DAITER, KAREN — THE EXPERIENCE OF COMPETENT, NEVER MARRIED, OVER FORTY ADULTS

Institute for Clinical Social Work

THE EXPERIENCE OF COMPETENT, NEVER MARRIED, OVER FORTY ADULTS

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

BY KAREN DAITER

Chicago, Illinois March, 2010

Copyright 2010 by Karen Daiter All rights reserved

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ABSTRACT

Remaining single into later life, often seen from the deficit model of being unmarried, is studied from a normative perspective using a purposive sample of competent never married people, a mixed methodology, Erikson’s developmental theory , and relational analytic thought. Common attributes, as well as familial, collegial, professional and romantic attachment patterns, are articulated. Open coding and narrative analysis revealed six common categories: On One’s Own; On the Periphery; The Responsible One; Independent in Relationships; Comfort Zone/Make a Difference; and A Space of One’s Own. An individually determined sense of identity is found in this sample with a capacity to be alone, in Winnicotian terms, within a relational matrix.

Marriage is secondary to ensuring a space of one’s own despite taking relationships seriously. A near perfect correlation between anxiety and avoidance is found only in romantic relationship reflecting a more static quality in romantic attachments.

These never married adults have a different developmental pathway to that of their married counterparts. Meaningful relationships and productive lives with high levels of life satisfaction are markers of these independently identified individuals.

Successful and satisfying lives, using individual values and beliefs as guides rather than convention or partners, reveals prolonged singleness is a different, but successful, developmental pathway.

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For my mother and father.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project was a source of deep learning on a personal and professional level.

While an act of much independent work, it also taught me how important and valuable people are in this type of creative venture.

My dissertation committee, Joan Dileonardi, Mark Smaller, Arnie Levin and Barbara Berger as my pitch hitter for Arnie, each offered a different strand for how I thought about and approached this work. My readers Karen Bloomberg and Amy Eldridge were generous with their time, support and insights. It is a great kindness to have a committee and readers who I respect and have learned from in wonderful and different ways.

Finally, to the various individuals, from my pilot study through this formal research, who shared their stories so openly and thoughtfully, I am truly indebted and this dissertation is dedicated to you. It is your story as well as my own.

KD

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT........................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................... .v LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................ vii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................... 4 Section One--Theoretical Frame of Reference Section Two--Literature Review on Marital Status & Attachment III. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................ 34 Section One--Sample Selection SectionTwo--Definitions of Major Concepts Section Three--Instrumentation and Research Design IV. FINDINGS.................................................................................................... 48

Section One - Introduction to the Results Section Two - Summary of Quantitative Findings Section Three - Summary of Qualitative Categories V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ............................................. 145 Theoretical Implications Clinical Implications Significance for Clinical Social Work Implications for Future Research

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TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued

Appendixes

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A. Semi-Structured Questionnaire.……………………………....………..176 B. Questionnaire for Never Married Individuals……………….…………179 C. Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R)………….....…..194 D. Frahy Survey on Close Relationships……………………….............….199 E. Release of Information………………………………….................……204 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………...…206

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LIST OF TABLES

Table

Page 1. Employment Status of Sample…………………………….….………………49 2. Romantic Relationships……………………………………..……………….50 3. Descriptive Statistics for Scale Scores…………………………………...…..51 4. Avoidance and Anxiety: Romantic Relationships………………….………..53 5. Avoidance and Anxiety in Romantic Attachment by Attachment Style….…54 6. Correlations…………………………………………………………………..55

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

General Statement and History of the Problem As children, most individuals think they will marry and raise a family when they get older. For the majority of individuals, these beliefs come true. Increasingly, individuals also want and/or need to have jobs and careers. The belief that one both wants and can have it all seems a reasonable thing in today’s culture. Yet, given the number of divorcees (12% men over 40 and 15% women over 40) and increasing numbers of never marrieds (6% of men over 40 and 8% of women over 40) (US Census 2009, Table 56) it seems possible that long term relationships may be giving way to other demands, goals or needs. While these numbers may include increasing numbers of homosexual individuals, given the greater cultural acceptance of this lifestyle, this study focuses on elaborating the experiences of competent, heterosexual, never married individuals.

Popular wisdom speculates about the reasons why individuals remain unmarried.

It is often thought that never married individuals may be scared of an intimate connection or deep commitment or that career and job focus shifts one away from prioritizing the primacy of a relationship. The perspective that it is easier for some single individuals to

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negotiate their lives without the complications of sharing decisions with another is also a common view of why some individuals never marry. As individuals are separated more from their families by school and careers, is the kind of access they have to potential spouses and/or the choices they make regarding marriage influenced? Clearly, there are many directions one could explore to understand this cohort using assumptions out in the world. This project explores some of these ‘popular’ questions while allowing the subjects who are interviewed to lead the researcher in understanding why and how they remain single. The characteristics and developmental pathways of competent, over forty, never married heterosexual adults are explored using in depth interviews and quantitative measures from adult attachment research.

Formulation of the Problem In our culture, remaining single into middle age and later life (mid-thirties and beyond) is generally seen as a deficit (Barker, 2005, DePaulo, 2006, Weisman, 2008, Waehler, 1996, Lewis, 1994). Aspects of the experiences, sense of identity, significant attachments and developmental processes of older, always single adults are not well documented, especially from a normative perspective. In this study, sample subjects are individuals selected for competence by friends, colleagues and/or families, many of whom may wonder why the subject remains unmarried. As with other minority groups, being different is often to be seen as lacking in something fundamental to others. Such a query reflects a cultural bias of deficit, (i.e. that marriage is preferred to remaining unmarried) and is an assumption that is questioned by this study. As in studies regarding

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racial differences, sexual preferences and other differences, popular concerns are most often reflective of cultural anxiety at the less familiar, rather than deficits within the individual members of these groups. The developmental, relational, individual and cultural experiences of this sample of individuals remaining single into later life are explored in this study. A nuanced comprehension is needed to understand this group.

Characteristics of this group as a whole and the key dimensions identified within the narrative data are elaborated to clarify its nature and identity. The sense of self and the relational paradigms evident within romantic attachments and other relational domains are also explored. The implications of these findings are explored regarding clinical work and possible social and evolutionary implications of this expanding demographic.

This study looks at this group of never marrieds from a normative perspective.

Pre-selecting subjects for competence is an effort to neutralize questions regarding psychological deficits as key in these individuals remaining unmarried. Using subjects already known to be capable and accomplished allows for clarification of aspects including identity formation, patterns of attachment and a set of qualities that define the psychological makeup and developmental process of always single older adults in later life.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction It is important to understand the theoretical framework through which the information from this study is viewed. The primary theoretical foundation of this study is relational psychoanalytic thought. Attachment theory and developmental-evolutionary psychology are used to help in understanding human nature as part of a process that evolves across time and the life cycle, with key developmental tasks and goals.

Attachment theory addresses the structure and meaning of one’s attachment to and experience of others. Exploring identity and narratives address issues related to the experience and integration of the self within a relational matrix. These concepts are articulated in Section One. A literature review on singleness, never marrieds and adult attachment follows in Section Two.

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Section One—Theoretical Frame of Reference Relational Psychoanalysis The theoretical underpinnings of this study borrow most heavily from relational psychoanalytic thinkers, without concern for how variations in the relational theoreticians interface. Rather, this theory provides the frame that most broadly encompasses different psychological perspectives regarding the influence of a relational matrix upon individual development. In this sense relational theory is able to interface with work on attachment (Bowlby, 1969, 1988, Fonagy, 2001; Main, 1991; Brennan & Shaver, 1995, Frailey, 1998), brain research (Siegal, 1999) and behavioral perspectives (Wachtel, 1997). As a foundation, relational theory understands individuals as “relationally driven.” (Wachtel, 1997, Mitchell, 1999, Mitchell & Aron, 1999, Aron, 2004, Benjamin, 1988) and reality as co-created and constructed through the tension between an individuals’ push for selfrealization and the pull for connection (Mitchell, 1999, Mitchell & Aron, 1999, Aron, 2004).

The contrast between individual psychology and social or group psychology, which at first glance seems to be full of significance, loses a great deal of its sharpness when it is examined more closely. It is true that individual psychology is concerned with the individual man and explores the paths by which he seeks to find satisfaction for his instinctual impulses; but only rarely and under certain exceptional conditions is individual psychology in a position to disregard the relations of this individual to others. In the individual’s mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent; and so from the very first individual psychology, in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words, is at the same time social psychology as well (Freud, 1921, p. 69).

The roots of relational psychoanalytic thought are found both in Freud and in Bowlby. Freud clearly viewed human nature as the individual within a relational context. Bowlby was amongst the first analytic thinkers to integrate a relational matrix

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into his work. He explored the impact of real experiences with maternal objects on the functioning and development of children in order to understand their importance through the life course.

Intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person’s life evolves, not only when he is an infant or a toddler or a school child but throughout his adolescence and his years of maturity as well on into old age (Bowlby, 1980, p. 442) Bowlby, perhaps more then many of his contemporaries, was interested in lived experiences – in what actually goes on interpersonally not just intra-psychically. In this sense he was interested in the world of action, relationship and experience. His scientific approach, greatly informed by the evolutionary scientists of his day, most notably Darwin and Lorenz, was deeply interested in how humans adapt to their environment and the choices they make to ensure survival. This evolutionary perspective is of interest to this researcher as a way of thinking about the overarching purpose of shifting demographics and the potential implications of such changes.

Mitchell (2000) noted Bowlby’s focus on real experiences and their impact upon evolving selves as well as the impulse to establish and maintain relational connections giving a frame for understanding human nature: Slade (1998) has elegantly summarized the key notions running throughout Bowlby’s work. (a) that the child is born with a predisposition to become attached to his caretakers, (b) that the child will organize his behavior and thinking in order to maintain these attachment relationships, which are key to his psychological and physical survival, (c) that the child will often maintain such relationships at great cost to his own functioning, and (d) that distortions in feeling and thinking that stem from early disturbances in attachment occur most often in response to the parents’ inability to meet the child’s needs for comfort, security and emotional reassurance (p. 3). (p. 83).

Bowlby’s’ work underlies the later development in relational psychoanalytic thinking that interpersonal interactions are fundamental to the way the world is

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experienced and constructed. Meaning is co-created in the interaction between the self and other. Using a relational frame, relationships and the interpersonal, inter-subjective matrix in which they are experienced and co-created is understood as one of the most important and compelling aspects of human motivation. According to this theory, one achieves self-realization principally through relationships with others. Relationships are the medium through which development unfolds, with research supporting the influence of childhood attachments upon adult attachment (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Main et al., 1985). Meaning is developed through inter-subjective experience, i.e. meaning is constructed through experience. Our increasing understanding of brain development supports these theoretical beliefs by elaborating how early experiences create neuropathways that lay a neuro-anatomical system upon which later development is structured (Siegel, 1999).

Human beings, starting with babies, seek other human minds to interact with, not for the satisfaction of some discrete need, but because we are wired to respond visually to the human face, olfactorially to human smells, audiotorially to the human voice, and semiotically to human signs (Muller, 1996). We are designed, in ways we are just beginning to appreciate, to be drawn into a wide array of reciprocally regulating (Mode 1) interactions and shared (Mode 2) affects with other human beings, and this mutual regulation and sharing is necessary for babies to be able to use their brains to become specifically human, languagegenerating creatures, with specifically human minds (Mitchell, 2000, pp. 105106).

Traditionally, most psychotherapists believe individuals learn to manage their wishes/needs from experiences with early caregivers. This belief is increasingly supported by scientific research looking at brain development and the way experience is loaded into our neuro-anatomical selves (Seigal, 1999). Experiences are internalized into a capacity for self-management via the development of neuro-pathways coding aspects of prior significant relationships taken in through the mutuality of experience (Solms, 2006).

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The basic belief that people are motivated by social and interactional impulses or needs, similar to Winnicott’s idea that a baby alone does not exist, is used to understand the relational paradigm(s) for always single older adults. The influence of various relationships, as well as societal or cultural factors, are aspects of life experience whose elaboration through interviews will provide a rich and comprehensive tapestry in which to understand this cohort. While appreciating the powerful desire to connect to others as a central motivator, the complementary and equally important pull to define oneself as distinct and separate will be explored (Blatt & Blass, 1998). As Seligman and Shanok (1995) comment, “we regard identity as both a capacity to sustain and an experience of the simultaneity of separateness and relatedness as dynamically intertwined elements of inter-subjective experience (p. 3 of 9).” The interplay between the relational pull of attachment and the forces exerted upon the self by other pressures may be factors whose illumination can aide clinicians in working with the cohort of always single individuals.

Bowlby and Ainsworth pointed to the provision in secure attachment of a safe base for an exploration of the world. This aspect of the work … suggests that another experience that secure attachment provides is the safety to explore not just the external world, but the internal world of personal preferences, desires, and impulses, what Winnicott (1960) called “spontaneous gestures.” When the safety that a dependable attachment figure provides is missing, the child herself tends precociously to fill in the missing parental function (Winnicott’s “care-taker self” and opportunities for a worry-free surrender to one’s own experience is foreclosed (Mitchell, 2000, p. 95).

The interpersonal experiences used by the individual to help define and redefine one’s sense of identity and self will be investigated. Whether the future of “marriage” is foreclosed or whether other avenues are more accessible and appealing for always single adults is explored. Experience and interpersonal relatedness are viewed as the mediums through which meaning is created and co-created. The research will pay special attention

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to the influence of defining life experiences and the meanings attributed to them for individuals who remain single. What started with Bowlby and Ainsworth’s work on attachment, separation and loss experiences is used here within a relational field to look at the interpersonal, inter-subjective experiences central to how older, never married individuals structure their lives.

The early relationship environment is crucial not because it shapes the quality of subsequent relationships (for which evidence is lacking, as we have seen) but because it serves to equip the individual with a mental processing system that will subsequently generate mental representations, including relationship representations. The creation of this representational system is arguably the most important evolutionary function of attachment to a caregiver. Adopting this perspective helps redress the prevailing bias against the centrality of the family as the major force in socialization, but it also shifts the emphasis from content of experience to psychological structure or mental mechanism and involves expanding on current ideas of the evolutionary function of attachment (Fonagy, 2001, p. 31).

This perspective, that the internalized structure of relational paradigms affects capacities for functionality and adaptability in significant ways, is not new. By applying it to choices regarding marriage, this research begins to articulate underlying adaptive structures contributing to remaining single.

Identity and Development Theoreticians and researchers use the maturation of identity as a framework to explore individual personality development, primarily in adolescence and young adulthood. As noted by Seligman and Shanok (1995) in their reworking of Erikson’s concepts within relational psychoanalytic thought, identity and personality represent a weaving together of complex roles and dynamics into a synthesized sense of self, which

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is sustained over time, integrating inconsistencies and experience, and created within the context of social, environment, individual and cultural/historical factors. As they note: Our view of personality emphasizes the dynamic synthesis of complex roles, motivations, and experiences that must be held together, even in the most ordinary lives. We emphasize that side of Erikson’s conception that refers to a set of intertwined dimensions: a functional dimension - the integrative-synthetic capacity, a content dimension - the specific elements that are synthesized and an experiential dimension - the personal experience of this complex synthesis that ties a sense of both coherence and variety of constituent elements and influences.

Erikson (1959, p. 102)) speaks to the terms of multiple meanings: “By letting the term identity speak for itself in a number of connotations. At one time it will appear to refer to a conscious sense of individual identity; at another to a unconscious striving for a continuity of person, character, at a third, as a criterion for the silent doings of ego synthesis; and finally, as a maintenance of an inner solidarity with a group s ideals and identity (p. 3).

In keeping with Erikson’s polar view of development as a series of crisis and resolutions, one’s sense of identity is seen as a cohesive, but evolving process, impacted by the various choices and experiences manifest in an individual’s life (Erikson, 1968; Segilman & Shanok, 1995). Exploration and commitment are processes through which these choices and experiences are integrated into a sense of self (Marcia, 1997). Identity is created and modified by experiences, opportunities and relationships, in a dynamic and fluid manner—expanding and contracting with one’s ability to integrate experiences into a cohesive sense of self. Exploration is the capacity to remain open and flexible in terms of new experiences and concepts of self. Commitment is the capacity to sustain a belief as a defining attribute of self and organize experiences around that belief. As individuals engage in developmental processes, these capacities underlie their ability to be open to new experiences and re-definitions of self and also to sustaining a consistent sense of identity. Identity, therefore, is created and modified by experiences, opportunities and relationships, in a dynamic and fluid manner-- expanding and contracting with one’s

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ability to integrate experiences into a cohesive sense of self. As Wallerstein (1998) comments, Erikson’s concept of identity was later subsumed into Kohut’s concept of self and in many instances these two concepts can be used interchangeably if one adjusts the concept of identity outside the constraints of object relations theory. In this sense, identity is experienced through a dialectic, involving both a sense of self and a sense of connection, an inherent sense of self in relation to the other. Within this context, identity will be seen as composed of the integration of various roles and relationships over time, integrating a sense of changes within these domains, including biological changes in the self.

Developmental Perspectives What are the developmental steps for individuals who are living a life style in which their sense of identity derives from and primary attachments occur in domains other than marriage? Erikson provides a developmental perspective from childhood through later life, identifying a series of challenges/conflicts to be mastered across the life span. His theory assumes an evolutionary purpose to life, in which each stage provides a benefit to the preservation of the species as a whole. Erikson’s frame includes eight stages with core dynamics evolving through the resolution of development “crises”.

Erikson is one of the first theoreticians to use identity as a central organizing principle through which to see human nature and the life course. Identity is fused together through mastery or lack of mastery of the various developmental stages and tasks. The always singles’ experience of various developmental stages is explicated through the interview process. Particular attention is given to the last four stages identified by Erikson, the

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stages of adulthood and later life, which include identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and ego integration vs. despair.

Narrative Theory In discussing the results of Mary Main’s work on adult attachment, Mitchell (2000) notes her finding that “what was crucial was not so much the content of what happened, the actual events and behaviors, but the narrative organization through which the past had been processed (p. 85). Debate has unfolded within the psychoanalytic community regarding narrative truth vs. historical truth (Spence, 1982, Schafer, 1992, Reissman, 1993, Fitzpatrick Hanly, 1996) and whether these concepts are mutually exclusive. Schafer’s use of narrative focused analysts on the use of narrative to understand the unique aspects of the patient’s story as told through the transference. As Hanly (1996) comments: Schafer has therefore conscripted the idea of narrative for the purpose of emphasizing transference interpretation and fostering the development of a more finely tuned analytic instrument through understanding the uniqueness of each patient’s story. The idea of the analytic ‘narrative’ is also used as an antidote for the ‘meta-language’ of the drives and psychic structure, which, as Schafer believes, can allow analysts to disregard the particular account of the suffering and creative individual (p. 446).

This leaves a question regarding historical truth and whether narrative understandings can reveal something about historical reality, which Spence (1982) believes creates confusion by trying to place a sense of narrative coherence upon noncoherent associations. Clearly it is important to understanding the meaning and truth of an individual’s story by listening with a sense that the seeming coherence offered in one’s story telling may belie a more defensive and distorted underlying truth which

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analysts come to know through rich associative process (Hanly, 1996 p. 3). A narrative understanding, per Schafer, seeks to keep open one’s listening to details of the patient’s telling while Spence argues the use of a narrative forecloses listening due to the wish to construct meaning. For the purpose of this work, narrative is heard with an open listening stance in which narrative analysis (Reissman, 1993) allows the underlying threads of both historical and narrative truth to be revealed.

Personal narratives, as told through interviews with this researcher, elaborate how never married individuals define themselves; the significant influences they articulate in their lives; and the sense of identity expressed within this cohort. It is believed that through these first person narratives, issues reflective of this cohort as a group will begin to be articulated as well as those specific to individuals. Roy Schafer (1992) states: Narrative is not an alternative to truth or reality, it is the mode in which, inevitably, truth and reality are presented. We have only versions of the true and the real. Narratively unmediated, definitive access to truth and reality cannot be demonstrated. In this respect, therefore, there can be no absolute foundation on which any observer or thinker stands; each must choose his or her narrative or version (p. XV).

As we all know, the “truth” of one’s experiences change over the course of treatment and with time and experience. Different individuals experience different “truths” regarding the same event, depending on their experiences and the frame of reference or lens through which they are looking. As psychotherapists we know that current experiences are in part structured by earlier experiences that create one’s frame of reference.

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Section Two—Literature Review

Literature on Marital Status Our culture is one in which both men and women are remaining single until much later in life than has been true historically, and often for the duration of their lives.

Statistically, the number of never married individuals has grown every year since 1970, reaching nearly 8% of the population aged forty and over and four percent of individuals over age sixty five (US Census Bureau Data, 2002). Yet, this population of never married people is only just beginning to be focused upon by social scientists or psychotherapists as a group unto itself. Most studies that look at the population of never marrieds combine them with divorced and/or widowed individuals, under the assumption that these populations are similar. Increasingly the literature on never marrieds and singles has sought to better understand and normalize this growing population, often from a journalistic or personal history perspective. This study is interested in understanding older, never married individuals uniquely. It explores aspects of identity formation, patterns of attachment and establishes a set of qualities that begin to define the psychological characteristics of those who remain single later in life. Potential developmental processes within this group and cultural influences are also explored.

The issue of marrying or remaining single has never been viewed in a benign perspective by our culture. Those who remain unmarried must deal with their difference from the mainstream (Gordon, 2003). In their 1985 study, Cockrum and White found that remaining unmarried for men was culturally acceptable for male subjects. Their female subjects, however, were seen as ‘Less feminine, less loving and nurturing, less

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sexually attractive and more selfish (p. 115).’ These perceptions are in contrast to Hoeffer’s (1987) findings that never married women tended to be ‘better educated, healthier, less lonely, and had a more positive outlook on life than their married counterparts (p. 111). Regardless, one only need to look at common phrases in our culture such as spinster and old maid for women or Casanova or Momma’s boy for men, to understand that even today remaining unmarried is to potentially be seen in negative terms. The very way we identify never marrieds, from a deficit perspective of not being married rather than as ever single (Lewis, 1994), indicates our culture’s implicit expectation that one will marry. Not do so is to experience an insufficiency.

In our culture when an individual, especially a woman, remains single into middle age and later life (their mid-thirties and beyond) they are generally seen from a deficit perspective. This perspective sees “not being married” as something wrong (Barker, 2005, DePaulo, 2006, Weisman, 2008, Waehler, 1996, Lewis, 1994, Cole, 2000). In her study of 30-39 year old always single women; Lewis (1994) found that women often blamed themselves for not marrying and felt a sense of shame and distress about remaining unmarried even when successful and otherwise happy in their lives. While our society views men and women that remain unmarried differently (Bernard, 1982, Matekaasa, 1994, Waelher, 1996, DePaulo, 2006), remaining unmarried evokes questions (Cole, 2000) regardless of gender (Barker, 2005, Weisman, 2008 Waehler, 1996).

Whether never married men and women differ in psychologically significant ways from each other and from other groups is not clear. The population of never married individuals has not been carefully and empirically researched, especially older, never married adults.

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Starting in the 1970s a new attitude toward singleness evolved (Seccombe & Ishii-Kuntz, 1994), that views being single as a potential source of happiness (Thornton & Freedman, 1982; Thornton, 1989, McDill et al., 2006) rather than as a reflection of being undesirable or unfit (Cole, 2000). As noted by Seccombe & IshiiKuntz (1994) and Katherine Kleeman for the Roper Organization (1980), few individuals (2%) consciously want to remain single even as greater numbers of individuals remain unmarried. Thornton (1989), though, noted by 1986, that the number of individuals who consciously desired to remain unmarried increased 100%, to 4% of the total population.

Walsh (1995) in her dissertation on never married women found a strong preference for marriage over non-marriage with both her married and non-married samples. This finding was again echoed in Cole’s study (2000) of never married women aged 29-39 who desired marriage and children. Regardless, for the increasing numbers of never marrieds inner questions regarding self worth, decision making and a sense of being different impact their identity development and sense of happiness (Duin, 1998, Lewis (1994), Fuller (2001), Gordan (2003)). The early comparative research on quality of life for the never married cohort speculates that any differences in happiness between never married and married individuals are decreasing (Gordon, 2003). This speculation seems supported by the research from McDill et al. (2006) whose sample of over forty year old, never married women concluded that they were satisfied with their lives, productively engaged, well adjusted and involved in meaningful social structures through family and friendships. Interestingly, they also found that singleness was not unusual in the families of origin within the sample. In her dissertation on Caucasian, midlife, never married women, Barile (2001) found that women are “shedding the stigma of spinsters�

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and forging a view of singleness as a separate and satisfying life path. The benefits noted in relationship to singleness include personal freedom and personal growth. These opportunities juxtapose those viewing singleness as a stigma, loneliness, burden and loss as seen in the research by Dalton (1992) and Fuller (2001). They, however, conclude that the lives of never married people culminate in an experience of meaningful pursuits with high levels of life satisfaction. Closer attention to this group of individuals will serve to better understand and normalize this population.

