Overall, I learned that a language difference between romantic partners can be both a barrier or a hurdle. On the one hand, the difference in language can be a barrier, which may dampen emotional expression. Yet in many ways, the attachment can be strengthened as people work together to overcome language barriers. So next time you’re interested in someone with a different first language, know that there may be challenges, but it can also provide excitement and adventure that fosters a completely unique connection.

References

Dewaele, J.-M., & Salomidou, L. (2017, January 17). Loving a partner in a foreign language. Journal of Pragmatics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378216616302946 

Adopting a New Perspective

It was a fateful day in 2010 when my little sister moved in with us, confirming her adoption and addition to our family. It was exciting and new and scary and confusing for everyone involved– me, my parents, and my new sister. Ever since that day, the topic of adoption has been close to my heart. One crucial part of adoption is the parents that are adopting that child and the environment they create. Obviously the attachment between the parents and adopted child is essential, but I started thinking about the attachment between the parents themselves. How does it change or shift with the adoption of a new child, if at all? As college students, most of us aren’t ready to have kids, but some of us might be thinking about adopting and wondering how that would affect our couple relationships. 

The transition into parenthood is always a stressful time that puts strain on the new parents no matter what. In her article, Goldberg (2010) argues that the transition for adoptive parents is even more stressful than that of most biological parents. For adoptive couples, just the process before adoption (choosing an adoption path, choosing an agency or lawyer, deciding on desired adoptive child qualities, becoming certified etc.) can add additional stressors that are not in a traditional birth parent journey. I interviewed an adoptive parent to get his take on this. 

“We only had so much information about adopting a child, compared to what we knew about parenting kids from birth. There were books and research and our own experiences growing up that informed us about raising birth kids. With the adoptive child, we had one training class and were thrown in. Our usual tactics for dealing with problems were blown out of the water.”

This ambiguity associated with adoption can add extra strain upon the adoptive couple. Then, after the adoption the parents are faced with unique challenges related to the adopted child’s trauma and trauma responses, which creates even more stress in the couples’ lives. What I began to wonder was whether this added stress brought couples together or pulled them apart. 

According to a literature review conducted by Ward (1998), there are many factors and conflicting results about the marital relationship after adoption. She writes about several different studies, some of them finding positive effects on marriage, some negative, and some mixed. Some couples reported feeling closer and more connected to their partners, whereas others reported feeling more distant, even leading to divorce in a few cases. The couples that said they felt more connected when they had shared goals and felt they had to become more cohesive to work through shared adversity with their new child (Ward, 1998). This finding relates to research on attachment between couples as the partners found a “safe haven” in each other during stressful times. They were able to turn towards each other and find comfort in one another as they faced unique challenges. This was also supported by the experience of the adoptive parent I interviewed:

“We could relate to each other about our experience with adopting a child and gained even more in common with each other. We turned to each other a lot to understand what was going on in regards to her trauma responses. We worked together to foster tactics to do the best we could to help our adopted child.”

His experience shows evidence of the safe haven sign of attachment. However, as shown in the research, it is not all positive and some couples feel like they have less attachment after adopting a child (Ward, 1998). My interviewee said that his experience was also mixed, and that in some ways he felt less connected to his partner, especially as time went on. 

“A big stressor was that adopting a child brought more tension into everyone’s relationships: parents, siblings, grandparents. The stress is that there is one more person between your relationship that is not ‘of you’.”

Overall, the research and personal experience show that adopting a child is a mixed experience for the attachment between the adoptive parents. For any prospective parents who are looking at adopting, research shows that turning to your partner and “closing ranks” against the new challenges and stressful experiences is the best way to maintain your attachment and become even closer to your partner. 

Showmances: When On-Stage Love Goes Off-Script

“Love is love is love is love. Cannot be killed or swept aside…Now fill the world with music, love, and symphony” -Lin Manuel Miranda, 2016

The theater has always been a place filled with love. From the couples in the audience on a date night to the iconic onstage performances, the theater embraces romantic attachment. It has showcased prominent love stories from modern and historical texts. And a less-well-known part of attachment in theater are “showmances”; real relationships that develop between actors who are portraying fictional love on stage. As a theater major and actor myself, I began to wonder how this attachment develops and whether showmances are any different than other relationships.

To investigate this topic, I interviewed fellow actors about their perception of love in theater. First, I wondered what they thought about portraying a couple on stage as compared to being in a real relationship off-stage. 

“Theater mirrors real life. So stories are told on stage that could happen or have happened in the real world…but I think the biggest difference between portraying romance on stage and being in a relationship is the authenticity and uncertainty of real life. You don’t get that same struggle on stage because it's a script.”

However, this actor also understood that sometimes portraying a couple on stage can turn into real feelings. 

“You’re spending hours a day together, pretending to be in this romance, and I think sometimes it can lead to real feelings or real relationships because of how much you get to know each other and how much time you spend together.”

This development into a real relationship is the definition of a showmance and this actor’s answer aligns perfectly with research on showmances. Saslove and colleagues (2022) write that showmances develop due to the amount of time that actors spend together while rehearsing a show and the act of pretending to be intimate which brings the two together in a unique way. In addition to the development of showmances, this study also found that the people in showmances show higher levels of nurturance and eroticism towards their on-stage romantic partner (Saslove et al., 2022). 

The development of a showmance is similar to the development of any attachment in childhood and adulthood. People become attached from care and proximity (Esposito et al., 2017). The time spent together and care between two actors as they perform creates an attachment, first for pretend and then manifested into real life. Showmances evolve from scripted chemistry to genuine connection, proving that even in the world of make-believe, real feelings can take center stage.

 

References

Saslove, J., Gormezano, A.M., Schudson, Z.C., & van Anders, S.M. (2022). “Showmance”: Is performing intimacy associated with feelings of intimacy?The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 31(3), 329-341. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/874127.

Esposito, G., Setoh, P., Shinohara, K., & Bornstein, M. H. (2017). The development of attachment: Integrating genes, brain, behavior, and environment. Behavioural Brain Research, 325, 87–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2017.03.025