According to the Washington Times article: “Women race the clock: Fairer sex confronts single life in modern era,” (Duin, 1998, p. A02) about a third of the total adult (20 and over) population in America are unmarried. Of this group, approximately 47 million men and women have always been single. In the 2002 Census Report, the number of never married 40 and older Americans included 5.315 million males and 4.527 million females (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). These numbers reflect a demographic shift as greater numbers of individuals are either delaying marriage or remaining single for the duration of their lives. In analyzing the United States Census data, the group of never married adults is one of the fastest growing adult populations (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002).

While there is relatively little research focusing exclusively on never married older adults, writings on singleness increased in the 1970s (Adams, 1976, Bequaert, 1976, Stern, 1981, Cargan and Melko, 1982, Bernard, 1982, Bakos, 1985). These studies included never married adults, in a category entitled “single” that combined never married, divorced, separated and widowed adults. Other writers have explored never married women (Peterson, 1981, Ward, 1986, Simon, 1987, Walsh, 1995, Reilly, 1996)

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and to a lesser degree never married men (Waehler, 1996) or both (Christenson & Johnson, 1973). Quite a number of unpublished dissertations were done during the 1980’s and 1990s looking at the changing role of women (Cole, 2000; Fuller, 2001; Barile, 2001; Robinson-Rowe, 2002; Cromsky, 2007). These writings are informative about aspects of single hood and never marrying, but for the most part they lack scientific rigor in data collection and analysis or lack clarity about selection criteria for never married individuals.

Starting in the 1960s a number of writers began to explore the character of singles – many focusing on unmarried women (Christenson & Johnson, 1973, Bequaert, 1976, Adams, 1976, Peterson, 1981, Stein, 1981, Cargan and Melko, 1982, Bakos, 1985, LevySimon, 1987, Starkey, 1991, Paradise, 1993, Walsh, 1995, Reilly, 1996, Waehler, 1996, Cole, 2000, Ferguson, 2000, Robinson- Rowe, 2002, Cwikel, 2006, Croskey, 2007, McDill et al. 2007).

Singles were found to be individuals who enjoyed “psychological autonomy having core personality traits which value independence, autonomy and individual freedom” (Adams, 1976). Adams (1976) never clearly defines psychological autonomy, despite her presumption that this is a core feature of singlehood. Her writing implies this characteristic is one of intellectual independence, socially diverse support systems (i.e. not one primary relationship) and the social and financial independence to choose what one wants (Adams, 1976).

Some of these traits seem similar to Waehlers’ (1996) findings regarding his bachelors who demonstrate core personality traits including “staunch independence and self-reliance, emotional detachment, interpersonal passivity, and idiosyncratic thinking”

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(p. 37). Similar qualities are also found in single women. Levy-Simon (1987) found her never married female subjects valued autonomy and freedom, feeling their single status afforded them these attributes. Ninety to ninety-five percent of her subjects chose to remain always single. Subjects in this study were all born between 1884-1918, a time period when not marrying was very atypical for women. Reilly (1996) describes her subjects as their “own person” (p. 10) and passionate about what they do and their interests.

In Cargan and Melko’s study (1982) personal growth was most important to their single cohort in terms of life satisfaction while love was most important to those who were married. In her study of never married women in their thirties, Burnley (1992) found while her sample spent a lot of time alone, they had well developed social networks of friends and family, did not report being lonely nor did they anticipate loneliness as they aged. Paradise (1993) found her Jamaican and American never married subjects who were well educated and upwardly mobile reported higher levels of job satisfaction as well as life satisfaction.

Cole (2000) found three distinct groups of never married individuals in her sample of twenty-nine, 29-year-old women. There were those who experienced regret and pain, a group who experienced being single as an emotionally unpredictable place and those who experienced their singleness with ease and empowerment. In her study of Chinese-American and Japanese-American never married women, aged 33 to 80, Ferguson (2000) found that dynamics within their parent’s marriages, being an only or oldest daughter and educational goals influenced marital status as well as a perceived lack of available partners.

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Some of these findings are echoed in the later work of Robinson-Rowe (2002) who found midlife (40-52), never married heterosexual women found life satisfaction in independence, and living single, academic, career and intellectual pursuits and their ability to travel. As a group, these women were not willing to “settle� in a relationship in order to marry and had strong relationships with family and friends that contributed to their life satisfaction. Similarly, Cwikel (2006) found her never-married and childless subjects were well prepared for productive aging and were well educated with fewer financial difficulties and higher levels of private health insurance in later life (73-78) than a similar older married cohort.

While older never married adults are often thought to be either invested in playing the field or are lonely and unable to play the field (Waehler, 1996, Duin, 2003, Gordan, 2003), existing research does not support these assumptions. Never married 68-73 year olds were reported to be active and have higher life satisfaction than all other elderly groups (Stull & Scarisbrick-Hauser, 1989). Positive life satisfaction is found in a number of other studies regardless of attitudes towards marriage (Walsh, 1995, Ferguson, 2000, Cole, 2000, Robinson-Rowe, 2002, Cwikel, 2006, Croskey, 2007).

In their study on loneliness and marital status, Cargan & Melko (1982) found no differences between the never married and the remarried in reported loneliness. The lowest percentages of individuals experiencing loneliness were for never divorced, the highest levels for separated and divorced, with remarried, never married and widowed individuals in between. They found that never married, educated individuals reported the highest level of happiness. Interestingly, high school educated, younger, conservative, never married individuals scored highest on a measure indicating

21

loneliness. In this study, never marrieds reported the least discomfort with living alone (8%) and divorced individuals the most (25%). They also found never marrieds rarely felt alone or that they had no one with whom to share their feelings or thoughts (82%).

Longino, & Lipman (1982) in their comparison of older married and never married women in retirement communities found that living children, rather than a spouse, were the most critical factor in receiving emotional, social and instrumental support in aging. There have been a number of studies on mental health and marital status (Mastekaasa, 1994). In Pearlin & Johnson (1986) never marrieds demonstrated significant depression in higher percentages (20%:12%) than their married counterparts.

However, the never married group reported less depression than those who were divorced (27%), widowed (22%) or separated (32%). Married individuals in this study demonstrated the lowest reported symptoms of depression (27%). They found never marrieds were less isolated than their divorced, widowed or separated peers. These results suggest a link between depression and isolation, seeing “vulnerability to depression is greatest among the unmarried who are separated from social contacts” (p.

172).

Pearlin & Johnson (1986) also reported this study “the advantages of marriage are especially apparent when life circumstances are most difficult, not when they are most benign” (p 176). In an early study Christenson & Johnson (1973) found no difference in sexual aging between married and never married women over 50, although never married women had lower levels of sexual activity.

Studies evaluating health have generally found a greater incidence of both physical and psychological issues amongst the unmarried, although some of these rates

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vary by age, as noted earlier (Bernard, 1982, McManus, 2001). Other studies correlate greater utilization of mental health services with older single adults and report marriage as the “best� predictor of mental health (McManus, 2001). Again, few of these studies control for whether individuals are divorced, widowed or never married. In those studies which look more closely at marital status and mental health, never married and widowed elderly fall in between married (least utilization) and divorced (most utilization of services) (Waehler, 1996). In looking at demographic information, single men are reported to be less healthy than their married counterparts.

In general, currently married individuals have higher levels of well being than the not married (divorced or separated, the widowed, and the never married). Often the lowest levels of well being are found among the divorced and separated (Mastekaasa, 1994). According to Mastekaasa these empirical findings have been replicated using several different indicators of psychological well-being, including: life satisfaction (Haring-Hildore et al. 1985; Veenhoven, 1984), symptom inventories (Bradburn, 1969, Perlin and Johnson, 2977), mental hospitalization rates (Ogegaard, 1971: Martin, 1976, Gove, 1972a) and suicide rates (Gove, 1972). This research is supported by Obrien’s work (1991) looking at never married older (80-90 yr old) women and finding high levels of life satisfaction, support networks and positive aging including financial independence, self esteem and good health.

There appear to be gender differences in older never married adults, with men more frequently exhibiting greater difficulty in aging alone than single women (Matekaasa, 1994, Waehler, 1996, McManus, 2001). Hess (1981), in reviewing numerous studies on friendship and gender regardless of marital status, found women to have more

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intimate and self-disclosing relationships and more stable and long-lived friendships than their male counter parts.

Bernard reports that women who remain single are superior to single men in terms of education, occupation, and income. These women are often more upwardly mobile than married women, educationally and professionally. By 1970, one in every five women around the age of forty with some graduate school education, or with an income of $20,000 or more, had not married- compared to only one in every twenty women with no college education. In contrast, a number of studies have reported that older never-married men are likely to show mental health problems, including depression, severe neurotic symptoms, phobic tendencies, and passivity. In summarizing more than a dozen mental health studies, Gove (1972) reports that among the unmarried, including the never married, the divorced, and the widowed, men have mental health problems more frequently than women (Stein, 1981, p. 13).

In this same study, Bernard (1982) found that, in general, men benefited from being married and women experienced more difficulties and dissatisfaction in a married state. She also found married men and never married men had similar and relatively good health until middle age, when never-married men began to exhibit more mental health issues and impairments than their married peers. Never married men in mid-life, had more chronic medical conditions than their married counterparts (age 45-64: 80%: 73%:) although these figures even out later in life (47.4%: 48.8% (p. 306)). Women reported greater happiness in marriage (Bernard, 1982), but also report more mental health and emotional distress issues. Bernard’s research implies that marriage is positive for men, but seems to be “destructive� for women despite their perceived happiness. In other studies, never married women appear to be in better health, more educated and have better social networks than either their widowed or divorced counterparts (Gordon, 2003).

In mid-life and beyond, singlehood and never marriedness among women has been associated with higher intelligence (Mark, 1996) and educational levels

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(Choi, 1996). Choi found that never-married elderly women were less likely to be in poverty, likely to spend fewer days confined to bed, and significantly more likely to live with relatives than were the divorced women (Gordon, 2003, p. 34) As never marrieds are increasingly studied, differences between men and women and the overall diversity of this population are becoming increasingly apparent (Seccombe & Ishii-Kuntz, 1992, 2002), although they found no socio-demographic difference between always single men and women. Several other studies looking at never married found significant differences in education, age, length of residence, health and attitudes towards filial responsibility (Bernard, 1982, Glick, 1984). Whether these findings indicate generational differences is not clear. Gender differences in income seemed principally related to women who work more frequently in lower paying service oriented jobs.

Starkey (1991) found increased financial independence allowed some women, mostly white and non-Catholic, to opt out of marriages but cautioned against over generalizing financial independence as the factor influencing marital stability. Other important sociological factors are also important in making these decisions. RobinsonRowe (2002) found financial concerns were the most difficult aspect regarding life satisfaction for her 40-52 year old never-married subjects. Seccombe and Ishii-Kuntz also noted never married men were more likely to live alone and “ascribe to more traditional gender role norms than their female counterparts� (1992, p. 6).

Dolinsky and

Rosenwaike (1987) found 20% of never married 75 year olds were institutionalized versus 4 % of their married counterparts and 14% of previously married individuals.

A number of studies indicate that married people report fewer health issues, financial issues and live longer lives than their unmarried counterparts (Gordon 2003,

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Waehler, 1996, McManus, 2001). In a longitudinal study of 24,000 people, researchers found that those who married and stayed married were more satisfied with their lives.

However, the strongest finding was these individuals reported similar levels of happiness long before marriage. The most satisfied individuals reported the smallest positive increase in satisfaction from marriage and the most negative reaction to divorce or widowhood (Luca & Diener, 2003). There is not consistent data to indicate any differences in mental health issues for married vs. unmarried women (Gordon, 2003).

Croskey (2007) in her study of the attitudes of college educated women towards over 40 never married women, found they viewed these women as independent, goal orient, competent and single by choice. The never married women were viewed more positively by single, college educated women than by their married cohort.

Researchers looking at single life have noted the impact of educational pursuit and career development.

Litcher, Anderson, and Hayward (1995) found increased education an important factor that allowed women to search for mates for longer periods of time. In addition, career aspirations and increased vocational opportunities appear to have influenced women's decisions about remaining single or marrying (Ferguson, 2000). Research suggests that it is precisely those women who are well educated and consequently financially secure that tend to not desire marriage or not place it as a high priority in their life goals (Frazier et al., 1996). Finally, more current focus on mental health issues has found no differences in psychological well being between unmarried and married women. As Simon (1988) suggests, perhaps there is a continuity in singleness because the number of role changes (e.g., wife, mother, widowhood) are limited, which may actually be beneficial (Gordon, 2003).

Stein (1982) found that 40% of his sample reported delaying marriage due to educational studies. Bernard (1982) found never married women were upwardly mobile.

This finding is offered in conjunction with evidence noted by Bernard that:

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Left to themselves, unpressured, a considerable number of young women might not want to marry, for at every age bracket, the more income a girl or woman has, the lower the rate of marriage, a situation just the reverse of that of men.

Similarly, the better her job, the lower the rate of marriage. A good job that pays well is a strong competitor to marriage for many women…the talents it takes to achieve the best paying jobs – including competitiveness, aggressiveness, drive, and will to succeed – are precisely those not wanted by most men in wives, at least in the years when mates are being selected (p. 35).

In gathering qualitative information about single individuals, researchers have looked at relationships and sexual behavior amongst this cohort. Stein (1982) found that most single adults have had a least one long-term relationship (two years or longer).

Subjects often reported they are open to long term relationships or marriage (Adams, 1976, Doudna & McBride, Stein, 1982, Bernard, 1982, Reilly, 1996). Cargan and Melko found that for the never married, sex was less often reported as a significant factor in happiness (38%) than for the divorced (51%), remarried (42%), married (42%), or single (20%) groups. Health (70%), friendships (54%), personal growth (51%) and love (43%) were most frequently reported as important to happiness for their never married subjects.

For their single subjects, health, friends and personal growth were the three most cited sources of happiness. For the married subjects, these factors differed following health to include priorities on marriage and then either children or love as most important to happiness. Most studies reported singles preferred long term, monogamous sexual relationships, but were not willing to subjugate other needs in their pursuit (Adams, 1976, Peterson, 1981, Levy-Simon, 1987). Adams (1976) found female subjects reported that their mothers fostered independence in their daughters and were discouraging or neutral regarding marriage so their daughters wouldn’t be trapped. Waehler (1996) found a similar belief voiced by his bachelor subjects, some of who viewed relationships as a “burden” (p. 40).

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In both 1950 and 2000, the majority of men and women aged 15 to 24 had never married, and the percentage of never married people increased during this time period by 11 percentage points for men (from 77 percent to 88 percent) and by 26 percentage points for women (from 56 percent to 82 percent). Most of the change occurred between 1970 and 1990 for both men and women. The percentage of people aged 25 to 34 who were never married also increased from 1950 to 2000, from 19 percent to 39 percent for men and from 11 percent to 30 percent for women. Most of these changes occurred in the 1970s and 1980’s (US Census, Oct. 2003) Doudna & McBride (1981) reviewed historical patterns of increasing numbers of single women, noting that feminism developed in times when there was a surplus of women available. These times found women stepping into positions of authority, from Spartan women managing property in ancient Greece to women running feudal estates during the Middle Ages. The development of the spinning wheel in the twelfth century allowed women economic independence and lead to the term “spinster”, actually the growth of single women able to be self-sufficient. During these periods, greater numbers of women remained unmarried, supporting some current findings that more capable women may “choose” a more independent life style (Adams, 1976, Peterson, 1981). In North America, the founding fathers initially imposed a special tax on bachelors in an effort to encourage the pursuit of marriage partners (Staples, 1981). The influence of cultural patterns and shifts in marriage patterns and remaining single seems to have a long history.

Aging is associated with expansion of social networks, but also with a decrease in the amount of interaction experienced within these networks (Pugliesi & Shook, 1998).

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This study also found that the more roles one assumes, i.e. marriage, work, parenthood, the greater one’s network and the more active one’s social interactions. The literature on social support also reports that never marrieds on average know people in their social networks shorter times than their married peers, but have greater proportions of friends vs. family members in their support system. Women tend to use more diverse sources of support as they age (friends, children) while men tend to turn to their wives (Pugliesi & Shook, 1998, Turner, 1994). For those who never marry, it seems men might be more likely than women to become more socially isolated as they age (Turner, 1994).

Network size is also positively affected by education, occupation and income (Pugliesi & Shook, 1998). Women were found to be more social, with more extensive networks, but this finding did not mediate the fact that women also suffer greater amounts of depression (Turner, 1994). Having a living child was found to be the most significant factor in assessing the quality of supports available later in life (Longino & Lipman, 1982).

Significant Literature on Attachment Early attachment theory evolved out of the work of John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980, 1988) and Mary Ainsworth (1978) whose observations of real experiences in early childhood showed the quality of parent-child relationships (attachment) with maternal objects influenced a child’s ability to securely explore the world and adapt to their environment. Bowlby (1969) was a pioneer in analytic circles, looking at how the “attachment behavioral system” between caretakers and infants impacted a child’s responses to separation and loss, and their ability to develop a sense of security in the world. In this way, Bowlby provided a connection between theories of evolution and

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theories of behavior and personality development. He referred to the maternal object as a ‘secure base’, which facilitated a sense of safety to explore and learn about the world. In other words, secure attachments give a child a sense of trust, a view shared in the first stage of development by Erikson (1963).

Bowlby also posited two possible attachment models created in individuals stemming from their early attachments. The first is more consciously accessible and reflects the complex and available ideas one has about their relational patterns (Fraley, 2002). The other is more primitive and embedded or unconscious and is less accessible to conscious thought. These two aspects parallel the work coming out of brain research in terms of conscious vs. unconscious memory systems and their role in mediating emotional learning (Solms, 2006).

Neuroscience has shown that the major brain structures essential for forming conscious (explicit) memories are not functional during the first two years of life, providing an elegant explanation of what Freud called infantile amnesia. As Freud surmised, it is not that we forget our earliest memories; we simply cannot recall them to consciousness. But this inability does not preclude them from affecting adult feelings and behavior. One would be hard-pressed to find a developmental neurobiologist who does not agree that early experience, especially between mother and infant, influence the pattern of brain connections in ways that fundamentally shape our future personality and mental health. Yet none of these experiences can be consciously remembered. It is becoming increasingly clear that a good deal of our mental activity is unconsciously motivated (Solms, 2004, p. 85) Kirkpatrick, in his 1998 research, posed that adult attachment may reveal an evolutionary based reproductive strategy, which serves a different function than that evident in childhood. “Because this pathway bypasses the hippocampus – which generates conscious memories – current events routinely trigger unconscious remembrances of emotionally important past events” (Solms, 2006, p. 85). In this sense, critical information from our early experiences and attachments influence how one feels

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currently, in an unconscious manner, which is relationally driven rather than procreative in purpose.

In Ainsworth’s research, an extensive two-dimensional analysis of attachment was done which articulated dimensions of anxiety and avoidance in addition to the previous established three categories of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalentinsecure attachment and avoidant-insecure attachment. For a number of reasons, principally related to keeping the focus on development and facilitating further research, Ainsworth’s research team chose to use their topographical model of attachment for further research. (Fraley & Waller, 1998) This early work set the standard for future research on attachment, which uses these three styles of attachment. While both Bowlby and Ainsworth focused most of their attentions on early childhood experiences of attachment, Bowlby believed that attachment was a life long process. Future researchers worked to clarify various aspects of this life long process.

In the 1980s a number of researchers began to explore the adult side of attachments. Hazen and Shaver’s (1987) seminal work on adult romantic attachments used a self-report method to categorize adult romantic attachments into three discrete categories. While this self-report method was ultimately found to have significant limitations, especially its foundation in discrete categories, the study launched adult attachment research. Their finding that the bond between partners is similar to that between parents and children supported the idea that “romantic love is part of the attachment behavioral system, as well as the motivational systems that give rise to care giving and sexuality” (Fraley, 2002, p. 3).

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Hazen and Shaver developed a three category self report scale to assess attachment style in adults. This tool assumed that attachment styles are similar in adulthood to those identified through the research of Ainsworth et al. Bartholomew further developed this line of research by exploring adult attachment in terms of the individual’s perception of self and other. Her measure utilized Ainsworth’s categorical model, but gathered more information about each type of attachment. Bartholomew’s measure assessed the degree to which individuals experienced anxiety, avoidance or security in their attachments. This measure therefore had both a categorical perspective as well as a dimensional one. A number of researchers also began to interview adults to look at correlations between adult attachment style from families of origin and the attachment styles evident in their families of procreation (Ainsworth et al., 1978, George, Kaplan & Main, 1985). This line of research looks for correlations between early attachment styles, caretaker experiences and parental attachment styles (Ainsworth et al., 1978, George, Kaplan & Main, 1985). These research efforts used in depth questionnaires, the most popular being the Adult Attachment Interview, (AAI0 developed by Main et al.) (1985) that were developed to gather information about parents’ attachment styles. This was then used to see how infants develop in terms of their attachment style.

In a review of these two different branches of attachment research, Bartholomew and Shaver (1998) found that when research is compared across these different types, it is important to look at the underlying assumptions of the research tools to find points of convergence between them. In addition, through this research review they found (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998): The results suggest both (1) that there may be a single representational system or set of core relational tendencies underlying response to the various attachment

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measures (Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994), and (2) that an individual’s domainspecific attachment patterns can be substantially different (Collins & Read 1994) This interpretation of results is compatible with the idea, central to attachment theory (e.g. Bowlby, 1988), that adult attachment orientations have their roots in childhood experiences with important attachment figures. Bowlby wrote about “developmental pathways” along which children and adults travel, being moved toward and away from attachment security by events such as the death of important attachment figures, supportive treatment by a therapist, and the quality of a marital relationship. As a person moves along these increasingly differentiated pathways, it is quite possible for internal working models of relationships with parents to diverge from working models of romantic relationship; the person may feel or act one way in one kind of relationship and a different way in another (p. 49.)

Bartholomew (Bartholomew, 1990, Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) went back to Ainsworth’s work, and through exploring further some of these early findings on attachment, moved attachment research in an important direction. She found that two dimensions, views of self (positive vs. negative) and views of others (positive vs. negative) could be sorted into four categories: secure, preoccupied (equal to anxious) and the division of avoidant into two categories dismissing/avoidant, and fearful/avoidant (please see data analysis section for further elaboration of this model).

In research done in 1997 by Zeifman and Hazen on adult attachment, four defining characteristics of well established attachments were articulated (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998). Partners maintained physical closeness; sought each other out in times of danger, used the relationship as a secure base and experienced separation with emotional distress (Bowers, 1997). These characteristics are similar to good caretaking ability in parents. The same characteristics found between parents and children were found between sexual partners, with a few critical differences noted given the type of relationship. In this study both men and women reported preferring having one or two sexual partners throughout their life, with the exception of men who had an ambivalent or

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avoidant attachment to their parents. They reported preferring more sexual partners.

Evolutionary psychologist Jay Belsky (Bowers, 1997) poses the idea that in stressful and insecure times, caregivers treat infants in harsh, dismissive ways. Under such circumstances, youngsters develop ambivalent or avoidant attachments that imbue them with a sense of fatalistic opportunism regarding close relationships. Belsky proposes that these children often begin puberty early, mate with many people, and devote limited effort to raising the resulting brood – characteristics that he considers advantageous in hard times. Ambivalent attachment may also have evolved as a means of inducing enough helpless dependency in some children – perhaps in those with an introverted disposition – that they become adult “helpers at the nest” for parents or other kin, Belsky speculates (Bowers, 1997, p. 4).

This research may support the idea that early trauma in the family of origin correlates to later ambivalent or avoidant romantic attachments and delay or avoidance of marriage.

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Section One—Sample Section The experience, sense of identity, significant attachments and developmental processes of older, always single adults is not well documented. As this demographic grows, focus on why individuals remain unmarried, rather than what is wrong with them, reflects a shifting cultural bias that sees remaining unmarried from a more normative perspective. This research selected a purposive sample of subjects referred by friends, colleagues and/or others who are liked, respected and seen as competent and successful.

In general they are individuals who are admired by their referent. Using this preselected, purposeful sample (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998), this study established a sample for whom deficits in the area of success, both vocationally and socially, are not an issue. This selection process is an effort to ensure an underlying level of competence for this sample.

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Section Two—Theoretical and Operational Definitions of Major Concepts Definition of Identity Identity is a concept used by Erik Erikson (1968) to describe an organized sense of self, consolidated during adolescence but continuing to develop through out the life course. Erikson looks at identity as developing through the resolution of critical developmental ‘crises’, which facilitate the individual’s sense of their roles and functions within a social and cultural context. Erikson sees adolescence as the developmental stage for beginning identity consolidation, understanding this as a developmental stage when the individual’s struggle is identity vs. role confusion (Erikson, 1968). Identity is, therefore, defined as the coalescence of an increasingly structured and consistent sense of self. This requires integration of the demands from the outside world and cultural/familial expectations within the relational context with the goal of increasing self-definition and separation from core dependent relationships. Identity is seen within the context of a psychosocial environment and culture, with each successive developmental stage following adolescence integrating more complex individual, social, cultural and historical relationships and experiences.

Some researchers feel always single individuals are less stressed as they do not go through developmental transitions and roles such as marriage, parenthood and empty nesting (Lewis, 1994, Gordan 2001) as do their married peers. Identity, for the purpose of this research includes the articulation of various roles and developmental tasks/stages where identity consolidation happens. In keeping with Erikson’s polar view of development as a series of crises and resolutions, identity is seen as a cohesive but evolving process impacted by the choices and experiences of an individual’s life. Identity

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is influenced and modified by experience, opportunity and relationships in a dynamic and evolving manner.

Definition of Competent, Older Never Married Never married, older individuals include anyone 40 years of age or older who never legally married, is heterosexual and who does not identify themselves as married, regardless of living arrangements. Competent, for the purpose of this study, is defined through the sample selection process in which subjects were referred by their family, friends or colleagues who like and admire them, see them as capable, successful and view them in positive terms This sample of older always single individuals who are accomplished, appealing and successful from the perspective of their colleagues, friends and/or family. Subjects are individuals for whom singleness is presumed to have been a matter of choice rather than lack of opportunity.

Definition of Developmental Development encompasses the different developmental stages identified by Erikson as noted earlier. Developmental stages, defined according to Erikson’s dynamic dilemmas, unfold throughout the life course. Erikson provides a developmental perspective from childhood through later life identifying a series of challenges/conflicts to be mastered at various points across the life span. These different periods are identified as developmental stages but for the purposes of this study are seen as dynamics and non-age specific tasks in which individuals engage. Early development is seen as setting a neuro-cognitive structure framing one’s life. As noted in the section on

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relational psychoanalytic thinking, core experiences set development into motion, with mastery of different developmental challenges underlying life span development.

Erikson identified various stages of development staring in early life including: •

trust versus mistrust: during which the individual develops the cognitive pattern through which later development and relationships are experienced;

•

autonomy versus shame and doubt: during which there is the development of the process of establishing inner and outer control;

•

initiative versus guilt, in which the child learns responsibility and goals or interests;

•

industry versus inferiority: a time where one begins to experience themselves as a capable worker and fear inferiority and inadequacy;

•

identity versus role confusion is a time in which confidence that one’s inner sense of self and continuity are the same as one’s meaning for others;

•

intimacy versus isolation: in which one learns to commit one’s self and hold to commitments as well as develop the ability to abandon one’s self (ego loss/self abandonment) to learn from others;

•

generativity versus stagnation: in which concern regarding guiding of the next generation and one’s community evolves and;

•

ego integrity versus despair in which a post-narcissistic attachment to humanity, not only to the self, protects the greater world regardless of the cost to the self.

How this cohort of never marrieds addresses identity vs. role confusion; intimacy

vs. isolation; generativity vs. stagnation and ego integrity vs. despair is the primary developmental lens through which this data is understood. As noted earlier, the last four

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stages are of particular interest to this study in terms of how this cohort addresses issues of identity, intimacy, generativity and integration. Erikson’s sense of identity, as a central organizing principle through which to see human nature, is fused together through the mastery, or lack of mastery, of these developmental stages/tasks.

Definition of Narrative Narrative, for the purpose of this study, is the story relayed by the individual regarding their life experiences and the meanings attributed to these experiences. As Catherine Riessman (1993) states in her book on narrative analysis (1993, p. 22), narrative assessment is about analyzing the structures inherent in the story relayed.

When talking about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a lot, exaggerate, become confused, and get things wrong. Yet, they are revealing truths. These truths don’t reveal the past, as it actually “was” aspiring to a standard of objectivity. They give us instead the truths of our experiences…. Unlike the Truth of the scientific ideal, the truths of personal narratives are neither open to proof nor self-evident. We come to understand them only through interpretations, paying careful attention to the contexts that shape their creation and to the world views that inform them. Sometimes the truths we see in personal narratives jar us from our complacent security as interpreter “outside” the story and make us aware that our own place in the world plays a part in our interpretation and shapes the meaning we derive from them (The Personal Narrative Group, 1989, p. 20).

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Statement of Assumptions The following are the series of assumptions inherent in this research project: 1. The major assumption of this study is that there is a definable cohort that characterizes competent, over forty, never married adults.

2. A second assumption is that attachment styles play a role in individuals remaining single for greater duration of their adult life.

3. A third assumption is that this population is a normal, not a pathological, group.

4. A fourth assumption is that this group has definable and normative, developmental and personality characteristics that can be clarified and articulated.

5. A fifth assumption is that there are gender differences between the men and women who never married but given the small number of men (five) in this sample, these cannot be assessed.

6. A sixth assumption is that attachment interfaces with life decisions and the development of identity and one’s sense of self. This study is grounded in the belief that relationships are central to the process of self-definition.

7. A seventh assumption is that the two dimensional poles found in adult attachment research, avoidance and anxiety (Brennan & Schafer, 1995 & 1998, Fraley, 2003) are appropriate lenses through which to look at attachment patterns and styles and make this study comparable to other research using these measures.

8. A final assumptions is that singleness is more a matter of choice than lack of opportunity in this subject group.

Section Three—Instrumentation and Research Design Type of Study and Design This study explores the life experience of competent, never married, over forty adults looking at their individual, developmental and cultural life experiences. Using a mixed methodology, including quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection, (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998) this study explores ‘popular’ assumptions about the attachment style of individuals remaining unmarried while also elaborating the experience of remaining single in rich qualitative detail. This research design was chosen

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to insure a study with both inductive and deductive logic to its findings. Information is gathered through both quantitative and qualitative means to increase the potential generalizability of these findings. Using quantitative measures with this sample is an effort to insure that the data gathered is comparable to other research on adult attachment.

Quantitative and demographic information was gathered through selfadministered questionnaires (see Appendix B). The questionnaire designed for this study includes demographic information as well as the ECR-R (Appendix B) and parts of the CR questionnaires (Appendix C) from adult attachment research. The qualitative information is integrated with the findings obtained from the ECR-R and CR (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Comparing this samples’ data on attachment to already existing findings from available research, while not done for this research, allows this research to reference this sample with the larger pool available in adult attachment research using these measures. The demographic and qualitative measures from this project are used to create a rich and detailed understanding of competent, never married, over forty singles and to reference this sample to the literature noted in Chapter Two.

Quantitative Measures The adult attachment questionnaire Experiences in Close Relationships – revised (ECR-R), as developed by Fraley, Waller and Brennan (2000), is used to assess the romantic attachments of subjects in this study. A similar measure, the Close Relationships (CR) measure (personality.net) is used to assess other close relationships.

The relationships assessed using the CR measure are mother, father, friend, sibling and

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work relationships. This measure was later modified into the Relationships Structures (RS) measure (personality.net) but the former measure is used in this study. Both the ECR-R and the CR measures use a two dimensional scale of anxiety and avoidance which sort into the four categorical model used by early attachment literature and current adults attachment research (C. Farley, 1998; Feeney, 1998, Brennan, Clark and Shaver, 1998, Ainsworth, 1978, Bartholomew and Shaver, 1998) in terms of the security of attachment. Four categories of attachment are articulated including secure attachment, fearful attachments, dismissive attachments and preoccupied attachments.

Brennan, Clark & Shaver (1998) in their review and assessment of self-report measures used factor, cluster and multivariate analysis to assess the variables in these measures. They found the self report measures available in the adult attachment reduced into the two dimensions noted in Ainsworth’s original work on attachment: anxiety and avoidance. These two dimensions, using a hierarchical cluster analysis, clearly sorted into groups resembling Bartholomew’s attachment categories that are taken from early childhood work on attachment. In this analysis the secure attachment style in adults parallels the secure attachment style found in children. The anxious/preoccupied attachment style in adults parallels the anxious/ambivalent style found in children. The dismissive style found in adults is a distinct category in adults and equates to the avoidant attachment style in children but in adults is principally anxious. The fearful attachment style in adults parallels the avoidant attachment style found in children but in adults this style is principally avoidant (Fraley & Waller (1998), Bartholomew & Shaver, (1998) and Brennan, Clark & Shaver, (1998).

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The ECR-R and the CR measures stem originally from the seminal work of Hazen and Shaver (1994) and are derivative of the work on early attachment by Bowlby (1969) and Ainsworth (1978). The adult attachment questionnaire, the ECR-R developed by Fraley Brennan, Clark and Shaver (1998) is used to assess romantic attachments. The findings from this measure is comparable to other adult attachment research using the two dimensional scale of anxiety and avoidance as central organizing features of attachment (C. Fraley, 1998; J. Feeney, 1998, Brennan, Clark and Shaver, 1998) as well as the literature using the Bartholomew scale. The CR use this same structure but looks at non-romantic attachment in adulthood.

Qualitative Measures The qualitative findings of this study use a semi-structured questionnaire. Openended questions articulate areas for explorations that emerged from the interviews. In addition, certain areas of interest are explored in the qualitative process of this research (Appendix A). The qualitative narratives (Silverman, 2001) are constructed into common themes evolving out of the interview process, with a focus on how life is lived rather than explained. Narrative analysis is used to clarify this aspect of ‘what happened’ in the narrative. As self-report, through interviews, is a principle aspect of data collection, the use of narrative analysis (Reissman, 1993) allows individual narrative patterns within each interview and narrative themes or dimensions across interviews to emerge. This process of data analysis allows for both objective group patterns, and subjective individual patterns, to become clearer ‘truths’. This qualitative information is integrated

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with the statistical findings obtained from the ECR-R (Appendix C) and CR (Appendix D) responses (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998).

As noted in Silverman (2001) “Interviewer and interviewee actively construct some version of the world appropriate to what we take as self-evident about the person to whom we are speaking and the context of the question. “ (p. 88) Individual reports from never married older adults are compared to articulate the characteristics of membership for this cohort (Silverman, 2001) and to see how these competent, older never marrieds form a distinct group. The first person narratives obtained from sample subjects articulate their rich and varied experiences. Self-report methods facilitate the identification of themes and shared experiences while a semi-structured, open-ended interview allow the subjects to create their own story.

Scope of Study and Data Management Data Collection Methods and Instruments This research uses original, in-depth interview data from a small, 22-person sample. Interview data were collected using a semi structured interview format.

Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded in an ongoing analysis. Additional interviews were offered to gather additional information. Interviews lasted anywhere from one to three and a half hours. Three individuals were interviewed two times. The interviewer also recorded observational data.

An evolving semi-structured interview (Appendix A) defined initial broad areas of inquiry for this study to insure all respondents addressed key elements. A narrative analysis identified and elaborated themes that emerged through the narrative exploration

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of subject’s unique experiences. The common themes identified in the narratives enhances the descriptive quality of this study by reducing the researcher impact on the process (Riessman, 1993, Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998) while also allowing for some common focus across narrative stories. Using an open-coding system to gather data, this generative process integrates both guided questions and self exploration. Given that selfreport data does not always correlate with observational data, threats to validity are reduced using semi-structured interviews to enhance the generalizability of the data and hence its internal validity.

The narrative data was gathered through interviews conducted either in the researcher’s office, the subject’s home, the researcher’s home or the subject’s office. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim for further narrative analysis. Quotes in this document may be slightly reworded from the original for greater clarity. All subjects were interviewed in person, four subjects were interviewed twice, and interviews ranged from one hour to three hours. All interviews touched upon a number of common questions including experiences growing up, important influences in one’s life and the positive and most challenging aspects in one’s life. Below are the questions used as a beginning means of data gathering. Additional questions evolved over the course of the study, integrating new areas of focus based upon the emerging themes from the narrative data. A quantitative questionnaire (Appendix B) was used to identify key demographic and attachment style information on those subjects who returned the questionnaire (86% or 19 out of 22 subjects). This questionnaire was designed to assess the attachment style of this sample in a number of different relational domains.

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The 22 person sample was obtained using a purposeful or chain sampling method (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Competent and accomplished members of the community known to the researcher were asked to refer subjects to the study. Criteria were individuals whom they both liked and admired, were 40 or older, report heterosexual, and had never married. Subjects themselves identified additional subjects for the study. No other defining qualities were used in the identification of subject.

Qualitative Data Analysis The qualitative data are analyzed in an open-coding process, with the researcher identifying themes and concepts evolving out of the interviews. Interviews were analyzed and coded as they were completed to allow for these themes to inform future interviews. Using narrative analysis, dimensions and categories relevant to the research topic are identified and analyzed for how they fit into larger concepts and categories.

Statements that reported things as “always” or “never” were specifically reviewed to reveal the bias on the speaker’s behalf and identify points where this bias influenced the information stated (Silverman, 2001). As with any analysis of data, multiple meanings and interpretations are explored, reviewing the information gathered to find embedded categories and dimensions. During the interview process the researcher kept a journal of her thoughts and impressions, associations and ideas generated from the interview process. This information is also used to inform the data analysis.

Categories represent phenomena identified in the interview data as important dimensions and ideas (Silverman, 2001). Concepts from the interviews are grouped into abstract explanatory terms, i.e. categories, with properties and dimensions. A property is

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a general characteristic or aspect of the group and a dimension represents these properties within a continuum. The names given to categories relate to establishing a paradigm for understanding older never married adult. Within each of these groups, specific properties and dimensions are clarified. This information is woven into a meaningful understanding of the experience of never married older adults.

Through this process of narrative analysis the information gathered via the interviews is classified into meaningful interpretations, supported by the data within the research, to define the experience of never married, older adults of this cohort.

Quantitative Data Analysis Using the ECR-R (Fraley, Waller & Brennan, 2000, Appendix C) measure for romantic attachment and the CR (personality.net, Appendix D) for other close relationships, this research gathered both dimensional and categorical information on the significant relationships in each subject’s life.

Statement on Protecting Rights of Human Subjects This research was completed in accordance with the Institute for Clinical Social Work’s policy for protection of human subjects and the Institution Review Board’s research protocols. Subjects participated in this study voluntarily. Each participant in this study was informed of his or her right to voluntarily withdraw from the study at any time. The central purpose of the study and the procedures to be used in data collection were explained to all participants.

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Study subjects were informed their comments would be used in a manner protecting their confidentiality based on the best clinical judgment of the researcher.

Participants signed an informed consent noting any known risks associated with participation in the study as well as the expected benefits of participation in the study.

Limitations of the Research Plan There are a number of limitations to this study.

1. This sample may not be representative of the cohort of older, never marrieds at large because it is a preselected sample based on competence.

2. A purposeful sampling method may influence how representative the sample group is of a more general sample population.

3. The more quantitative measures were developed to assess attachment in different cohorts than used in this study.

4. This research is founded on a belief that the nature of one’s attachment impacts the type of relational paradigms one is attracted to as an adult.

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CHAPTER IV FINDINGS

Section One—Introduction to the Results Framing the Study and Sample This sample includes 22, competent, never married individuals including five men and seventeen women. Subjects were referred to the study through colleagues, friends of colleagues, friends and study participants. A number of commonalities are identified within the group of individuals studied. The religious affiliations of the subjects include 45% Catholic, 23% Jewish, and 32% Protestant although not all participants were active in their religions. All of the subjects are currently middle to upper middle class but their upbringing ranged from living in a car (4%) for periods of time to extremely privileged (4%). There were a number of professional parents (50%) as well as parents in the trades or working class (45%).

Educationally, all subjects completed college, 45% have masters degrees, 41% have an MD, JD or PhD. Vocationally, 82% of those interviewed work in service oriented/ care giving professions; 55% individuals own their own business or are independent practitioners. In addition 55% of the sample are professionals (MD, JD,

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MSW, RN, MBA); 18% are managers or directors; 23% work as creatives; 23% work in not for profits or environmentally oriented area.

Self Employed

Table One Employment Status of Sample Manager/Director Professional 4 - 18%

Subjects

11 - 50%

Total: 22

17 -77% Creatives: 5 -23% Professional 12 - 55%

Not for Profits/ Service 13 - 60%

Raw numbers are followed by percent Of the sample population 86% report a history of significant challenges for their parents and in their family of origin. Challenges include the experience of an absent parent during childhood or young adulthood (73%), death in their family during childhood or young adulthood (50% total: 9% siblings; 23% fathers; 9% mothers; 4% aunt; 4% cousin), financial difficulties (64%), unhappy marriages (54%), significant mental illness (50%: 14% sibling; 18% mother, 23% father) and 23% significant medical illness (9% sibling, 14% mother, 9% fathers).

In terms of romantic relationships, 36% of the sample were in relationships at the time of their interview(s) and 18% were living with a partner (see Table Two). All the individuals in this sample dated in the past and were in relationships at some point in their lives. These relationships ranged in terms of duration and significance but the majority of subjects had relationships that impacted them significantly.

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In Relationship Subjects Total: 22 Male: Total: 5

Table Two Romantic Relationship History Engaged in Live with Thought Past Partner Would Marry

Actively Want to Marry

8 - 36%

7 - 32%

4 - 18%

20 - 91%

7 - 32%

3 - 60% 1 live w/partner

2 - 40%

2 - 40%

4 - 80%

2 - 40%

16 - 94% Female: Total: 17

5 – 29% 3 live w/partner

5 - 29%

2 - 12%

5 - 29%

Raw numbers are followed by percent All subjects are Caucasian and range in age from 40 to 59 years of age. A number of subjects reported being in therapy at some time (77%) and/or participating in Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) (23%).

Section Two—Summary of Quantitative Findings The quantitative measures in this study (ECR-R, CR) use the four categories of attachment developed in early attachment research and used in later research on adult attachment (C. Farley, 1998; Feeney, 1998, Brennan, Clark and Shaver, 1998, Ainsworth, 1978, Bartholomew and Shaver, 1998). The four categories of attachment articulated include secure attachment, fearful attachments, dismissive attachments and preoccupied attachments. Secure attachment relates to those who see themselves and others positively. For those who fit into the preoccupied attachment category there is a negative self-image and a positive, but cautious, view of others. Those individuals whose ratings fall within the fearful/avoidant group have a negative view both of

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themselves and others. In the dismissing/avoidant category, individuals have negative views of others but a positive view of themselves (Simpson & Rhodes, 1998).

A number of interesting findings came out of these measures. The scale is a seven-point scale in which one indicates little presence and seven indicates a strong presence of either anxiety or avoidance. The findings for this sample suggests there is less avoidance (2.18, standard deviation .9) in close friendships than in all the other relationships assessed (see Table Three). In addition, there are significantly higher levels of anxiety (3.28, standard deviation 1.05) in romantic attachments than in all other relationships (see Table Four).

Table Three: Descriptive Statistics on Avoidance and Anxiety Descriptive Statistics for Scale Scores N mother avoidance mother anxiety father avoidance father anxiety friend avoidance friend anxiety sib avoidance sib anxiety work avoidance work anxiety Romantic Avoidance Romantic Anxiety Valid N (list wise)

19 19 18 18 19 19 19 19 18 18

Minimum Maximum 1.67 7.00 1.00 5.50 1.67 6.17 1.00 4.00 1.00 4.00 1.00 4.00 1.17 6.67 1.00 6.75 1.00 5.83 1.00 5.75

Mean 3.8070 1.8684 3.4259 1.7639 2.1842 2.0395 4.0088 2.5658 3.2963 2.8472

Std. Deviation 1.64923 1.23426 1.51811 .99806 .90761 1.26728 1.55305 1.83493 1.34984 1.35076

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1.44

5.44

3.3704

1.09912

18

1.39

5.06

3.2840

1.04785

16

In this sample, romantic avoidance and anxiety are very highly correlated (.93 where 1.0 is a perfect linear relationship), as seen in the plots on Tables Four and Five and shown in Table Six. Avoidance and anxiety are highly related; indicating study subjects tend to experience high levels of both anxiety and avoidance in romantic

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attachments or moderate levels or low levels on both these measures. There are no instances of high romantic anxiety and low romantic avoidance as seen in these findings. In thinking about the way in which anxiety often propels one into dealing with issues by avoidance aimed at decreasing anxiety and vice versa, it seems that this strong covariance may reflect a way that these two dimensions work in tandem to create a state of some homeostasis. This leaves the subjects of this sample in a more fixed or passive state regarding romantic attachments.

An additional finding reveals a high frequency of “one” scores on the anxiety measures across the assessment of non-romantic relationships, indicating a level of comfort with them. As noted above, anxiety is often an emotion that moves people to action. The absence of high levels of anxiety may reflect the way this sample, as a group, feels effective in managing anxiety and establishing a comfort zone in most relationships.

This seems to indicate the sample’s general resilience in most relational domains. A general sense of satisfaction in most relationships is revealed in these ratings.

In cases of low levels of anxiety and avoidance, a comfort level is established with little impulse to shift one’s relationships one way or another. In the case of high levels of anxiety and avoidance individuals are out of their comfort zone and may avoid relationships because they are too uncomfortable. The relationships that unfold in the midrange most probably involve a sense of ongoing exploration of what does or doesn’t work for those who remain active in dating or who are in an ongoing relationship. How to manage the tensions created by anxiety and avoidance may leave an individual in a somewhat stuck or static place relationally.

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Table Four Avoidance and Anxiety in Romantic Attachments by gender, (1=women, 2=men)

The high correlation in romantic attachments, between anxiety and avoidance may reflect the tendency to establish or maintain relationships that are not anxiety provoking and within a comfort zone, as noted in the qualitative findings. This would probably result in a sense of greater comfort and control in general, yet it may reflect a more static quality within romantic relationships.

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Table Five Avoidance and Anxiety in Romantic Attachment by Attachment Style

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Table Six Correlation between Anxiety and Avoidance in Romantic Attachment

Correlations Romantic Romantic Avoidance Anxiety Romantic Avoidance

Pearson 1 .931(**) Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 18 18 Romantic Anxiety Pearson .931(**) 1 Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 18 18 ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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Section Three—Summary of Qualitative Categories The qualitative findings of this study sort into six conceptual categories that reflect central themes that emerged out of the interview process and individual narratives of the individuals interviewed. These categories represent the most commonly expressed attributes and experiences noted by members of this sample. However, there is fluidity to these categories reflecting the unique individual nature of those within this sample. The influence of these dynamics upon life choices result in a more individually defined sense of identity and prolonged singleness, rather than a more relationally defined sense of self. The various dimensional aspects of each category further describe and articulate these experiences.

Introduction to the Single Self I don’t have regrets. I have had a very different and rewarding life in other ways.

It was one of those things when there is a fork in the road and you go one way.

You don’t know what it would be like if you’d gone the other way, you just have no idea.

The individuals studied in this sample are intensely independent and engage in their lives on their own terms. They approach life as a single self and have a sense of self that is individually, rather than relationally, determined. This core attribute of orienting from a stance of self-reliance, independence and self-determined judgment make this group somewhat un-categorizable. Nevertheless, the great variation in individual expression that stems from these core attributes have certain generalities.

A common history of being on one’s own early in life, often in challenging situations, resulted in a sense of being on the periphery of one’s family and/or community. The ability to assess what is needed in the moment and be the responsible

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one regarding needs became a part of caretaking and responsible sense of self. This responsible nature organizes a purposefulness in relationships through the role of being a responsible caretaker within most venues of life including family, friends and often in one’s careers.

By remaining independent in relationships a space is created to be true to one’s self and to pursue one’s interests while maintaining a meaningful connection with others or the surrounding community. As an independent self, issues of safety and comfort are important. Being careful and competent by assessing decision and situations closely before acting creates a comfort zone. The resulting combination of skills and choices, create a sense of values based on responding to needs within one’s awareness and underlies a sense of civic mindedness and advocacy found in many of this sample. This sense of mission and making a difference for others and the world is central to how most individuals in this sample approach their lives. These attributes come together to create an unconventional, independent nature and an individually driven sense of identity and prolonged singleness.

On One’s Own I learned English on my own before I started kindergarten and I was translating at stores and doctors for my parents. When I was five we were in a car and got hit by a drunk driver. It was really scary and I was the person that talked to the police and talked to everyone about that. It was really, really scary. I realized my parents will feed me and cloth me and make sure I’m safe but in terms of the world I am on my own.

This is a group of individuals confident in their own voice and comfortable on their own. They orient in life from a position of independence and self-sufficiency. A quality of mindfulness and awareness regarding one’s internal experiences serves as a

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guide for approaching life decisions. These people rely on an internal sense of things feeling right coupled with the desire to be part of a community or value system. As highly independent individuals, they engage in groups from a position of separateness.

Being “on one’s own” captures much of the experience reported by individuals in this study and is a central property of how this group experiences themselves as independent and self sufficient.

The experience of being on one’s own often started in childhood but

is integrated through experience into an autonomous and self reliant sense of self.

Most of the individuals in this study spoke of feeling “on their own” from early in their lives. A commonly noted experience is that of parents who faced and handled significant challenges in their lives on their own, and were, therefore, often absent for their children. This lack of opportunity to establish dependable relationships generates a needed strategy for independence and self-sufficiency, by identification with parents.

Their experiences provided a sense of autonomy as well as the need to figure out how to handle things on one’s own.

Absolutely, definitely we were on our own (self and siblings) to figure things out.

There were too many of us for my parents to keep track of.

I think practically she (mother) wasn’t there (after father died). We would eat dinner at 8:30 at night because she would be working long hours. She sometimes would be depressed and be stressed out and angry and I think she would at various points throughout her life drink too much.

My parents chose to raise my (severely disabled) brother at home. We never went out to restaurants as a family, we just never went out. Well, I went out....

My mother died when I was 23 and there was something about my attachment, there was something about the bond there, which was very strange. I don’t think in all my work (psychologically) that I understand. I have actually, I did not get very much growing up, because that is the way that I feel that I didn’t.

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Regardless of whether experiences were traumatic or not, this trait was the consequence of parents who — while independently coping with the issues or challenges facing them — were absent or less available as a source of guidance and/or nurturance to their children. Thus, a sense of being “on one’s own” emerged in these narratives. By internalizing a paradigm of handling things on one's own, these subjects developed and reinforced a sense of the need to accept difficulties as something to get through and manage independently.

Situations ranged from more common experiences to those in which parents were handling significant health issues and/or traumatic difficulties.

Children always know whether its been told to them or not. My parents fought a lot after my brother died when I was six years old all the way until they got divorced (after we moved out of house).

I saw how my mother's life was limited even though she didn't take care of us on a day-to-day basis. It seems like the mother becomes a slave to this constantly needy, challenging, difficult, expensive, boring life.

It was very hard at home because my dad didn’t even stand up to my mom half the time; he would just kind of slide out somewhere. We would be standing there and we didn’t know what would trip off a rage.

Not all early experiences that contributed to feeling on one’s own were situations where parental energies were absorbed in managing the demands of day-to-day lives.

When you are a little kid and you are sobbing your eyes out because somebody just said that they hate you or whatever, do you know what I mean? My parents totally didn’t get that whole thing.

We were on our own. It’s weird, I don’t even understand the family dynamics because I was so young.

My overwhelming memory of being a kid, except for being a really little kid, is being constantly criticized and it was just horrible. I mean I had like zero selfesteem. I had no self worth until I was in college and then I started finding things that I could like about myself.

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For others, “being on one’s own,” related to a parental system that was so controlling and rigid that their children created space of their own. This sense of being on one’s own was reinforced by experiences with parents who had overly constricting beliefs, who felt their goals were sacrificed for their family, or where the interviewee simply did not know how they fit in their family.

I’m the oldest in a family where my parents were married until I was 21 although they separated when I was 17. They were not happily married for most of that time and they argued a lot. My parents were very critical, especially my mother, and had very high standards for grades and behavior those sorts of things.

It was like hello, I am an adult; I get to make these decisions, I might make mistakes but that is my right and you learn through those. My mother wanted me to live this perfect little life, what she thought was perfect anyway. She didn’t know what I was dealing with because it wasn’t acceptable to talk about.

I am probably more successful in the area that he probably most wanted to be in.

I was able to explore that part of me and able to be successful at it. When I was going to school he would actually write over (my projects) what is wrong with it.

It tells me that he can’t just enjoy the fact that I am doing something and enjoying myself.

These experiences led to a conscious search for other models as awareness of the absence of guidance evoked the need to figure things out on one’s own. Often these moments were initially overwhelming, but as individuals developed their capacity to decipher situations and located alternative models, a sense of comfort and confidence about being on one’s own developed.

One contributing factor to subjects initially feeling overwhelmed on their own is that approximately 86% of those interviewed spoke of significant challenges or traumatic situations occurring in their childhood or young adulthood. Frequently these situations resulted in the child feeling a sense of pride for parents' strength and resourcefulness in

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handling these challenges. This paradigm of resilience and tenacity underlies a model of self-reliance, following one’s beliefs and a drive to figure things out.

Mom was a nurse and had a real impressive background actually. She was a wonderful woman. My father was not the breadwinner of the family, he was an alcoholic and he never worked actually. It was really my mom who raised us.

My mom is a strong person. She had polio when she was pregnant with my brother and she survived it and he survived it. She was paralyzed and was told she probably would never walk again but she was determined and she regained her ability to walk.

This admiration extended to parents who were more absorbed and invested in their daily lives and encouraged their children to do the same. Having parents with strong beliefs and integrity, who lived their lives in keeping with these beliefs despite challenges or difficulties, was a point of admiration and modeling for their children.

My father was the kind of guy that if he saw an old lady walking down the street and he didn’t even know who she was he would go over and help her... He was a very thoughtful person. If he thought that anybody in our community needed anything he would be like the first one over there.

My dad has always been interested in progressive issues, especially environmental issues. In the 70s my father was going to work in organic gardening and recycling and composting and all that. My father is also incredibly outspoken. So despite his shortcoming (ETOH, absent, caustic), he’s has really had a tremendous amount of positive impact on a lot of my life.

My mother is very glamorous and very magical, there is something about her that is very special– but when it comes to just being there in a consistent way, that’s not how my mother is.

For others, the sense of being on one’s own was related to the feeling of an absent parent who left one on one’s own to figure things out. The awareness of absent parents took many forms but was another pervasive theme in many of the narratives shared.

My mother (father deceased) was gone off a lot. My brother and I talk about this; that we were really kind of latchkey children. I was alone a lot. My cat and church were very important to me as far as grounding and in not being alone.

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I have to think my mother threatening to leave all the time was just an emotional pain. I always thought when I was little that my mother was depressed, whether she was or not. I had this theory that she was a bigamist, that she had another life. So, I always thought that she had this secret life that she didn’t tell anybody about and then when she would withdraw that she was thinking about that secret life or maybe she had other children besides us. There was some secret.

My father was not much of a presence in our lives. I mean he was there the whole time, but again, he was an active alcoholic the whole time.

Another facet of absent parents was the experience of death in the families of subjects. Of the twenty-two individuals studied, eleven experienced a death in their immediate family during childhood or young adulthood (2 siblings, 5 fathers, 2 mothers, 1 aunt, 1 cousin).

There is conflict. There was a life before my mother died, there was a life after. It is like there was a true gulf between the two pieces of my life.

Because she and my father had had no life insurance when he died it was all on her to kind of create the life for her and us they had started. She felt a lot of pressure with that.

My father’s death (in childhood) was unexpected as far as I know. I think that it was very obvious in looking back; the man smoked 70 cigarettes a day of unfiltered Lucky Strikes.

While the impact of these losses varied within this sample, the result was a greater awareness of being on one’s own and needing to rely upon one’s self to create a sense of comfort and security.

This dynamic of being on one’s own could also be related to the

parental discord or simply a sense that a parent was not available for guidance.

The real stress came when I was 8, and my parents were in and out of courts.

There was the separation, threats, living on the streets, and a lot of tension in the house; it was palpable.

I think I have issues with men because I think they are all going to be like my father you know oh, yeah, I love ya, see ya,, take care, here is money.

I suppose if I’ve unburied some of those things I’ve tried to suppress as a child, I always wished for more (connection) than I had, but I’m not sure it was related to

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a specific event. It was an ongoing view of the world that caused me to see the world as I did (somewhat pessimistically). I didn’t lose a parent or have an illness or catastrophes.

In other instances, the interviewee saw their parent as compromised by their relationship. Their role and relationships as defined by their beliefs or their partner limited their opportunities. This sense of marital roles restricting one’s opportunities may contribute to how many members within this sample assumed an independent path and refused to be defined by convention or pre-established roles or norms.

I made choices but my mother didn’t have a choice because she had two kids and then my dad died and she had to go on with my brother (severe retardation). I could have stayed in the business world and been bored and unhappy, but I didn’t.

I always felt like there was a lot of arguing when I was younger. My mother would always threaten to go home to her mother, which is a joke because her family lived in a totally different city and how would she get there and they didn’t have money for an airplane. I mean, I just felt that there was a tension growing up My parents were very, very strict on things about how you behave, how you talk, how you dress. There were very well defined gender roles about how people act and career choices for women; men too. Women were definitely second-class to men and I got those messages pretty early. There were very narrowly defined career choices. There were narrowly defined roles, it was all conservative and about being modest and quiet and not drawing attention to yourself, and education is very highly valued.

Two models emerged from these early experiences with parents who managed their lives independently and offered unspoken guidance for their children. A model of self-sufficiency and a model of getting through things on one’s own, often despite serious challenges, became a value absorbed by most of those interviewed. Their parents provided a model of pride and respect in their ability to handle challenges independently and create their own opportunities.

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My dad was asked to work to put himself through college and once he got through college, to pay to put his younger brother in college … he was making really good money for the times.

My father was the first and possibly only one in his family to go to college (got a PhD) and he just had these very wide-ranging interests.

My mom didn’t have a college degree, but actually was an incredible international dealer.

My mom went back to school and got her master’s when I was in high school and doing that was more than a little unusual. She handled a large household, too.

In other families there is a deep attachment for parents who coped in the face of adversity and handled these obstacles on their own. There is a sense of pride regarding these parents’ strength and their persistence in overcoming challenges, as well as some sadness because this means of coping made them less available.

She is a very strong person; but it’s the world according to my mother, we had to adapt around her rather larger-than-life personality for better and for worse. I mean, I really loved her a lot and she was very strong, I am amazed at how well she has aged given her losses and what she had to deal with. I would not be who I am without her.

My parents chose to raise my brother at home... My brother has severe and profound mental retardation... Then my dad had a fast cancer when I was a senior in high school so my mother was left with my brother. I did go on to college, which left my mom alone. I realized my mother was a very strong person. I was closer to my dad, but my mother was a very strong person to get me through college and look after my brother.

My father’s first job went on strike for a year, so he is driven by a need to have security. His whole life has felt like a shifting floor and he’s done a great job.

This paradigm of self reliance and figuring things out on one’s own is a core aspect of how this group approaches learning about life.

I felt that I had to learn everything on my own; that I had to recreate everything.

Somehow I had to start from nothing and it was almost like I had to go through all of the ways to know whatever humans have learned in the course of history, even if books weren’t available to me.

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I didn’t get encouragement from my parents. They were not people who understood how to encourage their children to do any one particular thing.

The sense of being on one’s own in early childhood for some created anxiety about how to cope. There was an absence of guidance, either because the parental model for coping did not work for the interviewee, or because only a very rigid model was offered. In either case, the result was a model from one’s family that ultimately was either unavailable or too limiting. This left subjects on their own to figure out how to approach life — often seeking alternative models.

Yeah I had to figure things out on my own. I tried to have the conversation with my mother about sex and that wasn’t going to happen. I am sure that there are repressed people everywhere like my mother, who would never talked to me about things…until far into my adulthood.

My mother tried to put me in kindergarten as a sort of day care (after father died) and I acted up. She needed me to be able to do it and I was just too young to manage in that kind of setting.

I still don’t like to criticize my father but he was burdened by an inability to take any risks, he had to have security and he lived during the Depression. … I don’t think I would ever say this to him, but there was nothing there in terms of guidance and I’d say the same about my mom.

The lack of guidance regarding how to handle or overcome issues reinforced a sense of being on one’s own even within one’s family.

My parents loved us and they were there for us and they provided a sense of security, which was something I didn’t realize until later that everybody didn’t have. This is shaded by thirty years of retrospection but I didn’t realize until I was older, in terms of guidance, it was pretty simple: it was work hard, have a job and don’t get in trouble. My whole adult life has been a question mark for them in terms of traveling and taking risks.

It was the 60s; you have all these people saying treat children as adults. So, they treated us like little adults.

When you are young, you don’t really know what is going to work and not work, at least I didn’t. I think my 20s were probably the most difficult for me because I think that it was just sort of a lack of awareness or not really feeling directed,

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especially personally and probably not so much career wise. I think that it is not ideal but it was fine; I just would not want to go back to it.

Many of these instances reinforced figuring things out one’s self and being self-reliant in one’s judgments.

The lack of guidance seemed to contribute to feelings of uncertainty

and vulnerability, resulting in a search for guidance from other sources and means.

I think that person was really trying to be supportive but at the end the day I knew that I was going leave and get back in my mom’s car and go back into the craziness and so talking about it was just sort of talking about it. I had a reality that was kind of hellish and what I was looking for was a way out of that reality.

Regardless, often these experiences eventually resulted in a sense of self-reliance and trust in one’s capacity to figure out and handle challenges.

I became very independent at an early age because my parents weren’t there …

I just handle everything (murder of father; illness of brother) on my own and I go to church and that’s what helps. I’d prefer to talk with our priest than to talk to anybody else. I’m an undergraduate in psychology, too.

A second parental model emerged, that had to do with getting through situations. These were parents who were trying to get through challenging dynamics and doing whatever possible to establish or reestablish a sense of comfort or quiescence within challenging situations.

My brother after college developed schizophrenia and lived at home with my parents. I regret it now because maybe if we had gotten some treatment early on we could have gotten through it and things would have been different, but that is just kind of a dynamic in our family.

My family unit was not such well you grow up and go out and have kids it was just we were just trying to get through, not in an economical sense but just getting my brother on track.

It seemed more like they (parents) just allowed these eruptions to happen and then they swept everything under the rug as much as they could and got through, just got through, just lived life and got through.

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What essentially allowed us this sort of grounded place (in the midst of parental strife) was that we had this mother who was always kind of engaging us. It was almost like she, it’s funny because it was never about her dictating or her putting her expectations on us, it was more creating a place for us to be expressing ourselves.

For many a sense of being responsible and responding to the needs of those around them also emerged as part of being on one’s own as a way to establish a secure place and create a comfort zone. This caretaking, “responsible one” role is further elaborated in another section of the findings.

I did have the experience of translating for my parents from the time I was five on and had a lot of responsibility there and still do to some extent.

My mom was always sad (after her brother died when he was four and she was six) and I just wanted her to smile. I would draw her pictures and try to make her happy. I think that was the first thing that really, really seriously affected my life.

The values of being responsive and handling things on one’s own, figuring things out and getting through challenging situations, became critical to how this group learned to cope with life. They reinforced a sense of independence within relationships and oriented the individual to try to adapt to life and others from a place of one’s own.

I definitely had friends, but boy, from the relatives themselves there was no one person that I can point to and say okay this was somebody that I was really tight with, that filled whatever was missing from that home environment. I didn’t have that.

Being independent minded and operating on one’s own even in one’s most intimate relationships became a relational paradigm. In many ways the interpersonal limitations of this paradigm took a long time to reveal themselves.

The relationship was off and on for 2 years. I don’t trust him, and so I did e-mail him to rationalize it as it’s probably not a good idea to get involved or think he’d changed in some way. Then I realized he was abusive and I don’t need to make nice. I realize the nature of our experience together and that was liberating and it felt very unfamiliar but it felt good to understand, okay, that is why this happened.

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At this point I am just much more vocal. But at that point, growing up in that environment, it drove me nuts because you are consistently having to read the situation and guess and god forbid anything should be said about it.

My brother came to live with me. It was at the time when my partner was moving in. I think we should have just talked about it. I don’t know why we didn’t talk about it. I don’t know if it was more of a presumption on my part, or a presumption on her part. There was a lot of confusion and just not very good negotiating or communication or interaction skills on both of our parts.

This quality of self reflection within relationships ultimately allowed individuals to pursue their interests and desires independently and to find a place of comfort in acting on their own.

I don’t know if I would have felt a need for a child if I was in a loving relationship. I might have been willing to forego having a child but I couldn’t not have one or the other. I wanted a sense of family.

That self-acceptance and his acceptance of me was powerful to me in terms of making me realize that who I am is somehow simple like he was. I mean even now I ride my bike almost everywhere, I walk most places, I haven’t had a car for a long time. Some people would say that some of my lifestyle is eccentric just because I know I just like to do those things and I am not super conventional.

An active engagement of challenges, even overwhelming ones, provides a way to gain a sense of control and mastery over situations that is both pleasurable and reinforces a sense of self-sufficiency. This sense of self-reliance preserves one’s integrity as well developing the analytic skills needed to be able to use one’s judgment and experiences to establish a course of action and security on one’s own. This sense of control creates a comfort zone and sense of safety in a variety of situations and relationships. It is coupled with a sense of doing something important and meaningful. These skills and attributes coalesce to create competent, independent and self-sufficient individuals.

You could set up your own program: you could do things; you could perform if you wanted to perform. All you had to do was set things up.

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I really get invested in work; so it’s not just a 9-5 job. When I was younger, and even not so young, but working for people who were easily threatened, that was kind of a problem because they think you must have an agenda or “you are out to replace me.” So it caused some problems from time to time but it's also been incredibly fulfilling when working with people who also are able to see the bigger picture and think about things other than just what you did from 9 to 5. Then it’s a really a meeting of minds, that’s the really big thing for me.

Regardless of the dynamics underlying the sense of being on one’s own, what emerged as a dominant theme for most of this sample is valuing independence, selfsufficiency and being on one’s own. Accepting these dynamics was experienced simply as a fact of life. For many, this comfort and security in their ability to handle things on their own contributed to a high percentage of this sample being entrepreneurial, in independent practices or in positions of responsibility.

You had to be very entrepreneurial to get the most out of my college. And I had that, I had that sort of “okay, I see the picture: I've got to get this person; I got to organize this thing; I'm going to do it and make it happen.” That was very pleasurable for me and it still is pleasurable to have that skill.

If I really sort of reflect on it, I think I have taken a lot of risks fairly easily. I am thinking about that in terms of my career. I would have never thought I would be doing what I am doing today. That was risk, going into an area that from my family background it’s just really the most insane thing in the world.

My mom was actually someone who was very much into “do what you love” because she absolutely followed her passion. I got some of that growing up. It doesn’t matter, the money or the status, it is just “find what you love and do it.”

When I left the government, I thought well, now I have my own business I have to have to make this legitimate. I went home plugged everything in and I loved it. I just loved it.

Whatever the dynamics underpinning the experience of being on one’s own are, what emerged is a valuing of self-sufficiency and handling things independently, being self-sufficient and engaging in situations to manage them and establish a comfort zone.

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These experiences become integrated into an independent sense of self in relationships and feeling capable in situations and able to create a comfort zone.

I have independence. I am self-sufficient. I think one of the hard things for a lot of women in this demographic that you are talking about is that you are not necessarily looking for a man to take care of you financially although having added revenue would be nice I think for all of us, it is not essential. That is not why you are looking for a man/mate.

Acting on their own beliefs is emblematic of members in this sample who value self-sufficiency and establish a life with a sense of comfort and security. A sense of resilience and growing confidence in being able to handle things emerges from coping with challenges actively and independently. A problem-solving, self-reliant nature evolved from being on one’s own and following through on one’s desires. In general these are individuals who do not seek comfort from others, nor do they rely on others to facilitate opportunities in their lives. They are typically self-sufficient, which leaves much of their security within their own control.

I am independent. I don’t have to answer to anyone.

He’s nice (ex-boyfriend) but he's a drunk and basically we just kind of had our own lives. I lived my life and we were like roommates.

I am independent. I don’t mean independent as in non-partner kind of independent but I don’t really need, I am not a needful partner.

I don’t attach much significance to those types of connections between people. I certainly have close friends across the country but I never looked to them as a source of solace or comfort.

Interestingly, a significant proportion of this sample is in private practice, selfemployed or in a position of authority within their organizations. This strong entrepreneurial spirit and independent-mindedness is evident in many interviewees, even those who are working for someone else.

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I'm an entrepreneur in terms of having an idea and making it happen. That doesn't mean I don't give up, I do give up and I have given up on things; but I'm not a giver-upper by nature. Usually I follow through; I'm not just if it doesn't work out, “Oh well.” I don't want to keep beating my head against the wall but I do not just take no for an answer.

I like working with a group and especially I like working with new people.

That is the good part about being a sole practitioner, because I am not stuck with the same people all the time, and when you get somebody who is really good it is really fun to work with them.

When I sit back and I think about my business, I really do get a lot of satisfaction. I do work hard but I have been very lucky too, because a lot of people that I’ve worked with have gone out of business. It is just very hard to be in business and so I have been lucky. I am very proud of that accomplishment. The thing that worries me now is how am I going to retire and blah, blah, blah and I just have to keep working and so now I have got to figure that out.

Living one’s interests and beliefs, within one’s own personal values and parameters, is not totally a choice for many in this sample; it is simply a fact of who they are as individuals. This aspect of being on one’s own and self-sufficient underlies the independence seen in many of this sample within relationships while also seeking a space to accommodate both their independent voice and a desire to retain an emotional connection.

I started school, living at home because it made sense and (in my culture) you didn’t move out of the house until you got married. That was what all my other friends were doing. But I was at school late a lot and got a taste of what it was like to be in that world. I felt like this is my world, these are my people. I was able to talk my dad into (letting me live on campus) and I’m sure they regret it to this day because it was the beginning of my separation and mourning of what, that I won’t be in their world.

This might be relevant, when I was a teenager I had a best friend and was totally in love with her. In college we had a more actualized romantic relationship, while still going out with other people. At some point she sort of raised questions, Why don’t we just stop seeing other people if we are in love with each other? I realized that there is no answer to that question, there is no reason why not to stop seeing other people, but I didn’t want to. I totally preferred my best friend, just because we had been friends before. But, I was struck at that moment by the

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arbitrariness of the expectation that because we are completely in love with each other it was something exclusive.

I don’t have to answer to anyone. I don’t have to discuss what I do with anyone.

Part of being self-sufficient is an independent-mindedness that allows one to think things through on one’s own.

Friends who visit my life will say they are reminded of college. The idea that (a way of living) is associated with a phase of life strikes me as horrific. Like reading books, sleeping when you want to sleep, those are great pleasures and yeah, people do that in college because they can, but why do they stop doing them afterwards? I don’t know, there wouldn’t have been plenty of good reasons but the idea that it’s developmentally inappropriate to do those things is so weird.

I got some weird agenda about parenting too, kind of a cultural thing, you know.

But, don't just do it because that’s what you do. Think about it!

I feel extremely fortunate and grateful for my work. I have been able to find something that is so in sync with aspects of my values and who I am and continues to be interesting and it is pretty simple in some ways. I don’t have to work within an organization and do things I don’t believe in, like I hear from various friends and some of my clients when talking about being part of corporate life. So, there is just that sort of freedom and simplicity aspect to my work, where I am doing something that just has a flow to it: a creativity.

An aspect of the independent and self-sufficient nature of many in this sample is they can create their own comfort, regardless of whether they are partnered or not. For those who are partnered, the partner often organizes around their interests; maintaining their emotional comfort zone and orienting on one’s own in an uncompromised way.

I’m still a little perplexed about relationships, they seem an artificial construction.

Based on my past relationships, they’ve ranged from wild to people who have been professional, to those who have been loose in a number of senses. There has been a level of interest but I ‘m not sure there’s a common thread in any of those relationships except there’s an interest, a kind of fascination.

He (boyfriend) is extremely loyal to me. He adores me. He worships me. He complements me. He's romantic and so there's this constant validation and love from him. He's also not threatened by my work and I've had that problem in the past. I found someone who was really proud of me and proud of my

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accomplishments and has good self-esteem so if I'm out and I'm dancing with men it’s not an issue, he's not jealous. He's just there when I come back and it allows me a certain freedom of singlehood.

I have had friends tell me, and it’s come up more than once and I had angry responses to it, but I have had people say there is something about the way I present that I don’t need anyone. Nobody has said this is too strong or too independent, that is the underlying message. There is something about the way it was said that I needed to change that really pushes my buttons. I really don’t understand it. I remember talking about in therapy and getting really aggravated about it. Because it is really a comment that I don’t understand: what about me is intimidating?

Maybe my relationship is based on the fact that he does everything that I want to do and he just seems to fit into it. So what does that say about me in that I may not really see him as a separate person in some ways. So, that is a little disturbing to me. Because I am not sure how giving I am, you know he does revolve around my life.

This is a resourceful and independent group that is generally comfortable on their own and find this a familiar and easy place to negotiate in their lives. They are selfreliant, able to assess situations independently and figure out what needs to happen to establish a sense of comfort or security if their lives are disrupted in some way. The initial sense of being on one’s own for this sample came from early experiences including absent parents, challenges within one’s family and parents who used their resources towards their own pursuits and were less available to their children. From an Eriksonian perspective, this is a group who resolve the tension between trust and mistrust by being self reliant rather than believing there is someone upon whom they could rely. They operate from a position of being on their own and use this autonomy to find internal resources to establish a sense of control. They handle things on their own; accepting and managing challenges in an effort to get through them and create a sense of comfort.

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On the Periphery I felt comfortable on my own; but always on the outside, that’s right, always on the outside. And I would say up to recently I’ve always been somewhat peripheral, with people always saying “oh come in more” or you know “we would like you to be more active” or gosh you know “blah, blah, blah” but I wasn’t that interested. There is something about being on the periphery that’s very comfortable with me.

The property of being on the periphery of groups and independent within relationships is an interpersonal experience noted by many individuals within this sample. This is a group of individuals with strong independent spirits who are interested in having a sense of belonging and who understand group/community rules and expectations, and yet maintain an independent perspective and position within most groups. Coming from families where they were often on their own, there is familiarity and comfort in being independent even within one’s most intimate attachments. This ability allows for a sense of connection and engagement while also remaining independent and a free agent at the same time. The sense of personal freedom is an important quality in the narratives shared by a number of subjects and underlies an emerging awareness of bigger picture dynamics and critical thinking. Most individuals in this sample engage on the periphery by learning the rules and expectations around them while using their experiences to find a position that’s true to their self and also sustains a sense of connection.

Attention to and awareness of social conventions for group relationships became a skill set used by many interviewees to figure out how to negotiate being on the periphery of their family or community from a position of being on their own. In many ways this interpersonal space is an outgrowth of early experiences of finding comfort and security

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in being mindful and managing relationships from a place of separateness and independence. Coming from families that often did not speak about important issues affecting the family reinforced this self-reliance and the importance of handling things on one’s own.

We don’t talk about things, I mean my father certainly is very uncomfortable talking about emotions and my mother is always of kind of like oh, forgive and forget, or they are family, you know just excuse. Every little thing that you try to straighten out it is always like oh, just brush that under the rug.

This sense of unspoken knowns, of things that have an impact one’s self but cannot be discussed or collaborated around, further consolidated a skill set within this group of an almost vigilant attunement to others, attention to unspoken knowns and a sensitivity and responsiveness to issues within one’s awareness especially as they impinged on security and belonging.

Being on the periphery, while often initially the outgrowth of challenges faced in childhood, affords this group, as adults, a well-developed aptitude in perspective taking and independent-mindedness within interpersonal spaces. A kind of participant/observer self emerges, resulting in a quality in many interviewees of assessing and responding to their environment in an analytic way while also being immersed in experiences.

I think you have to come to a point were you ask: does this person matter enough to work this hard or is it just that you have to figure out what is going on to find what you are willing to do and not do and let that become your way, A paradigm of intimacy, of being both connected but also on the periphery and independent at the same time, became a default relational position. Most individuals in this sample are careful interpersonally, responsive to needs whether spoken or unspoken, and adaptive around others. A certain unconventional or uncompromising nature

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developed in many individuals, within the context of valuing belonging and take relationships seriously.

The core attributes from these initial experiences of being on the periphery and questioning one’s sense of belonging includes feeling different and/or somehow outside of a protective connection within their family or community.

Growing up I was very weird as a kid, I really was. I was just aware that we were different and wanted to know why we weren’t connected.

We were at openings and had drunk artists at our house; we were chasing cars down the road because my mom wanted to buy one. It was just this fabulous, wonderful, fun, create your life upbringing; but nobody could relate to it.

We would travel and we would camp a lot of the time; that was very different then any other families in our area.

What emerged out of these situations was a sense of intentionality and purposefulness around relationships and how belonging is established. Early experiences of feeling different or on one’s own resulted in feeling outside of the mainstream. This sense of being separate and peripheral became a familiar and ultimately comfortable relational paradigm for most individuals in this sample and resulted in a strong analytic, perspective-taking skill set used to be self-reliant and independent minded. Confidence and security evolved around being different or somehow outside the bell curve despite the sense of vulnerability one faces being outside the norm.

Until now I really believed that there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t fit under that curve, I couldn’t fit in the norm that everybody else was living.

She (an acquaintance) is not very attractive personally, kind of dark and judgmental and it’s like: she got married. So, it is hard not to go there sometimes and think: “Is something wrong with me?”

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The sense of something being wrong with them relates to being on the periphery and outside the bell curve of their community in an ongoing way. Questions about one’s inner sense of worth and how others see them surfaced for a number of interviewees. A self-reflective process is used to gain perspective and look at situations in terms of one’s self and others to figure out potential inadequacies, where one fits and how to manage these situations.

I think partially because the culture of how I was brought up and maybe just having a little bit of an inferiority complex for a long time. I felt like I probably wasn’t good enough to be considered to be anybody’s mate.

I do think I have a certain sense of awkwardness in terms of relationships.

I used to think well I am just as good as anybody else but then you realize that you are not and you get that information (from the world). That information doesn’t come from me.

The feeling of being different in one’s family or community ultimately is more of an internal paradigm influencing the independent and self sufficient way individuals in this sample engage in the world.

I projected this view I had of being different from everybody in my family onto the entire United States. It was like I was an oddity in the United States, that’s just what it felt like. It was like I was from another planet….

I just could not fit in (high school). I didn’t understand the class system. I didn’t look like everybody. My family shopped at thrift stores.… I don’t think people treated me badly, I think it was my perception of feeling alienated.

An aspect of feeling different and on the periphery is finding other sustaining relationships that afford a sense of connection and belonging. These relationships emerged in both in childhood and later, providing a sense of comfort and connection within the structure of being on the periphery and on ones’ own. Frequently these connections were initiated or offered by others, whether because they saw an unmet need

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in these individuals or because they simply responded to them in a friendly and caretaking manner. Sustaining relationships are acknowledged as being both functional and caretaking, but with a sense of independence. Many of these connections became long term relationships providing a sense of being held and supported.

I remember I have always had some good friends and people who would sort of take me under their wing, families you know where I would hang out. It was just not so much at home.

I had some amazingly good friendships that were just fun and creative. I felt like I was part of that family (of friends).

When I was in school we all looked out for each other. We definitely looked out for each other and I guess the group of friends I have now pretty much does the same thing. They stay in pretty good touch. It’s definitely not a surrogate family, it is not like a family; they are friends.

Many used these relationships as places to learn how to approach life decisions or learn about experiences outside one’s frame of reference. While acting independently, a sense of ongoing connection developed over time despite being on the periphery.

I always had this kind of wanderlust thing. I was in business and I said to my boss that I was going to quit so I could go to Europe and then doing something else when I came back. He said, “Why don’t you just take a leave of absence?” And okay then, so I did that. And the next year came around and then someone else I knew wanted to go to Europe because she had known that I had gone and the same thing happened, I am, “Quit,” “No, no, come back,” and so I did that.

Sometimes fear would creep in but it was a freeing time for me (living overseas) and I think that helped me to strengthen myself or develop myself enough so that I could come back to the U.S. My best friends have been women and we go on trips and things like that.

These are the people who I call when I have troubles and tell them how bad work is and things. These are people that I have emotionally relied on all my life, my good women friends.

As individuals who frequently engage deeply in their interests, common interests are also central to a process of making and sustaining connections.

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I have a close group of friends, some of whom are married and a couple of them are single, and they will just pop up and say do you want to go to theatre tomorrow and you know this kind of stuff. On a day-to-day basis I’m pretty happy with what I am doing, I usually, even my leisure time, I usually keep pretty busy.

Forming connections in a number of different arenas is another important way to create a sense of security and belonging while being independent. As individuals do not belong in any one group, there is freedom and openness to participate and connect more openly with a number of groups.

I crossed a lot of paths, I knew the artist group, I was in the intellectual group. So I had a lot of different friends.

This sense of openness to diverse experiences creates a web of relationships where no one person or place takes precedence. For those who have them, the diversity of these connections provides a sense of comfort in being independent while retaining a sense of belonging. Often these relationships and connections are formed within the context of pursuing one’s interests, which provide points of connection as well as the opportunity to learn.

I had a neighbor growing up who shaped a lot of who I was.

My best friend and her family, I always liked going to her house. It was always nice because her parents would ask about school and what was going on, they were involved. They had more of a family life.

(My friend) was the intellectual motivation for me wanting to do more with my professional life if I was capable of doing it. I was certainly attracted to the fact that their family was a pretty happy bunch of people and it was always a pleasant experience to be at their house. It was (different than mine).

While some of these relationships eventually became long-term connections, they were important in the short term to provide a sense of belonging, security and community in the face of feeling on the periphery. Having other sustaining relationships is

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important and most individuals engaged in these relationships thoughtfully, appreciatively and seriously. Many of these relationships provide the paradigm of alternative sustaining relationships and supports found in this sample, as a lifelong alternative to family and possibly marriage.

She and I became really good friends and we both helped each other grow. She liked me for my independence in some ways and she just was so nurturing to me and helped me to feel able to treat myself (in a nurturing way).

My best friend is a woman and we do everything for each other. She is the one who helped me after my surgery and took care of me. She is someone who is always there. If I date and it goes south she is there and if I’m not dating, she’s someone I can do things with. She is there and that allows you to go out and conquer the world. It’s very important to me.

She is my best friend and we’ve been friends for fifteen years. We go out to dinner to celebrate meeting, we do that every year. There are other people that I talked to, you know, several times a week but we talk almost every day.

These friendships and connections form a frame allowing a certain kind of relational deepening and trust, due to longevity or shared experiences, with a sense of independence and autonomy.

Typically the individuals in this sample are most comfortable functioning independently regardless of their relationships. Depending on others evokes a visceral response of discomfort and is often outside of one’s comfort zone.

I have had many “supporting” friendships. My close long-term friendships seem to be the relationships I feel most willing to accept as a “support” in my life. Of all of the relationships I have had, my close friendships have lasted for the most prolonged lengths of time and have consistently been able to sustain a “supporting” tenor I could depend upon.

However, being the dependent one is not a conscious goal for individuals.

I would describe myself as self reliant, independent but I really don’t think I am. I lived, I have set up my life so that … I travel and I have friends and a lot of things I enjoy doing but I think part of it is dependent.

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This set of individuals tries to blend into groups as much as they can and rely on their friendships to create a sense of connection and belonging regardless of being on the periphery.

I live in a place where I am not the 41-year-old guy who isn’t married or doesn’t tuck his shirt in. I am just like whatever, I don’t stand out at all, in other words.

A number of key skills emerged from being comfortable on the periphery, including the ability to gain perspective, figure things out, how to blend into the group and how to engage with others. The periphery allowed for greater independence within relationships and a confidence and comfort engaging on one’s own and maintaining a sense of independent-mindedness for these typically well-liked but unconventional individuals.

I would get into these philosophical discussions (with older neighborhood boys) when I was 13 or 14. They were very in-depth and I really loved it. I was missing that when I was hanging out with kids my age.

I did really well in a small situation where you know my intelligence was recognized, my personality was acceptable and people you know sort of enjoyed whatever quirkiness I had and then went into a high school where I just could not fit in.

Socially, I wasn't that comfortable with people my own age, I was a nerd, I was a brainiac, I didn't really fit in although I had friends.

Independence and experience became paths to self-exploration, offering ways to actualize one’s self and ultimately to be comfortable within a certain kind of relational freedom and autonomy.

At a young age I wanted to be with people who had interesting ideas and were excited about what they were doing.

I was definitely different in the family from everybody else. Not that they were all similar to each other but in my desire to spread my wings and go to see the world, that kind of thing, I was different.

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I had friends, I think I was popular, but I was just off into myself; I remember enjoying my own company and withdrawing.

Being on one’s own and on the periphery developed into comfort in one’s self and life style regardless of questions related to being different than the mainstream.

My family has the sense that I’m weird; “we don’t think he’s gay and he doesn’t have kids.” We just never connected on our values. I would have liked to have more of a relationship with my nephews but I can’t go anymore.

Luckily, I actually have a number of friends, as you pointed out maybe it is because this demographic is increasing, but I have a good eight or ten friends that I see regularly at least monthly and we are all single and we are all about the same age you know mid-40s kind of age. So that makes it a little bit easier (to not be married) and makes me feel less odd but there is a little something where I definitely feel odd.

As a kid I did have a sense of self and independence and doing what I wanted to do. At the same time I felt very insecure with all those messages from my mother about not being pretty enough or not this or that, I felt terribly insecure in just that one area. As I did well in school or work, I knew it was good work and that gave me a lot of self worth so I didn’t need that from superiors.

Pursuing one’s interests and using experiences to create a sense of belonging led to a paradigm of independent choices on the periphery of a greater community. For some, relationships became somewhat secondary to one’s interests.

I was interested in sports as a youth, then in college (went away) I had an urge to do something productive and went to medical school and after school I finished my various trainings. Then, I got bored and saw the world in a different way and subsequently went to business and law school.

In a nutshell my social life just took a backseat to training and then when I finally got started to work, then the work wasn’t too much better in terms of leisure time.

Others wound up engaging in relationship and environments that bridged their values while finding way to fit into the broader community in a manner true to one’s self.

I have chosen to move to a place and live in a world where my views and experiences are less out of step than they would be elsewhere, so I obviously prefer to be part of some community.

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My faith is important to me but my faith is different than it was. It is not the judging, horrible thing that I grew up in.

A resourcefulness around social situations developed in many individuals in this study. Socially as individuals who experienced themselves on the periphery, a number of interviewees became gatherers of people, often diverse individuals, and created their own groups.

I am a host by nature. I like to do things with people; I tend to do a lot of social planning, a wine tasting here or birthday party there. I do a lot of that. I am a networker.

My friend and I developed this thing, which was hanging out at my apartment where a group of people would come and we did different things like art history films. It really became a very consistent ongoing group.

In fact, one of my friends told me about 10 years ago when I had a gathering of friends over; he said it is always interesting to go to your gatherings they are such a diverse group.

I felt left out (in artist community) and thought this might be a more mature response to it. So, I started this film night, I would bring films and pretty soon everybody was coming in and asking at dinner what is tonight’s film? And then everybody came every night and they loved it.

Whether conscious or not, this gathering of others provides a sense of connection and community and creates a means to belong. While leadership and entrepreneurial skills are fundamental in terms of forming groups and networking, these skills are not always conscious. But the intentionality is evident in the development of these groups as a response to feeling on the periphery.

Sometimes when you feel really left out you can either feel left out or you can try to pull everybody together and just organize something.

The life that I was developing I would say in the 5 to 10 years preceding our meeting you know, it was so enjoyable in terms of the friendships that I still have this sort of group. They are a community that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on the experience of that part of my life, which was an aspect of being single.

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While relationships are important for a number of reasons, including friendship and support, many in this sample value relationships that actively engage in common interests and feel enriching.

I learned so much from him in a professional sense, he was a financial kind of guy and I just love learning stuff. And so that sort of launched my tennis activities and that stuck. He didn’t, but the tennis did.

I wound up finding real connections (in these groups) and some people who became key to my life, but none interested in dating me and that was good. It allowed me to have some of the connection and I need that emotional connection without the mess of keeping a single relationship going that would make other relationships more secondary.

I just stared at him because a lot of our relationship has been based on our enjoyment of the outdoors (and he just said he doesn’t like that). I said, who are you?

Earlier this year I had a period where I was just not conscious about relationships, for the first time it wasn’t in my mind—I bought a condo, I’d started a new job, sexually I’m pretty attuned to my body and desires but it was out of my consciousness for the first time ever.

Learning about one’s self and being true to one’s self are aspects of being on the periphery that many noted in this sample.

Honestly, I could say for the first at least 40 years of my life I believed that everybody looks at this bell shape curve and says, this is the norm. They call the people or these that are outside the bell curve the outliers, the abnormal people.

So part of that belief got ingrained in that I knew I didn’t fit under that bell curve, I just knew I didn’t.

Being on the periphery is a place that for some ultimately became unsatisfying, as a desire to be more fully a part of a community or relationship emerged. Using their multiple skill sets allowed a shift from focusing on relationships as something to be managed and figured out to focusing on one’s own desires and confidence that allowed

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greater openness to moving out of a peripheral position to a greater experience of belonging).

It was a slow thing, when I started thinking there is something I’m missing. My self-sufficiency and my abilities to con myself caused me not to seek out therapy or self-help or anything like that … I could be very selective in how I looked at things and point at the things that were going really well, like I always had a good job. I have a lot of people who work for me, I have plenty of money and that’s good, a nice car and I have friends. All of those things were true but by selectively picking out those things and ignoring the fact that what I didn’t have was a lot of long-term relationships and the friends that I had I don’t know how super close I was to them, are they really true intimate friends? Noticing that I am not as happy as I should have been during the day, if I can say “should have been.” It’s like selective evidence, you pick the things that support your case, ignore the things that don’t and over time in my late thirties or early forties or so it started coming to me, like you know what? There is more.

There is something to be said for not having a significant relationship. The notion that intimacy is having a personal relationship, that “what am I missing?” I’m not sure what it is but everyone else talks about it and has benefited so I assume there is something that is real about it. I’m not sure I could take advantage of it or that I am the sort of person that can easily speak their mind. I can’t tell (how well I am understood).

I sometimes feel I am not a full member of the community, because I stay a bit on the outside because I don’t like beginning to feel overwhelmed by responsibility.

And that is a problem you know because I have my friendship circles but I don’t have that continued sense of being part of a community. I am building towards something like that.

The experience of being on the periphery for many consolidates into a sense of comfort being different and on the periphery; somehow both a part of and separate from a group. A number of core skills developed from these experiences around a process of figuring things out. These skills including the ability for self-observation and perspective-taking that translate into understanding the broader context of relational dynamics and how to assess one’s position in a group. The ability to be a big-picture thinker emerges and is used to gain perspective. Being both a participant and an observer in groups allows the use of experience and observation to figure out

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expectations and the rules of engagement. An independent-minded and analytic process helps to define one’s beliefs and values in relation to the larger group, resulting in a mindful self-reliance on the periphery.

For most of my life I’ve been in love with someone or more than one person. If you are agnostic about what to do about it, you wind up having social arrangements that don’t fit the mold, that overlap relationships with one another.

What actually winds up making it seem more arbitrary is that you would simply go out with someone; marry someone, live with someone on the basis of your love for them. Once there is more than one person or once you break that early connection (between love and monogamy) the world begins to look different.

An aspect of being on the periphery is the development of a keen sense of attunement to others and responsiveness to situations. This is a skill related to being on the periphery but also for tuning into unspoken needs and challenges within environments or families. Awareness of unspoken knowns, of things that are not discussed but which impact life, lead to a vigilance in many within this sample to articulate and address these issues. This vigilance is a way to bring unknowns under one’s control and create a sense of being able to establish safety and control on one’s own.

My dad recognized of all the kids he felt like I listened to him the best. I might not take his advice or follow what he said but I heard him. I wasn’t reacting against him. He’s one of those people he’s a wonderful but… if he is telling the truth what’s the problem.

In many ways my parents were very different people and when they needed each other to try and help them understand how to deal with difficult issues., they both reverted to themselves, my father more internally, my mother to her family but my father to himself in an effort to seek some solution to more difficult challenges.

You didn’t see much affection, I didn’t see much affection, my mother would say to me how happy they were and I would say it doesn’t look that way to me I just want to say to myself, it doesn’t look at way to me.

I do have a brother who was not really in very good shape and he ended up committing suicide and that is still upsetting to think about. He was always

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different. So, I have to think that my parents had some worries about him but I don’t know because no one really said anything about that.

I just saw, I just saw. I just looked and saw the stress that was our daily life.

Getting us up in the morning, getting us dressed, getting our teeth brushed. This does not jibe with my view of the joys of adult life. Where you do it yourself, where you get up when you want to or when you need to not because someone makes you. Where someone doesn't tell you what to eat. I resented that I was forced to eat things I didn't want to eat.

This refined attunement to others, while being separate from them, allows for problem articulation and problem solving. Part of this process includes being the one to respond to these unspoken needs in an effort to address and resolve them. Often these skills developed in childhood around unspoken or unresolved issues one noticed but was not able to control fully. This skill set generalized into watching and analyzing groups and interactions to assess for ways to address issues and provide security in order to create or maintain a sense of comfort.

You say the word empathy. I have a feeling that I have a finely honed sense of hyper vigilance and that hyper vigilance makes me sensitive when somebody is feeling something bad just as much as it makes me tuned in when somebody is about to become the f—king guy. I am a person who watches.

I can refer to my parents for all kinds of things but mostly I don’t really want to know and they’ve done what I actually still think of as the service of not letting that become a point of explicit discussions.

I have a totally different relationship with my kid because we talk about everything. It is the opposite of my parents. We never talked about things.

A paradigm of figuring things out without speaking about them left some questions around how to address situations. As a group comfortable on their own, most individuals in this sample sought to resolve situations to re-establish a sense of stability and comfort.

Understanding the impact of unspoken knowns started for many in

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childhood with families who did not speak about significant issues leaving one on their own to figure out how to understand or cope with issues.

(Growing up) there was no getting angry about something. Let’s say my dad was late all the time or something, I have no idea what, but you just knew something happened. You have no idea quite what it was; they just stopped talking to each other maybe for a day or two. There is that kind of thing, there is never any yelling, there is never any kind of resolution.

What struck me is that you never know. By not saying something, that means everything is okay. But what was happening obviously wasn’t okay and that is exactly what stuck.

Important things in my family, no, they weren’t talked about like the important thing of my mom having this disease, which was something that was hugely disruptive.

My parent’s divorce or their separation was the first time that my sense of inner reality and outer reality matched.

Well the things that I really wanted to talk about and I tried to get them to talk about they didn’t want to talk about. Yeah, they’d talk about cultural issues or how they felt about Brandon Burke, that they would talk about but when it came down to asking the hard questions like why did you change religions? I never did get an answer to that.

Figuring out what is needed and assuming a problem-solving role in situations when issues remained unspoken developed into a familiar way to engage for many in this sample. How to engage around the unspoken and make it known when unacknowledged issues were disquieting was and remains a challenging but important process.

She wanted me to have a relationship, I think that would have made her feel that I am safe that I have somebody and am okay. But she didn’t really say that.

I reached out to him and I didn’t really know how to reach out to him because I didn’t know how to talk to him.

I think that (my sense of privacy) is probably rooted, it is like I am psychoanalyzing myself, in early models of protecting my personal life from my parents. I mentioned that I was going out with someone and my mother asked me (about it). I was like oh, you don’t understand and I thought to myself that is the last time I ever tell them anything like that. I never have since then.

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They get to a point were they are mad or they get mad and you never know at what point you are crossing the line or what it takes.

I think at that point I had it and I said no (to father’s request). Eventually he drove away and didn’t talk to me for like two or three days and then at some point he let it go. I tried to get some discussion but he just wouldn’t talk about it, I mean he wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t engage and finally he just let it go but there was no resolution. To this day I have no idea what his thoughts were about it.

I remember every little thing being such a struggle. Part of it I think was that you couldn’t have an open conversation about puberty or liking boys. It all had to be, or maybe that was just me but I think part of it was my parents, it was all secret: everything was secret.

Feeling responsible to figure out what is needed and offer assistance is a doubleedged sword for many in this sample. Issues that are beyond one’s control are left unaddressed, resulting in a desire to bring them under one’s control. Asserting the truth of things became critical to being able to negotiate situations and underlies the rigorous analytic aptitude of many in this sample.

I don’t have this vibe of need or some kind of agenda. I do much better in those situations then when I am with people that have some agenda and I feel some kind of pull to do or react or be something that I can’t. I think it is because I grew up in a situation where that was my world.

What struck me is that you never know. By not saying something, that means everything okay. But what was happening obviously wasn’t okay and that is exactly what stuck.

On the down side, I think there is something to be said that life is really not just about what one does in one’s life but about connections and the people and the relationships and the perpetuation of the group and the species. All of that I think is real but I didn’t think that when I was younger at all, I didn’t have the feeling when I was younger.

Being on the periphery resulted in this being a group confident in following their beliefs and standing on their own, independent with those around them and comfortable with being their own person and not conforming to the norms around them. There is a

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sense of using their values and voice as guides in the absence of external sources of guidance. Being unconventional and non-conformist is an outgrowth of this process of being true to one’s self and intentional in one’s actions. As a highly intentional group, the members of this sample find themselves unintentionally outside the bell curve. This intentional nature results in prolonged singleness not as a choice but related to other decisions feeling right or making more sense. Both early experiences of being on the periphery and a heightened awareness of being different from the majority of ones peers evoke a variety of feelings when thought about and acknowledged. These experiences are mastered through the development of competency and comfort in one’s values and self, regardless of where one is positioned interpersonally.

Being on the periphery develops a sense of comfort being on one’s own and using internal guides rather than convention or relationships to learn what is meaningful and important. In Eriksonian terms the independent and autonomous nature that emerged from being on the periphery of groups results in independence and tends to organize relationships around interests and pursuits. This process establishes a feeling of adequacy and answers questions of self worth and connection. Issues of shame and self doubt are addressed through the development of competency and a self determined sense of one’s role and place in relationships.

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The Responsible One/Make A Difference That caretaker mode led me to believe that I was responsible for everything and everyone in a room. If someone is unhappy, it is because of me and I have to go make them happy. Somebody needs some money, let me help them out. I never learned what healthy boundaries were.

Resourceful, analytic and responsive in most situations, the members of this sample assume a caretaking and responsible role in many situations and address the needs they identify around them as a means to establish a comfort zone and feel things are in control. Whether needs are interpersonal or environmental, this highly resilient, other oriented and problem solving group typically addresses issues and resolves them.

I am very much surround the problem, solve the problem, what are the actions that you should be taking. So, I am very solution-orientated and I am sure that comes from (a) being kept in the dark all the time (b) you are surrounded by erratic behavior so how do you get through things and (c) my mom’s behavior could be so erratic.

These well-developed skills related to attunement and getting emotions into a comfortable space, thereby decreasing potentially disruptive situations in an almost intuitive way, often relate to how early unsettling experiences were managed. Being in control and able to handle situations and emotions independently and responsibly are important in creating a comfortable space for many in this sample.

I remember a distinct memory of looking at clothing, I must have been 8 or 9, and my sister and my mother were just, “charge it, charge it,” and just wanted to buy everything they saw. I remember with this sort of weird neurosis looking at the price tag and I thought I was setting up my life's thoughts at the time in that if I spent money on something I didn't really love, then if I did really want something or love something I wouldn't have the money for it. And even then, I thought, that’s kind of a smart way to be and also a little weird.

A big theme in my therapy was my mother rages and just her being out of control and trying to deal with it. She did a lot of stuff and in therapy I could go “okay” (and manage it) because I did like 6 years of therapy.

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The development of skills related to being responsible and managing stressors, whether growing up or later, became a way to transform a vulnerable or challenging situation into a comfort zone by assuming responsibility to make things better.

I worked in the family business for about 20 years so I was part of the founding business. When I was a kid obviously sometimes I loved it and sometimes I really hated it. But it is business and it was a necessity; it is not, it was never a lark.

Maybe when it first started it was a lark, but after that it is not. If you have never been in a family business, it’s serious. You have to show up, you got to take care of it because it supports the family.

I did have the experience of translating for my parents from the time I was five on and had a lot of responsibility there and still do, to some extent.

It was hard sometimes, I have had some friendships where it is kind of a negative person and I am trying to help them learn to be positive and it didn’t work. And I found myself in that place a lot of times.

For many, this experience of being the responsible one is a way to master challenges and gain control, a role that was frequently endorsed by their family and became part of one’s identity as a facilitator or caretaker from early on.

I was always put in the position of go find your sister, we’ve gotta talk, we’ve got to take her to a therapist. So, I would be driving around not able to find her, thinking the family is going to fall apart and it is my fault because I couldn’t find her, then coming home in tears and feeling like I’ve let everybody down and they’re like “oh, she called us two hours ago.” It was very traumatic.

My sister who is more of the black sheep, the wild one, was the one who was right with my brother (significant illness) because she was always driving my parents, or being more of a pain, to do something. I know that it is true if I had been more demanding they would have listened to me. Not that my sister was irresponsible, I don’t know why but I know that is true; even my sister says that.

I kind of became a little bit of the human tape recorder because I would be like, “No Dad, Mom said this” and if I said that, he would listen to me and go oh, well okay. But sometimes I am like “Well, Mom, Dad’s right, you did say this” and so I never was really taking sides.

Regardless, making the world and one’s situations better is an important aspect of how many individuals in this study view their self and also how they maintain a comfort

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zone. This responsiveness entails a sense of concern for things beyond one’s self and an investment in doing what one can to make things better, often on a broad scale for those around one and for one’s environment. For many individuals a sense of citizenship with the broader group became an aspect of one’s sense of self.

We were kind of friends and kind of dating but I was dating other women. It was a bad situation and I didn’t know what to do. I was worried she would kill herself. So we figured out this financial arrangement and we bought a house together and by the time I’m 28 I feel I have responsibility to help this person and I am living somewhere I hate and wondering, how do I get out of this? I gave up 2-3 years of my life to keep her alive. I don’t know what other choice I could have made.

It’s important to find my purpose and feel like I’m contributing.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the kinds of things I want to do when I retire in terms of volunteering or getting involved with this organization or that organization, so those kinds of ideas keep flowing through my brain about how I want to allocate my day.

I wanted to do something to give back.

I grew up feeling America was wonderful and we all had opportunity. I understand as a tall white male I have a leg up but I am going to do whatever I can to level the playing field for others.

Focusing externally on others and helping manage their needs, or the needs within one’s environment, helps establish a state of balance and a comfort zone but also becomes a value on its own. The role of being a caretaker or a resource for families, friends and work place is a familiar and comfortable place for many interviewees.

I am the caretaker.

I might have become a therapist. This high school friend, who later told me her mother was an alcoholic, accused me of being a therapist, you know “stop trying to be my therapist” when I was in high school and I was like, oh, I am doing that?

There is a comfort in that role I have in the family of being taken care of still by everyone and kind of freely there for everyone too.

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Interestingly, despite being highly independent within relationships an adaptive quality emerged in many relationships where the other person or one’s environment set what feels like an almost static and immutable role that one could either adapt to or withdraw from. Being independent in relationships is a way to protect a space for one’s self in the face of this role of being the responsible one.

The personality characteristics I had growing up about being independent and needing to solve my own problems allowed for me to not be very aggressive with women. I could just stay self-sufficient if I am single.

I can go with the flow and I choose people who I respect and admire, whose flow I want to model, then I’ll go right with them.

A relational passivity emerges in this adaptiveness to the other. In romantic attachments this results in individuals often being pursued rather than the pursuer or simply not engaging at all.

It’s like if it happens it happens (finding a relationship), I’m not out searching for someone.

I always thought I would have to trip over somebody (to be in a relationship).

Right, I would have to trip over them. What are the odds?

I was very passive in my pursuit of relationships, very passive. The three most recent relationships, I pursued. But those were few and far between. I guess if something clicks I am not passive and I pursue it.

For my birthday she gives me a book, a journal and a wedding ring, I ask what does this mean? And she is like I don’t know, what does it mean? It’s cowardly of her. I didn’t know what she meant. Was she proposing, is this something serious and something we want to do? If she’d said, “I really want to marry you,” I’d have said, “Let’s do it.”

Being the responsible one also impacts the career choices in this sample, with many of the paths chosen by these individuals utilizing this skill. Many of the careers found in this sample are service-oriented and caretaking in nature, whether direct caregivers such as doctors or lawyers, or independent contractors who help others clarify

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their vision, such as designers or writers. Being on the periphery and on one’s own left very little middle ground, or collaborative space, to relationally define or redefine one’s role. What emerged was using one’s experiences and values to define the structure of one’s choices, resulting in a perceived need to either adapt to the other in these moments or lose one’s connection.

I wasn’t challenged and I was tied down with one family situation after another. I was working at the Fed at the time and I felt trapped, they had me slotted for a management position and I didn’t like having people work for me, I just didn’t see the challenge there for me. I really didn’t see a way out of it.

I went through a period of time when I tried to figure out how did I want to structure my life in terms of what I wanted to share with my family. One of those things was I wanted to see my family at holidays, I wanted to celebrate birthdays, I wanted to have this sort of structure around when I saw people and my brother was clearly a focal point of that. I planned Christmas (and he called to say he was staying home) …He said, you know I am not really a person who believes in holidays, birthdays, those kinds of formal, have-to-recognize type events, and so when you do this I just think that it is something that you want to do but it is not something that I want to do. He moved and I went off his emotional grid.

I think I would not marry unless it was extraordinary, necessary to the mental well-being of someone that I care about like a family member. I can’t imagine this scenario, but only that kind of scenario would overcome what I see now as a sort of political objection to participating in a state-sponsored marriage.

The role of caretaker or the responsive one is experienced, in many instances, as a deferring of one’s own needs to establish a comfort zone or be a part of a community or group. In these moments, relationships are experienced as a compromise of one’s self and a potential burden. While a role assumed willingly and valued in their lives, at times relationships are seen as drawing off energy rather than as an asset.

I felt very betrayed because I felt like I went out of my way to make sure that she (sister) knew what was going on and yet she had the nerve to tell me that I am reacting in an inappropriate way by making a big deal out of what most people would acknowledge as being pretty serious (father’s cancer).

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Making sure everyone was okay was a survival skill that developed. That is what it was. And I didn’t think to question, I didn’t think that it was unhealthy at all until well into adulthood when I learned some healthier behaviors and tools.

I’d seen a lot of women who fell in love or got married with not the right guy. I just didn’t want to be like that; I didn’t want to be in something where I had no control. I didn’t want something to be so important to me that I had no control over.

I didn’t start my business until I was relieved of my mother’s caregiving. I have been through it, I just go from one (caretaking situation) to another. My cousin said you know you picked a heck of thing to be good at and I still am (doing it).

This caretaking role manages certain uncomfortable feelings but contributes to a feeling within certain members that being close to people may entail a setting aside of their own needs. This feeling is particularly pronounced in romantic attachments.

Maybe (taking care of people) has become sort of an escape hatch. Yeah, I kind of look after people.

In work it is easier to rely on the structures that keep distance and structure the engagement, which makes it easier to get close (with people), but in personal relationships you’re on your own to figure out how to establish those parameters.

We seek what we are familiar with, that is absolutely the case; you seek somebody who is maybe emotionally unavailable and needy if that’s what you know.

[Romantic relationships] have advantages and disadvantages, but my belief is that to be intimately connected is to lose something rather than to gain something.

Being responsible and caretaking developed social competencies, including a tenacity to engage actively with others, follow through on one’s beliefs and use one’s drive and curiosity to create and explore relationships and other opportunities.

I have taken a lot of risks fairly easily but not like mountain climbing, not like bungee jumping or that kind of thing. But I think there is a part of me that has been able to take risks in going into areas just because it felt like it was the right thing to do or it felt like it was going to be a fun place to be.

In the 50s and 60s, it really was very difficult for women to get into the professional schools, but I was sort of challenged by the whole thing, I was a

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defiant little thing. Now my parents were not discouraging but they were not encouraging either because they didn’t want me to try to do something and then fail at it, do you know what I am saying? But I was, I guess it is the German background, it was like I was really determined to do this and if I failed you know then, okay, but at least I tried.

Maintaining a sense of being grounded and in a comfort zone through being a caretaker and responsible keep one’s focus on the present and oriented to the Now. This reinforces using experiences to find what feels right and establish a sense of security and comfort in one’s choices. Once security and comfort are established, there is freedom to explore the world and pursue one’s own desires. Yet, one’s interpersonal goals often take second place to the more clearly defined goal of being the responsible one and addressing issues as they arise. Being the caretaker keeps part one’s focus on the immediate both as a means to manage vulnerabilities and as a way to secure relationships from an independent and peripheral position.

I think I have never been one to really have clear parameters about what my expectations are of my life. I think that it was just more about maneuvering through it and trying to make the right decisions based on where I was at the time.

As I reached out, I found out from comments that people made that I’d helped them and I realized I’d been that person who helped them. I totally didn’t realize that, because when I helped them it was because I really liked hearing what people had to say but I was doing that a lot for other people. I was the one who was listening and never realized how powerful that could be for people, that I was playing that role for them.

An aspect of how this group engages interpersonally is with a strong orientation in and mindfulness regarding being in the moment and experiencing things in the Now. They immerse themselves in experiences and value, often above other values, using these moments to learn and explore interests and relationships. Keeping their energy in the moment is also a way to establish perspective, gain understanding and find a sense of comfort and security by finding what feels right. Being in the Now is a powerful tool

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for a establishing a sense of comfort and maintaining security on one’s own. It seems related to the strong independent streak noted in most individuals in this sample. Setting goals or following conventions is secondary to being in experiences that feel right and have meaning. This being in the Now is seen in the narratives of this sample where individuals used the present tense for almost all examples (some changed in this document for ease of reading) as well the use of the phrase “you” when describing experiences, as if placing one’s self into the moment.

The model of really being prepared for something that you are going to enjoy is something I do. Then, I put in extra time when I travel. But, (this process) applies to my relationships and to the day-to-day, too.

The time orientation of many in this sample is more Now than Future-oriented, and more experiential than goal-oriented. A number of individuals also report they don't have many memories — indicating this is a group that may not be so engaged in the past either.

I don’t have any memories.

If it weren't for photographs I don't know what I would remember, it would be very scattered, little bits and pieces. But that also I think can be a boon, because people I know who have perfect memory also seem to have more emotional pain in their life. My brain forces me to be in the present and in the future.

Given their interests and abilities, being in the Now allows for competencies in most social domains like friendships and networks as well as in professional and personal pursuits. These competencies develop through immersion in learning and exploring things in a visceral, experiential way. This process is a means through which many in this sample learn what they like and want to do. Of those interviewed who didn't know what they wanted to do, this was the process through which they developed interests and careers.

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I did not really know myself in a lot of ways and (the man she was dating) was planning to move and wanted me to move with him so I kind of tagged along, I guess.

Others in this sample had more of an early, single goal they pursued relentlessly.

I have made it a singular point since I was a teenager to become a doctor to help people and every day I get out of my bed when I go to work and my attitude is I am going to go and do something, help somebody, medications or something. I am going to do something.

As a group they invest in engaging in their interest actively in their lives, and a number feel a sense of responsibility for issue or individuals with whom they are engaged. They seek mastery in what they do and have a desire to make things better for others as well as themselves.

That first relationship was not healthy, it was me not having the right emotional skills and thinking like, you know, if you are attractive to somebody or you connect with somebody then you just go with that person. There really wasn’t a real good draw there between us. She was in a needy place and that’s why we came together. It was kind of like what my mom did. So that drew us together, but of course, there was nothing beyond that, so it didn’t last.

He touched me deeply. In the beginning there was something so familiar and passionate. We were together about a year and we talked a little bit about marriage but neither of us was ready to get married and chose other options. …

My friend really helped me realize that there was the part of (this relationship) that was like dying and that there was something wrong with the relationship.

A comfort zone is maintained or established through the experiences of being in situations where one’s innate capacities for problem-solving and responding to things prevail.

I started this career path. I knew what I wanted to do I because I had started to have experience with death and dying in the medical field and I loved that. It is still a passion.

There is something about my never being someone who draws a lot of attention to themselves. For much of my life I wasn’t. But this (current career) is one of the most attention-getting things that I could do and it draws a lot of attention to me.

So there’s something about moving away from that part of myself that didn’t want

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to be seen and really putting myself out there with this and gathering opinions and assumptions that I really like. It’s work that I love and I’m really good at it.

This experiential process and being more in the Now result in being less goaloriented than experience focused at times related to careers or relationships. These individuals are not driven by conventional goals.

The first several years I was doing things for a living that didn’t [meet my parents’ expectations]. I would work in gas stations and making a living. My life was fine, essentially not all that different than it is now that I have a job my parents respect. From their perspective, it was a problem that I wasn’t in a career.

These qualities of experience and intention as guiding principles, in intimate romantic attachments, locate one in situations without feeling in control of what happens based upon one's own initiative. These experiences often result in intense emotions and feeling flooded in a way that is outside of one’s control. This results in a sense of being overwhelmed in the Now, so to speak. Being immersed in the moment with less of a future focus, leaves individuals stuck in a flooded situation with limited recourse. Thus, some individuals are inclined to hold onto what they have in a somewhat fixed way regardless of its potential limitations while others simply don’t engage in these unsettling situations. A smaller subgroup comes to trust their ability to figure out the emotional unknowns they face. The challenge for members of this sample is that their typical competency curtails greater flexibility and resilience in the face of certain situations and relationships because they seek to establish comfort and control as a primary goal. This is especially true when control is more mutually co-created.

I'm so happy in my life as it is. I'm so busy and involved in doing so many things.

I've got my personal trainer certification, I'm getting my kick-boxing certification, I'm running a marathon, I'm taking dance classes, I'm very social and out there and I love — more than anything on earth — I love laying in my bed and reading a good book. I like doing that more than being in bed with a man now. I can start, as far as your study, I could start with my first boyfriend and explain what

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happened with all these things but right now (I’m in control). My phone rings day and night with men just looking for a little physical gratification.

Immersion as a means of mastery, in romance, can lead to intense and powerful connections (especially at first) but over time may lack the capacity to move to a more collaborative and future-oriented place. The intentionality of this group pulls them out of the Now in romantic relationships with less willingness to commit to the future because they are not sure how this will feel — that aspect of the relationship is still too unknown. Knowing what is going on is a means to establish a comfort zone and in relationships this can be difficult to assert. It is their very creativity, experiential nature and intentionality which pulls them out of relationships at times prematurely when they feel wrong or leave them in relationships too long in trying to figure them out. Most individuals in this group need to achieve a certain comfort zone before moving into a space where one's sense of self is redefined rather than elaborated in the Now. Being the responsible one is a way of resolving aspects of the developmental crises noted by Erikson related to experiencing one’s self as responsible and effective.

By assuming a responsive and resourceful role, one’s sense of competence and worth is asserted. This role also reinforces an active process to address goals and bring situations and relationship more within one’s control. These processes creates a caretaking role in relationships that tolerates high levels of autonomy and independence while also providing meaningful interpersonal interactions that do not require these individuals to become rely on others. The question of intimacy is addressed through this asymmetrical role by being the one relied upon rather than relying on others. This developmental style, while atypical, is effective in forming meaningful and important connections that tolerate

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independence and autonomy. Yet a certain static aspect to relationships can emerge as this role is somewhat inflexible and may foreclose more open interpersonal interactions.

Independent in Relationships What stood out for me was the way I felt answering questions about Depending On/Supporting on others — partners, family members — mothers, fathers, sibs…

Up until my father passed (when I was 13), I felt that I could depend upon someone. However, thereafter, it seemed like I could not depend on anyone.

Being independent in relationships is another common property of this group related to being on one’s own and on the periphery. Self-awareness and knowing what one wants are means to pursuing one’s interests in an independent and uncompromising way. In relationships this is a group attuned to others, who follow through on their interests and beliefs, often engaging in purposeful connections and responsive relationships. The sense of independence within relationships is related to being on one’s own and experiencing groups from a position of separateness. The degree of interpersonal independence noted in this sample at times limits their self-awareness of being uncompromising with others. Being a part of a team or a group isn't intuitive to most of this group since being on one’s own from very early on reinforced a core sense of being independent within relationships. Coming from families where important things generally weren't spoken about also increases a sense of self-reliance and independence.

There is both a sense of connection and a space of one's own found in the relationship of this mindful, highly analytic and intentional group. Being true to beliefs often takes precedence over relationships, since an analytic process often provided the source of security and safety rather than relationships.

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Independence within relationships reinforces comfort being on one’s own, on the periphery and retaining a certain kind of interpersonal space and freedom. This paradigm came in part from parental models of independence.

I mean my parents certainly never put pressure on me because my mother was very kind of quiet; she didn’t like to interfere with people’s lives.

My mom’s always been independent, she’s always worked even when she wasn’t supposed to work. My dad’s job was seasonal so she would get jobs off-season to help with the income. I guess she was my role model.

Other relationships were experienced as constricting and a model developed of one person being compromised or sacrificed because of their partnership or marriage — leaving these individuals anxious about depending on others.

I don’t think that I had a healthy model for a relationship other than obviously my mother has a way of dealing with things, which is to not express her anger and not express what she needs. So it took me a long time to figure out that that’s okay and to also do it in a way that’s productive rather than destructive.

One of the things that I took away from that home environment was independence, self-sustaining taking care of myself, not relying on other people to the point where even to this day it’s a hard thing for me to ask for help.

She is a very strong person; but it’s the world according to my mother, we had to adapt around her rather larger-than-life personality, for better and for worse.

Being in control of one’s life by retaining independence within relationships provides a sense of freedom and security.

My mom would always say, never be financially dependent on a man.

I remember thinking when I went into college that I was very afraid that I would end up with a very controlling man that would be like my mother.

This relational independence creates a space for the freedom to do what one wants and to follow one’s best judgment and beliefs without the need to compromise because one’s actions are not in keeping with someone else’s beliefs.

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I live with my mom and my sister. We live like three single women. My mom’s a widow. I mean I’m able to take care of my mom when she’s sick or my sister. …

I don’t have to answer to anyone; I don’t have to discuss what I do with anyone.

I have sort of the best of both worlds. I have a committed marriage-like relationship and I feel free and single at the same time.

I don’t want to be the bottom rung on the ladder anymore where I have to take all the crap from the administration in ways that I really disagree with. I feel like I want to be higher up in the system and making more changes that help the people at the bottom do their direct work better.

I am a testament, my life is a testament that if you decide not to have children your life is still full, it's more than full. It's your life, you get to keep your life.

You don't have to sacrifice, you don't have to be a slave.

The vast majority of my relationships are professional relationships rather than personal ones.

One’s experiences and assessments are guides to what feels right and become a barometer for how many individuals in this sample make decisions and choices. Choices are made on one’s own, often privately, through a rigorous assessment of outcomes and options. Others often misunderstand this independent process as impulsive, risky or not present. However most individuals engage an elaborate and self-assured process to ground their decision in analysis before acting on it, and then are confident in their position.

One of the more significant and more recent relationships, although for me more recent is probably close to 10 years ago, was after we broke up he was like I didn’t realize how strong you were. I think he was trying to push me or mold me in certain ways.

A big piece of being independent is that whole urge to solve things, the urge to look things directly in the eye, resolve things, come up with solutions, take action where action is necessary or appropriate. So that’s a strong trait, right? I guess maybe that is the main thing I am fairly independent.

This cautious, cognitive and analytic stance results in high levels of competence in most situations, as it is often a prelude to decision-making and action. Frequently a

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private process due to the intuitive way these individuals orient from a place of being on their own, this assessment allows individuals to make a choice and “figure it out.”

Coming from families where many issues remained unspoken, this need to know, figure things out and find a place where things feel right is a critical skill for establishing comfort and security.

I’ll tell you something, this was when I was 30, I remember a time when I had a relationship break up and I thought to myself if I am going through this, I am going to figure this out. So, I went into this isolation to figure it out. You don’t go to other people; you go into isolation.

I think that I usually plan things. I mean I think to other people it looks like I jump into things but I think about them a long time and then I act on them. I mean like adopting a kid would be an example of that, or you know buying this place or you know my other place, or I mean any big decision or purchase that I’ve made, I mean I really think about it a lot and then suddenly I am going to act on it, I think that it looks to other people like I just jump into things but I don’t. I think that I do plan things out.

I wouldn’t necessarily overachieve, but I would feel like I had to be thorough about everything so I spent a lot of time that didn’t yield much in the way of results at the expense of developing in other ways, probably socially.

In relationships, this is a group that tends to be uncompromising about their interests and, while adaptive to others, retains a place for themselves that is independent within relationships — true to their own wishes and desires, separate from the other.

I would love to have somebody, it would be wonderful but boy they better just work into my life pretty well because I'm just not willing to make too many compromises at this point.

He had this expectation that I was this sweet person and I wasn’t. He didn’t understand that because I wasn’t lashing back at him. I was just steady in who I was and I wasn’t going to let him tell me what to do.

I started thinking maybe my relationship is based on the fact that he does everything that I want to do and what does that say about me in terms of our experiences and he just seems to fit into it and he says he doesn’t like it. I may not really see him as a separate person in some ways.

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I did make a choice at that point and it was kind of looking at the balance, I was really struggling with if I had a child does that mean that I give up on getting married and that seemed very hard. But, there wasn’t a time limit on getting married and there is a time limit in having a child or even adopting a child.

Sometimes he’s like: “single moment, single moment“ because I will do something totally oblivious of him. Then I will sit there and go “God, would you just get a life, take care of yourself and be able to manage on your own.”

Competency is also used to establish a level of comfort and in most areas this is a powerful tool and used to strengthen and secure one’s self in an independent position.

This skill is more challenging in relationships with a sense of the unknown as most members in this sample value predictability and security. Fundamentally, there is a sense of comfort being in control and on one’s own in an independent and uncompromising manner.

I was part of the department and I was always valued, but I always liked having a foot out of the door. I come and go on my terms.

I tend to want to go on the other side of house (when disappointed in partner), it’s like you do your thing and let me just do whatever and so that’s fine.

I lived with someone before but doing it now seems very foreign. A lot would need to happen to make room for her.

I realized that I definitely have the need to be alone where I don’t have to talk to anyone.

Being on the periphery developed and reinforced a number of important skills for members of this sample. The ability to know one’s mind and be comfortable on one’s own within a group is a key asset for many in this group. They are typically independentminded while also being mindful in relationships and taking relationships seriously. In most instances, their well-developed sense of intentionality results in responsive and purposeful relationships. While retaining a sense of independence, there is also a sense of attunement and rigor in assessing what is going on within one’s environmental

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relationships keep one’s focus on developing one’s own judgment within a relational paradigm. This capacity to independently assess and problem solve relationally and situationally is an important skill set for most of these individuals.

Being able to figure things out and using one’s analytic skills results in a sense of resilience and competency. These skills positively impact one’s independence and selfreliance, with increasing comfort around being on one’s own and on the periphery of groups.

I am going to fight hard to figure it out, whatever I have to know, because it is too big a risk not to know. I want to figure this out and I am going to do whatever it takes to do that.

These strong critical-thinking and analytic skills developed from negotiating being on one’s own and on the periphery provide a powerful skill set for individuals in this sample to figure out issues within their environment and secure a plan of action. They are used to assessing situations in terms of key dynamics while also using one’s experience in the moment to figure things out, feel grounded and plan a course.

I always felt that it was not okay to be incompetent. So, you never wanted to be the first person experiencing me because I would be incompetent at it, as I could never acknowledge that I didn’t know how to do that certain thing.

I tied my identity to being the smart one. That has been very important to me and it’s something I have worked at for several years in therapy to try to let go of that need and be at peace with who I am. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the need to be the smartest person in the room. That was an awful burden to have, especially when there were smarter people in the room.

These skills are emblematic of how this group figures things out, taking security and comfort for both themselves and others seriously. The drive to establish stability and control in situations that feel unpredictable allows a freedom to immerse one’s self into a more fluid process — to learn it and understand it more fully.

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I can’t say it’s universal, but I assess things really quickly by adding up what are the pros and cons, to plan a course of action and what are the odds of success or failure. So I evaluate the things in that way, whether it’s life decisions or restaurants or other things.

This independent nature in how many of this sample problem-solve and make decisions creates a sense of impulsiveness due to the lack of conversation around this process. An elaborate and rigorous evaluation of options often precedes decisions as a way to figure things out. However, once things feel right there is little concern or worry in just moving forward on their own.

I usually plan things. I think to other people it looks like I jump into things but I think of them a long time and … then suddenly I am going to act on it.

I think I’ve always been independent-minded although it’s not always how I thought about myself.

Using a strong analytic aptitude to assess situations facilitates a process of figuring out issues as they occur, whether related to relationships or environmental dynamics. The desire to maintain or establish a comfort zone using this ability can curtail a more active exploration of choices and relationships by establishing a comfort zone as a primary goal, foreclosing looking at other options or possibilities. However, this process allows individuals to pursue their interests in a safe way, unencumbered by others.

I don’t think I’ve thought about myself as a risk taker or resilient in romantic attachments while in other areas I’ve taken big risks, moved to new places on a whim. So, in romantic attachments I don’t feel so open to risk-taking or so resilient in relationships.

I have always been open to meeting men and going out with men and traveling and trying stuff. So I guess people would describe me as being somewhat risktaking and adventuresome and I think that’s probably true. But now inside, I sometimes feel as though I hold back. I hold back from being too vulnerable.

When I do things, it’s usually when I know I am going to be safe with it, I’ve figured it out, it’s not like I go into some freefall.

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I am shy in certain situations; it’s a word I use to describe myself but only to myself but never to anyone else. It’s interesting you should use that word. Yes, that’s a fair assessment —when I’m grounded I pursue things and in less secure areas I pull back. It’s a paradox.

Tenacity and intentionality also emerge as skills and attributes that help manage the uncertainty developed from being independent in relationships and not fully a part of any group. The drive to understand things, assess options and secure one’s interests helps establish a sense of security being on one’s own while being true to one’s beliefs and sense of self.

In terms of how I found that independent part of my self, I’m a very curious person and that along with the opportunity for college changed (my life). There’s this movie, A Circle of Friends and Minnie Driver goes to college and comes home and says: “You took me to the top of mountain and show me the world and then tell me I can’t have that.” So, that rang true for me, here is every possibility in the world for me and yet you tell me I can’t do these things because I’m a woman or because of my ethnicity or because of God. I think it was the unfairness of that that drove me to reject many of the things (I grew up with.)

I don’t want someone to build my building based on faith. I come at it from a logical place that’s based on what are the facts at hand, what have people said, what experimentation do I need to do on my own to maybe support or challenge it.

I have a fair amount of insight into myself and to how I got to where I feel about things today. I tend to be sort of analytical about stuff.

I am independent. I don’t have to answer to anyone.

There is always this conflict in what I do, I may say something to you and then I’ll step back and see there is another side to it.

I like holding on to the things that are fun about being young. There are so many fun things that people do when they are younger because they can and the only thing that stops me from keeping doing them is somehow because there’s a development norm that precludes it. But, here (where he lives) it doesn’t, no one who is in my life would come over and say oh, it’s weird that you stay up late or it is weird that you have a lot of friends.

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Figuring things out on their own is important to most of those within this sample.

For many of these individuals, an analytic, evaluative process is used to assess situations and relationships closely. These skills of vigilance, thoroughness and assessment, further cultivated through success in school and learning, facilitated competence in the members of this sample. A love of learning and the pursuit of curiosity are core values in this sample, regardless of their value in one’s family.

However, education is a central value in most families.

I’ve never not been grateful that my parents worked all their lives to ensure that I could go to school. They both instilled in us from very early on that they wanted us to have all the education that we needed to have and they felt that was their principal role in life, to make sure that happened and they did.

I was very lucky I was a very good student; getting good grades came really easy.

I tied my identity to being the smart one. My whole life has been driven by that sense of being somebody who is not necessarily book smart but has a lot of common sense and is able to understand connections, whether it’s historical, social, economic or whatever.

I think education and honesty were important values, trustworthiness and fairness too. My father was of the mind to help the underdog and my mother was more entrepreneurial and materialistic.

It (academics) was totally important to my parents and elite private universities were the only schools that were on the map for us. And I grew up around a lot of intellectuals.

I never had to sacrifice about school. I was a good student and that is probably why I got to go to college, because that really wasn’t expected (because she was a girl).

Learning and competence developed into a source of pleasure and confidence in one’s self as well as a skill necessary to establish comfort. These skills are important to feeling capable of figuring out how to handle things. For a group who typically function independently, internal capacities and reinforcers are often more important than feedback

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from others. However, the individuals in this study also feel responsible for others and have an investment in giving back and helping others, which is part of their role.

I have done well in the work world because my nature is to stay busy and work hard and take on everyone else’s responsibility. Of course companies liked me.

I am typically not the bossy one. I seek out people that I share common things with and I march behind them. I am the back of the horse that is what I tell my clients. I will figure out how to make you look good.

I'm interesting in research so I do research now. I have a lot of fun with that. Its' really been a dream come true. I'm doing something good because I have information I feel like nobody has. I have things I can teach that nobody else can teach. It’s very rewarding to me.

I was starting working part-time as a bookkeeper for the (not for profit), but they saw that I was kind of a good jack-of-all-trades, or Jill-of-all-trades, and offered me a full-time position.

I don’t have faith, I have reason. I believe in science. I don’t need to prove or disprove it.

These experiences consolidate into self-sufficiency and the development of critical-thinking skills. Being conscious of being on one’s own often translates into awareness of and rigor about various groups. Becoming aware of the rules of engagement and conventions was a way of managing expectations that aren’t intuitive from the periphery; it creates resourcefulness in figuring out how to fit in or blend in with a community.

We would kind of hang out with her a little bit and we would go over to her house and listen to rock and roll basically, which was not allowed in our house. That is where I tried to catch up with the music of my day.

I had to learn how to behave properly in the U.S. I was really fascinated by place setting and in how people introduce themselves. What you are supposed to do in certain situations. I love the idea of manners. Etiquette is not about rules, but about making people feel comfortable. There was so much of me that was never sure and always traversing two very different worlds at school and at home. I think I always felt like the foreigner.

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Initially, following the rules provided a comfort zone to secure one’s position interpersonally. For many, this process started in childhood, using compliance as a way to find ones’ place on the periphery.

My beliefs have evolved over time. Growing up I was pretty much the goodytwo-shoes (religious family). I was thinking about that the other day, I don’t know why. On the bus they had said Little Miss Perfect referring to me, and I thought that was a compliment and I thought oh, gosh, this is in junior high, that’s not exactly what I should have felt but it was what I was trying to be and I thought, “Oh, good, I am getting there. It’s working.”

I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers and make anyone uncomfortable or be uncomfortable.

I was always aware I was the good one. I was the easy one, and I was pleased about that, it was kind of a gift I was giving my parents and (our nanny).

In adulthood this took on a quality of being independent within these expectations, and seeking a place to be one’s self and retain one’s connections.

I am fundamentally inclined to follow the rules. This is part of the conflict I’ve lived with a lot of my life. In certain ways I am quite rebellious, in many ways antithetical to some of the ideas I’ve put forth. I am also driven by guilt or respect, by a sense of connection to my people in the broadest sense — a sense of who I am.

I like to think of myself as independent or unconventional, right that’s it. I don’t like to think of myself as defiant. … Some people who enjoy thinking unconventionally also like to feel like they are crusading for something, they are making a point.

While the ability to assess and evaluate situations is a powerful and useful skill in most venues of life, for the individuals in this sample this ability can derail them from engaging more spontaneously and being less cautious in moments where some form of faith is needed to tolerate the unknown. While these moments can occur in a number of places, they often occur in the uncertainty of forming an intimate romantic attachment.

One of the decisions I’ve come to be most critical about [in himself] is that I didn’t marry and have a family. I think in some instances [relationships were

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going there] and I may have not been able to see or recognize opportunities or understood that was there, I may have not seen them.

I had found that I would rather be alone than be in a controlling crazy relationship. You know, I don’t want to be alone forever, but I don’t want that.

I don’t think I’ve thought about myself as a risk-taker or resilient in romantic attachments, while in other areas I’ve taken big risks, I’ve moved to places on a whim. But in romantic attachments I don’t feel so open to risk-taking or resilient in relationships.

Regardless, many in this group ponder deep analytic questions and use their aptitude in assessing situations to figure out how to handle different situations. This skill is coupled with a realization that ultimately, one has to find one’s own personal meaning, resolve things and move forward.

The way I think of it is, what is the truth? The reality is that the answer depends on whose truth you are talking about. At some point I realized that you can sit here until the day that you die and ask what is the truth? So, that’s kind of a moot point.

I think that is what drives me nuts with the person that I work for, because you don’t know what’s the truth and you will never know. So I think you have to come to a point where you ask: does this person matter enough to work this hard, or is it just that you have to figure out what is going to find what you are willing to do and not do, and let that become your way.

This is what I always say to my daughter: the thing that you never see as a kid, you never see the reconciliation and that is really important to know as a kid that this does happen and that people forgive each other. I never knew that as a kid. I always thought, another argument and that is it, the family is breaking apart. My parents actually said that.

He is about making everything okay and I am about, let’s find out what is really wrong.

Another aspect of being independent in relationships is it encouraged individuals to be experiential learners who dive into events as a way of understanding things.

Immersion in experiences is emblematic of how many in this sample learn and come to

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understand themselves. While highly analytic, there is a parallel process of figuring things out through action that allows one to know when things feel right.

I’ve quit my job three times to travel; it’s a viewpoint. I don’t see that as risk, I see that as why I am here on earth.

The visceral experience of situations — their experience — is an important aspect of how members of this sample assess for risks, figure out what to do and when to move forward and “just do it.” While in general a group who hold back in the face of uncertainty, once they have done due diligence in assessing a situation and things feel right, they move forward and let go.

So I am feeling something and how I behave depends on what the stimulator is.

But in a lot of instances I am probably more sensitive to track what happens around me than, say, peers at work.

When I’m grounded I pursue things, and in less secure areas I pull back.

Those eight months really showed me what love meant and what it feels like to be in a, what I thought at the time was, a healthy relationship, That opened my eyes, it really did open my eyes to the beauty of being in love, the beauty of being able to let go of control and to be with somebody in a loving, sharing way.

Things are going so well, but the big goals I set were huge risks and were completely independent. It wasn’t like there was somebody where we were like “Okay, honey, let’s buy a house.” They were things I did on my own and if I’d had a family I probably won’t have done it because it’s part of the creativity you can have when you are on your own.

Another aspect of being independent in relationships is the ability to “figure it out” to know when things feel right. There is a tenacity in how these individuals pursue their interests and a desire to freely explore situations and learn once one is ready to do things. However they get there, once a decision is made to move forward, there is a freedom and drive to fulfill one’s interests and engage things deeply.

When I was younger I got into the workforce and started doing things and I always loved what I did. It wasn’t like work to me. Especially when I was

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young, it was a great experience. So as I became more successful or whatever, younger people saw me as being successful or career-oriented and I didn’t even think about that; it didn’t even occur to me that that’s what was happening. I was just doing what I liked doing.

I want to be happy and learn; that is what I want. I do think that is what I did throughout my life. When I stopped learning I would start to make some kind of change.

I want to find out for myself, I’ll put my hand on the flame. I want to know. It’s not just the search for truth, it’s not just about knowing myself, it’s really about everything It is so funny because in some ways I am (adventurous and courageous) and stuff and in other ways I am not a risk-taker at all. I mean the decision really isn’t (conscious), you are not thinking about whether you are being courageous or not, it’s a whole other thing… you just do it.

Part of me is eager to go out there and have that sense of fulfillment when I took six years of research and turned it into a physical reality and was able to go out there and got to enjoy it and see this landscape that I had been reading about and was able to go out there and breath it and feel it and that was so amazingly fulfilling even though it wasn’t that big a deal.

Part of just doing it and taking risks is the pleasure found in doing what one wants and living one’s life in concert with one’s beliefs and desires.

I love my life, I love my relationships with people and I love the things that I’m into; but the core is a quest for the truth, whether it’s the truth about myself or other things. I’m always trying to cut through the bullshit and be with myself because that is the only way I can grow and move forward.

I know I can do things. I have confidence on some levels but I feel that there is something now at this point through all of this experience and through all of this there is something that I can offer in a much more meaningful way. I just haven’t figured out what that is.

I wanted to travel and I figured out to be able to focus on the travel I did research about a physical transformation as well as the social economic history and the art and literature. Doing that kind of research gave me the experience going out there that I knew what the experience was of those people, how they feel, I could recognize what they were saying and then also had my own experience.

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Using experiential opportunities to explore situations is a way to learn how to sort through issues that are not directly understood. Immersion is a means to understand unspoken knowns, both the events and feelings, and to be securely independent in relationships.

First I traveled around for about 10 months and then I decided I wanted to live there and moved out of my apartment and went home to see my father and told him I was moving out of the country. Nobody could understand what I was doing, but anyway that is what I was doing.

I joined martial arts, kicking and punching is just the best therapy on earth, you know, just sweating it out, working it out that way. And martial arts is a good thing, it refocused me and slowly but surely I think I would credit martial arts with getting me out of that depression.

I don’t know how much of a goal setter I really was; I’m not overly ambitious. I have done well in the work world because part of my nature is to stay busy and work hard and take on everyone else’s responsibility.

One of the things that began to occur to me was to be happy, to have pleasure and to enjoy things. That wasn’t always so intuitive.

Being independent in relationships allows these individuals to engage in a process that offers a sense of belonging and self protection. While cautious and security conscious, they are also comfortable taking significant risks and challenging themselves once their questions are answered. In general they are more process-oriented than goaloriented, with clear interests they engage in actively and often professionally.

Carefulness around establishing a sense of security is coupled with an adventurousness and pleasure in exploration and learning. By being independent and untethered by relationship restrictions, there is a seemingly young spirit in the exploratory and experiential pleasure found in living life in their own way. Using a finely honed skill set, the competent, independent and resourceful nature of this sample is seen in how they define them self individually rather than through the other.

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Developmentally, the crisis of intimacy vs. isolation is resolved by maintaining a position of independence in relationships. This allows one to follow one’s beliefs and be true to one’s self in an intentional and well thought out manner. Relationships are established and sustained but rarely defining. While often uncompromising in one’s values and interests, a sense of belonging is established by being responsive and caretaking towards others. Shared interests provide ample forums for establishing meaningful connections. A civic mindedness and sense of advocacy on a community or global scale emerges in a number of individuals as part of identifying with vulnerablility on more general terms.

Comfort Zone/ Safety and Making a Difference I need to feel comfortable. When there is something that I feel I don’t understand, I get easily sidetracked and in my mind it is like, “no way.” It just seems like it is a “brakes on” kind of place to be. I am not going to get into that until I feel like I know where things stand.

Being responsible, careful and competent in the things one does for many in this sample is a way to ensure a level of comfort and security. While these skills address a personal need for maintaining a comfort zone, taking care of others and the broader world as extensions of one’s self becomes an almost intuitive process for many of this sample.

Well-developed skills regarding assessing the needs around one for potential issues and figuring things out whether individual or environmental, engages a generally thoughtful and careful responsiveness to addressing and resolving the issues that arise.

A finely honed sense of attunement is used to assess one’s surroundings and others to establish or maintain a sense of comfort and security. Maintaining a comfort zone is important for many in this sample, perhaps related to an early history of feeling

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on their own and being on the periphery of their family and/or community, often in challenging situations. Growing up in families where important issue remained unspoken, especially regarding significant challenges in childhood intensified a desire for safety and comfort. This process contributes to the high level of attunement and vigilance this group exerts in assessing their environment and their responsiveness as a means of maintaining a comfort zone for one’s self. This is a group of individuals who, while able to function well within certain situations that entail a lot of uncertainty, emotionally like to feel grounded and have their emotions in control.

My attitude comes from a realization, from seeing it in my own family particularly, that if you can't control yourself, you can't control life. There's a joy in controlling and if you can control your body, your looks, you can control your décor and your surroundings; if you can control your behavior, there's a confidence; a deep confidence that comes. Even if it's illusory, an illusion that one can keep control of life but we do it little by little by controlling things in small ways, knowing that at any time you could be out of control.

Having a sense of control over one’s emotional responses is a property noted by many in this sample as a way to maintain a comfort zone and secure a space to follow their passions. Emotional intensity is unsettling and potentially disabling at times, resulting in a certain amount of avoidance of emotionally charged relationships.

Whether romantic or not, having self-control and the ability to establish a sense of comfort are important skills for many of these individuals. Attunement to emotional dynamics allows one to anticipate and manage emotionally challenging situations and try to avoid anxiety producing experiences.

I am afraid of failure or exposing that I haven’t made (something) happen yet; with adopting a kid, I don’t think that I told my family until very late in the process because I figured they would not approve and I was right, none of them approved.

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He is a conflict avoidant, which I guess I am comfortable with but I don’t avoid saying the things that upset me.

I mean the amount of time that I would spend obsessing should I or shouldn’t I, and should I have or shouldn’t I have. It filled up many years.

I have a dislike of the publicness of that arrangement (couple), like that people know you are involved with someone and they talk about, it. I don’t like both this public exposure and scrutiny of private relationships and I also don’t like the loss of individuality that seems to attend being a couple. You’re not a person, you are part of a unit.

Growing up in families with significant challenges affected individuals in this sample to be sensitive to emotional variances and unsettling relational situations. While not necessarily articulated as traumas as much as challenges, managing them reinforced a need to learn to manage and control emotions to remain in a comfort zone.

My father had a benign brain tumor when I was a sophomore in high school and just the idea of my father being so close to dying and being so sick for a while affected me a lot. And then I watched my mom take care of him, enough though she hated him, and that was kind of difficult.

My mom was always sad (after brother died at four, she was six) and I just wanted her to smile. I would draw her pictures and try to make her happy. I think that was the first thing that really, really seriously affected my life.

For a number of interviewees, certain parental difficulties are identified as traumatic in a way that other challenges were not. These experiences may contribute to how many in this sample are uncompromising in their relationships and see romantic relationships as potentially more compromising than replenishing.

The divorce issues were traumatic and the inability of my parents to get on with the divorce and going to court. They were struggling and battling each other as though they were both noble opponents.

I think the trauma would probably be around the divorce scenario. It was hard because of the way it happened. It just took me a long time before I would accept my dad again. Even when he did come back in the house, just everything I defined as what a father should be changed. You don’t look at him like a person.

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It is hard to see your father do something that I consider pretty awful and not just to a wife but to the whole family.

The fact that they got divorced was a relief. I mean it was like finally, I've been waiting 20 years for this, 30 years for this you know I've been waiting so long for this to happen. And you know finally they have a chance to be happy.

Self-control serves an important function in mastering challenging feelings; many individuals in this sample assume control and responsibility throughout their life course as a way to address feelings of discomfort. The desire to make a difference in the face of challenges brings unsettling feelings into control. However, the feelings of anxiety and avoidance in some of these moments at times are disarming.

I don’t remember being punished. I guess I tended to establish overly strict rules for myself.

I liked what was predictable (emotionally), what I could expect on a regular basis and not the extremes. That is probably one of the reasons why I didn’t seek out actively, or all that often, a relationship; because relationships can involve extremes as my current one does. My natural inclination to be an (emotional) six and predictable and comfortable.

When one is not able to regain a sense of comfort, extreme emotions are evoked.

These moments occur in a number of different venues and are unsettling in a significant way.

I always think that I am on the verge of catastrophe, like I am going to be fired the next day. I get that horrible sinking feeling and then I am just kind of hiding at my desk and that to me is so much what I went through as a kid. Like I’ve said something wrong, this person will never talk to me again, and then I am going to die.

Being in control of myself in little ways helps me be more patient with people who are different from me. The less in control I am of myself, the more crazed I feel, the more fearful I am and the more likely to be impatient and intolerant of others.

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I used to have this boss that used to scream, you would go back to your desk and you would be emotionally overwhelmed with this screaming, and if somebody would come over to me and say I am so sorry that was horrible, I would burst into tears. But, if the person, if nobody did that, if people allowed me to kind of just put my head down, focus on work, don’t think about it until you got it at a safe emotional distance or whatever, you are in a different environment, I was fine.

I realized the problem is I am trying to adapt to her and that is what is killing me.

I am not being true to myself and I think that is what happens when I get into these situations where you need to adjust to someone who doesn’t make sense but has authority. I think that it is probably inherited from my parents where they tend to defer to authority. All of sudden I realize, wait a minute, there is something I am bringing here and I can’t ignore that. I think that it is the same situation with relationships.

These are individuals who are typically responsible and proactive in relationships. Relationships are figured out through a combination of observation and experiences, analyzing situations to be able to figure out their meaning and modes of engagement. A seeming passivity emerges regarding relationships and the natural competency many in this sample experience in most domains of their lives is compromised, frequently in the area of romantic relationships, as the paradigm of adapting to the other while retaining independence is challenged.

I never was one to go, to pursue somebody who had no interest in me. If you didn’t have an interest in me, never ever, ever would I be one to pursue someone like that. There is a fear of rejection I think that is a component of my passivity.

So many of my friends are obsessed with finding a man and getting married, I just could never do it especially at this stage in my life. I could never do it; it is just too emotionally exhausting to be dating these guys for a year and then breaking up. I would have to hear about this kind of stuff and it is like oh, no. I just go home to my cat and that’s it.

I wasn’t able to show my fears you know. I didn’t want anyone to see I was nervous. I didn’t want anyone to see anything that … could be seen as some deficiency or something that I thought put me in a bad light, or somebody might think bad of me or think that I am stupid or, you know, something like that. So, I was guarded. I was monitoring my behavior.

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Maintaining a sense of control and comfort in most situations is partially achieved by being in the present and using experiences in the Now. Using these beliefs as a guide for action, these values and being true to one’s beliefs helps maintain emotional control and comfort.

I don’t like to judge someone for choosing to be in it, but I do think that marriage seems objectionable. This is not about my personal life, it is not about anything that really like that actually core important to me, but I do think of it. It’s weird and indefensible that the state provides special benefits to people who choose to engage in a particular arrangement. It is certainly objectionable that men and women can marry and that men can’t marry men and women can’t marry women.

And that is enough to make it objectionable but I am not entirely sure that if I lived in a state that granted same-sex marriage, that would fully overcome my objection to it.

I just know needing to stay in my comfort zone and having these insecurities and fears about self-sufficiency; all of those things that I brought with me into adulthood from growing up, are the things that allowed me to not be really active in finding a partner. I know that. .

Being able to assess environments effectively to establish or recreate a comfort zone is a skill used to decrease environmental stressors. Being responsive and/or adaptive to others can be a way to try to establish or create a comfort zone, but for some this led to a sense that relationships dictate a setting aside of one’s own needs and, in some way, impose a burden.

I was deferring for a good part of my life actually. I mean I had my teenage rebellion. But even in my 30s I was really shy and quiet. I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers and make anyone uncomfortable or be uncomfortable.

It seems to be almost a dichotomy: as a kid I had a sense of self. I was independent and did what I wanted to do. At the same time I felt very insecure with all those messages from my mother about not being pretty enough or not this or that enough. I felt terribly insecure in just that one area (relationships).

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The members of this sample take security seriously, especially financial security, and see this as a means to being able to do what one wants and remain true to one’s self while retaining one’s comfort zone.

I fancy myself as a risk-taker in specific situations, but when it comes to core things I try to cover the bases really, really well, like in financial areas.

Remaining independent and not placing one’s self in a dependent position are fundamental to maintaining a sense of comfort and feeling things are good enough.

I would say I'm liberal but financially I'm extremely conservative. I need to know that there is a 6-months-out savings in case I lose my job.

I am fiscally conservative and don’t seek material things. But, interesting enough, I am disinclined at taking risks that others would think are worthwhile risks.

Like, rather than starting my own practice I like the structure of an organization.

With my practice I attached myself to an old colleague of mine and got myself involved in that way, with the benefits and the limitations.

Money was always very important to me and I always felt like neurotic about money and I still am even though I grew up in well-to-do surroundings and there was no real need for me to think as though I was poor.

I will work three jobs if I have to, I just did whatever I had to, to obtain whatever I needed; to buy my first car, to move out of my parents’ house; to make that next step. So that’s why I feel like I’ll never, ever be dependent on a man.

Securing one’s independence and security for some is related to avoiding dynamics seen in their parents’ relationships. It also stems from the coping strategies developed to manage others’ expectations.

The one thing that’s an influence from my parents is never, ever being put in a situation my mother was put in; meaning I will always make enough money to support myself, I will always be independent enough that I'm never dependent on a man. Never, ever, financially.

My mom would always say, “Never be financially dependent on a man.”

This whole thing that you get married and you stay married 50 years, it is not a reality. I mean if people do it, it is so rare to meet that couple. I get to meet them sometimes in hospice where they are truly really in love all of those years. The

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rest of the time they are just doing it because they have to, or it is easy or they are scared or they think that they can’t live without them financially, they don’t know any other way.

Of course I got good jobs because I was willing to work Saturdays, I was willing do what it took to get things done and since I was a people pleaser, people liked me and those were all the reasons why in the work world I tended to do pretty well. But, I don’t know that I characterize myself as very goal-oriented.

Financial security is an aspect of being in a comfort zone. This is seen as a means to facilitate one’s adventurous and exploratory spirit. Interviewees secure their financial needs first, establishing a sense of safety and comfort, then are able to pursue or explore situations with a high tolerance for facing challenges. Establishing a comfort zone, while about financial wellbeing, is also about the ability to pursue one’s interests and values and have experiences deemed important and true to one’s self.

I don’t make excuses that I have way more than most others, way more and it’s wasteful but I’m not doing it with an arrogant wastefulness.

I am a little less [financially] conservative than I used to be, I wanted my material things, if you will not material things but my travel, my hobbies, a little more than my bank account apparently.

I became the stewardess because I thought when he came back we were going to get married and have children and I always wanted to travel and I thought this was my opportunity to keep me growing and occupied.

Establishing security through financial means serves an important function as an avenue to personal freedom and opportunity. Once a sense of comfort and security is established, individuals assess risks well and pursue their interests actively. However, this process may also foreclose other opportunities that are less prominent in one’s paradigm at the time.

One of the things I did in my life was to wait till I was financially secure to think about [marriage, children, etc.] and by the time I got there it was a little too late. I kept waiting for things to get better, and lo and behold by the time I got there,

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everything had passed me by. I never thought of it as traumatic. It heightened a sense of insecurity. In hindsight it was driven by a bit of insecurity.

I went through a transition in my late 20s and early 30s where I do all these things that make a living. I have a corporate job but what I want to devote myself towards is serious learning and things I have a passion for and that drove the last 15 years and who I am now.

Using experience as opportunities for self-exploration and learning is a hallmark of many individuals in this sample. These processes offer a visceral process to figure what feels right, coupled with an analytic process of assessing for risks and/or security.

I was in my late 30s or whatever, I really wanted to have a kid, I really wanted to have kids and that is why when I broke up with him I said, Oh, this is stupid, just forget marriage, just do it on your own.

Another aspect of being in a comfort zone is knowing when to act on one’s beliefs. The individuals in this sample are typically active physically, socially and civically. Their motto, in a manner of speaking, is “just do it,” get involved and make a difference in their own lives as well as others. However, a rigorous analytic process of assessing choices carefully before acting tempers the freedom of letting go and just doing it. This is a hallmark of the decision-making for many in this sample. Figuring things out, as noted in the prior chapter, is an elaborate decision-making process often done privately as this group is used to acting on their own. This is not generally a group that intuitively thinks to include others. Once this internal process of assessing both risk and opportunity, most often privately, there is great freedom in “just doing it”, whatever the “it” is. This results in what seem to others as impulsive or risky choices, which is far from the truth.

I learned early on I didn’t have a lot of needs of my own or least I ignored them, I pretended that I didn’t have a lot of needs of my own.

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My brother came to live with me. It was at the time when my partner was moving in. I think we should have just talked about it. I don’t know why we didn’t talk about it. I don’t know if it was more of a presumption on my part, or a presumption on her part. There was a lot of confusion and just not very good negotiating or communication or interaction skills on both of our parts.

I don’t see it as risk when I quit my job to do things. A lot of people I know think it’s crazy but they have different responsibilities, they have families and kids.

This private process seems related to protecting a space of one’s own and one’s choices from being influenced by the expectations of others or the pull to be responsive to others.

I like to have my control over my space and a sense of independence in sort of making decisions. I am very careful about getting overwhelmed by commitments and expectations, other people’s agendas. There is something about community that has felt like it takes something away rather than it offers me something and that’s what’s shifting. I mean I am actually seeing more of the possibility that you can still hold on to yourself and be part of a community; I guess it’s another way sort of thing.

This model of protecting my personal life not only made me feel like it was private but also insulated me from various forms of moral judgment and critiques.

It helped me not internalize some of the forms of morality that most people, lots of people live by or struggle against or feel the need to defy. I feel like early decisions where one doesn’t talk about it with parents and people like that made it easier to have forms of judgment that (were my own).

Comfort is achieved using both a rigorous process of figuring things out as well as experiences to know what feels right and explore various interests. These are often solitary or individual pursuits that may have led at times to social connections, but often are born out of an individual rather than a relational paradigm. This process of exploring one’s interests encourages remaining more actively in the present, and reinforces being in the Now to find meaning and clarify one’s values.

Life is what I am doing when I am not at work, if I am doing it right. I’m going out and traveling and experiencing things and people where I am experiencing flow in a real sense.

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Well, there is just things where you just kind of do it, that is a kind of feeling where you know you just got to do it even if those things may entail a certain kind of courage.

I am passionate about what I do.

We were staying in this villa, it was so beautiful and exciting and I remember going outside and seeing a tree and it had an orange on it, a green tree and it had a beautiful orange on it and I just thought what a miracle it could be December and looking at this beautiful orange. Now I own two acres and I have 200 orange trees and it’s just kind of a continuation of that marvel in that how wonderful things can be all year round. How much I need that, the sun and flowers and life.

I just wanted to get rid of the crap and I was finally ready to let go.

I had that Depression Era like oh, I might need this and you know I had that mentality of you know the whole frugal you know. But, I make enough money now if I need another one I can just buy another coffee maker and this one is just gross and chipped and I just want to get rid of it. I'll buy a new one… So, I just put things in the alley with a note that it was free. And that was just huge because when you clear your space, you clear your mind.

A lot of time is invested in the preparatory work to figure things out in order to feel confident committing one’s self to action. This critical-thinking process can add a mildly obsessive or vigilant quality to decision-making; it seems to relate to assessing for security, often in an unspoken way, while asserting one’s interest independently. Even for this highly independent group, these experiences can be fraught with anxiety about making the right decision. This reflects a worry about how to sustaining a sense of connection with the other while asserting one’s desires. This abstract, self-reflective process is perhaps a residue of the early anxiety felt about being different, on the periphery and on one’s own.

[Obsessing] filled up a lot of therapy hours of just being so anxious and finally just acting on a choice and it wasn’t just even around relationships, it would be around this constant doubt that whether are you doing the right thing or not.

It’s the letting go, it’s just making the choice and letting it go and getting around the corner from what you know to something new. I think [that insecurity] has gone on relationships, it has gone on with all sorts of things.

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I started thinking about children when I was 17. I looked around at all these women and I felt, I don't get it. They don't look happy and everybody's kids are screaming. I started to look and not just assume.

Establishing and maintaining a comfort zone provides a sense of safety and security in being on one’s own and on the periphery of groups. A number of key processes are used to create a sense of comfort including relying on strong analytic skills to assess for potential outcomes. Once these concerns are addressed this is a group of individuals comfortable on their own and often do things others might see as risky or poorly considered. It is their very confidence and self assurance being on their own that allows for high levels of comfort in independent activities and choices. However, in certain areas they are risk adverse. Financial security is very important to feeling able to take care of one’s self and be independent in a confident manner. Perhaps counter intuitively, in romantic relationships the experiential nature of decision making in this group coupled with their adaptive and responsive nature towards other, creates a degree of uncertainty about being able to retain a space for their self and trusting their typical sense of confidence.

In Eriksonian terms, maintaining a comfort zone impacts the developmental crisises of identity vs. role confusion, and intimacy vs. isolation through a reliance on inner resources as markers for how to pursue things meaningfully rather than using relationships.

Engaging in meaningful careers

and relationships on their own terms using both a rigorous analytic process to figure things out as well as experience to find what feels right. This process provides comfort being on their own and on the periphery. Being responsible and

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caretaking in relationships, while retaining a high level of independence, allows one’s identity to be defined by interests and aptitudes rather than relationships.

Issues of isolation are slow to enter their consciousness given their confidence and contentment being on their own. A sense of connection to the broader group rather than a local connection emerges from the periphery. Despite meaningful and sustaining relationships, the unique and individual interests of these individuals are their source of identification. The process of generativity in this group is established through their responsive efforts to make a difference in their lives and for others. Their reliance on establishing a comfort zone at times forecloses the development of new roles and relationship as having a sense of cohesion and security dominate decisions in relationships.

A Space of One’s Own/Prolonged Singlehood I don’t experience as natural and automatic the transition between loving someone and any particular thing like sharing financial resources, living in the same house, talking to them on the phone. Some of those things I like to do, some of those things I don’t like to do, but either way it doesn’t seem like there is a natural leap from one to the next.

The question of singleness, or the absence of marriage, is intriguing for this competent and likable group of individuals who are intensely protective of their space despite many being very responsible and caretaking. Prolonged singleness is not a specific goal or choice except in one or two cases. The question of singlehood relates to the highly independent and self sufficient nature of this group who are comfortable on their own and engage in relationships in an independent manner. A sense of identity that is individually driven rather than relational in nature is present in most of these

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individuals. The members of this sample assumed they would marry and many were engaged at one time. All interviewees have been in relationships they considered significant. Yet, being in a partnership is somewhat antithetical to the independent nature of how this group orients interpersonally.

There is comfort and security found in being on one’s own or being in relationships that adapted around ones’ interests. These are the most common structures related to intimate relationship in this sample. For some being on one’s own is a preferred place and relationships are secondary to other values and interests. For the majority of this sample, prolonged singleness is syntonic with their independent sense of self and comfort being on their own. For a relatively small number in this sample the high levels of competence achieved in most aspects of life generates an increasing awareness of feeling something was missing that awakened a self-realization of certain unattended needs.

I started this kind of slow slide because I never quit my jobs, they were always stressful, I never had that sense of relief [like with summer from school]. So, the cycle is affecting a slow but steady descendant, I hate to say descant because it never got that bad, but more isolation you know less going out and doing things more keeping to myself.

[Living out of the country] was transformational for me because I was really happy there.

I am having an experience of working to have a sense of being in a relationship different than what I ever had before. So, that is meaningful to me. However it ends up I am pleased that someone has come into my life that I can honestly really work on a relationship with because that has never been there.

For others having long term connections provided the predictability and security to allow a different quality to emerge in the relationship.

I met him [fiancé] in school actually many years ago and he was not really interested. He had worse fears than I did about it. A few years ago so he had

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some emotional challenges and reached out to me and so we just spent time together and I just encouraged him to stay in my life as a friend and not to runaway or disappear. So I just don’t do that, there is no need to do that, we can be friends. So that is what we did, we stayed friends and then it just evolved.

We were actually engaged and then we split up and he kind of went to therapy for a while and I am in therapy off and on. I haven’t gone for a while but I would say 5 or 6 years, well 6 years maybe. So, I came to conclusion that this is just the way he is. I can’t worry about what he wants. I feel it is just something that he has got to express and if I step on his toes he’s got to step up and say something and I just can’t be responsible.

For those in romantic partnerships, one’s independence and interpersonal space needs to be respected and understood.

He was the first person that I felt I could be more who I was, I have a need to have certain amount of personal, independent life. I guess you would say I don’t like to feel like I am hemmed in. It is not like I want to do very much, but I don’t feel hemmed down.

A partner for me would be someone with whom I don’t need to be “plugged in”.

This openness to new situations for some interviewees allows more fluid engagement in groups as well as in romantic partnerships once questions of personal space and comfort are resolved. This capacity unfolds most frequently through involvement in some therapeutic process either therapy or Alnon. It is not something one can do alone.

It is interesting with Al-Anon, which is not a huge part of my life socially by any means, but one of the things that I have been doing there is stepping up more around a comfortable presence organizationally. That’s just something very different for me to do.

In terms of the question of singleness and marriage, the highly intentional and purposeful nature of relationships emerge from being on the periphery and result in a certain asymmetry in relationships. As a group uncomfortable with uncertainty and interpersonal unknowns the strategies of adapting and responding are ways to establish a

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sense of connection. This focus on the other encourages using the moment as a way to see if things feel right and to establish a sense of security. The resulting prolonged singleness is related to seeking a comfort zone by being self reliant, independent in relationships and retaining a personal space in which to get grounded.

I bring a lot of plans, energy; we are going to do this and that and who talks about things with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. He brings that kind of steady facilitating companionship thing and organizes more around who I am.

I guess my fear is if I said I loved him to him that he, that he would just be so excited and smoother me or something.

The security of longer term connections lets one feel grounded and secure in one’s self within a relationships that affords the interpersonal space needed by most members of this sample to regroup and in some instances allows for greater relational openness and space with a partner.

What I like about our relationship is that we have actively been learning how to try and be real adults with each other.

This transition of a being a single person to this couple has been hard for me because I was used to going out a lot and with different friends, not to bars, but different things going on. I always liked to go out and be active and the challenge for me has been to make the transition to going out with my single friends and you know having the time at home with my fiancĂŠ.

Feeling grounded and self sufficient in one’s ability to figure things out and establish a sense of comfort through competence provides a deep sense of self confidence for most of the individuals in this sample. This level of control and security is challenged in romantic relationships. Intimate relationships entail a level of unpredictability and openness to the others that is counter-intuitive for individuals in this sample. These are typically the reliable one and this is

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comfortable for this independent set of individuals as it avoids the need to be dependent, while engaging in meaningful and important ways.

I think I have been pretty good with my own therapy. I am very practical; I have definitely preventative tendencies in terms of like there is a path.

The personality characteristics I had growing up of being independent and needing to solve my own problems allowed for me to not be very aggressive about relationships. Maybe I could just stay self-sufficient if I am single.

Romantic relationships are experienced by most interviewees as a source of discomfort and anxiety; moving one outside of their comfort zone in a difficult to handle manner. The unsettling range of feelings in these is disquieting.

Wanting to stay comfortable and not have drama my life; you know every relationship I’ve had has involved drama to the extreme including my current one. Those personality attributes are what caused me or allowed me to be single longer than I would have otherwise.

[Dating] made me anxious and I wasn’t comfortable exposing myself, I was very guarded. So I wasn’t really showing who I was.

I don’t like that self-presentation. One of the things that people seem to like about marriage or coupling in general is that you can appear to the world as part of a couple. It protects you from all kinds of things and grabs you certain sorts of legitimacy and it permits you access to social worlds that operate on the basis of couple hood all that. I have, this is obviously political objection to that, I have had three long-term romantic relationships. I never felt that I could rely on these for support. Probably I never let that level of dependency develop. I was not comfortable with that level of neediness.

Break ups are described as especially emotionally unsettling, often impacting one’s ability to function effectively and compromised one’s sense of being in control of one’s comfort zone, independence and self sufficiency.

I worked for many years to get past how screwed up I was about the breakup and unable to gracefully let it go.

Like other relationships I’ve been through it was very hard to get over when it was over, all three times.

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I have a lot of anxiety about how could I survive the break up of this relationship.

That feeling has sort of plagued me through the years, having difficulty in letting things go and letting people go. I still am someone who loves continuity and retaining routines and rituals and so anything that is a change is hard.

What I recall was that we laughed a lot, were intellectually stimulating to each other, had great debates. We stretched each other. We had great sex. But ultimately, I broke off the relationship because, although I loved him passionately, I found the repeated departures incredibly painful.

Being so far out of one’s comfort zone in these experiences lead to a number of individuals simply avoiding relationships for periods of time or disinterest in relationships in general because they were too outside one’s comfort zone.

My whole life I've always been able to get myself through things you know through all my problems and that [breakup] was the first time ever I felt like I need help, I can't handle this; I was just crying all the time.

I thought well, he is really nice fellow, I mean this could lead to something. That particular relationship [breakup] was really pretty painful. It was like wait a minute you can’t be depressed and sorrowful, you have to go into work tomorrow and be cheerful to the patients and be professional. This is not time to have a little breakdown. I got to keep functioning here you can’t just hide in your room and cry and stuff it is like you have to get back up and go to work the next day We spent 3 years together, lived together for a year of it. We were probably on the path to marriage although again in all honesty I don’t think that I had the skills, I didn’t have the right emotional depth or knowledge at that point to really be in a healthy relationship.

For others, relationships and breakups are something outside one’s current paradigm of relationships.

I don’t attach much significance to those types of connections between people.

I was in love with someone in college and that ended badly and then I dated again and that was short and ended badly. Then I had a one night stand with a guy I knew pretty well and I went through a man hating period. Fuck this, I’m not going to be involved with these guys.

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Even more than a reaction to bad relationships it was I never wanted there to be something in my life that was important that I couldn’t control.

There was a girl after college who broke up with me, I couldn’t deal with it. This goes to the core of what you are studying in why I’m not married. It was like gees, I don’t want to feel that again. I just did not get attached that way.

The implication of needing to remain in a comfort zone and being so analytic and intentional in how one approaches situations has implications for romance and marriage.

While seeking of experiences, the risk aversive nature of theses individuals, coupled with a strong reliance on analytic process to figure out risks, results in holding back in situations or relationships less in one’s control and more likely to entail emotional variations. The security in maintaining a level of comfort is critical to tolerating a high level of uncertainty as long as they are in one’s control. In relationships, especially romantic relationships, being in control is challenging at times and impossible at other times.

My mom was always kind of “figure it out,” I mean every now and then she would have problems and cry but for the most part she was “just deal with things” and had very little patience if my sister and I got into a fight or something. It was like “just work it out.” And so it is kind of hard when you are trying to enter into a relationship to allow the vulnerability to come out, to really test the waters.

This leads to many of the romantic relationships established within this sample either tolerating high levels of independence for the subject or organizing in a somewhat uncompromising way around the interests of the individual in the sample with whom they are involved.

For most of my life I’ve been in love with someone or more than one person. If you are agnostic about what to do about it, you wind up having social arrangements that don’t fit the mold, that overlap relationships with one another.

What actually winds up making it seem more arbitrary is that you would simply go out with someone; marry someone, live with someone on the basis of your love for them. Once there is more than one person or once you break that early connection [between love and monogamy] the world begins to look different.

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I can survive [a breakup] but I don’t want to have to do it again. I’ve experienced it and it hurt a lot for a while but I know I can handle it. That made me feel strong and that I’d be okay.

It appeals to me to be involved in what I am passionate about [whatever it is].

My life is pretty full and I haven’t really pursued relationships.

Remaining on the periphery of groups allow the creation of a space for one's self within relationships. This space of one’s own is important to feeling secure in relationships as it creates a place that is secure and protected from the way most of the individuals in this group engage as the responsible one in relationship. In romantic relationships, the space between one’s self and the other is somewhat uncharted ground.

Using the skills developed to be secure on one’s own and on the periphery, the highly independent and intentional interpersonal style in this sample, results in feeling unsettled in these types of relationships.

If I had a much clearer understanding, I mean a more complete understanding; I think I wouldn’t need to be so protective of my space with him.

I think for much of my life I have resisted and I have done a good job of protecting my privacy. I can’t control how people think of me but I certainly did a good job and a better job over the years of having long term serious intimate relationships that are not fully absorbed into the clutches of peoples taxonomies and peoples surveillance.

The ubiquitous social expectation of marriage is not a given for those in this sample, although it was expected. The idea of marriage is engaged with thoughtfully and in a serious manner although these relationships are often not pursued because they can be challenging and outside of one’s comfort zone. Marriage and coupling at times feel too defining for this independent set of individuals.

At one time one of the reasons to not marry was the freedom even if it was hypothetical freedom, just the notion that I could do whatever I wanted whenever

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I wanted was enough to not marry. I didn’t want to be tied to someone else because I wasn’t sure the person was capable, able, willing and would put up with me to some extent. So I think I’ve always looked at that as a major advantage, I haven’t taken advantage of those freedoms but the notion that I had the freedom was sufficient to pursue things on that side.

One of the things that people seem to like about marriage or couplehood in general is that you can appear to the world of part of a couple. It protects you from all kinds of things and grabs you certain sorts of legitimacy and it permits you access to social worlds that operate on the basis of couple hood and all that.

Feeling resilient regarding sustaining a comfort zone in times when relationships involve more uncertainty is achieved by getting through challenging situations until one can figure out alternatives that offer greater comfort. There is a degree of avoidance of unsettling emotional places in how this sample establishes a comfort zone that leaves some in this sample in a static place relationally, too anxious to move forward or to remain in the situations to resolve it. A majority of the subjects in this sample are in a somewhat static place in terms of romantic.

In terms of risks, I don't like to do anything that is irrevocable, a irrevocable risk.

I was conscious early on of like things, I would say the word sexual as the domain of a kind of privacy into which admits peers but not parents. [I assumed] a model of protecting a personal life that not only made me feel like it was private but also I think insulated from various forms of moral judgment and critiques. It helped me not internalize some of the forms of internal personal morality that most people, lots of people live by or struggle against or feel the need to defy.

I think the bottom line is if I had grown up in a healthy environment I would be married now and I would have kids and I am convinced of that. And I am not saying that I missed out on that or I feel bad that I don’t it is what it is and I am comfortable with that aspect to it.

It's not that I have not maternal urges, I just have a huge heart but I don't let it take over my rational mind. My rational mind is much bigger; it’s much stronger then my heart.

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For others there is a sense of mastering developmental issues in an atypical way, focusing on more pressing issues or interests and focusing on relationships at a later point.

I might marry in my twilight years.

I joke about being romantically developmentally delayed. In growing up I was not allowed to date, it was always structured. We were kept separate and it was totally unrealistic that in your 20s you’re supposed to know what to do. I was doing in my 20s what most people here were doing in high school. Then in my 30s I was doing what most people did in their 20s. So I figure in my 40s I’ll do what most people do in their 30s.

The ability and willingness to tolerate uncertainty in relationships is a skill a number of individuals sought to master but were not able to do on their own. Therapy is often a place to develop these skills, which provides a safe space to learn to become more flexible and expansive relationships.

My therapist was really good about at taking me outside that comfort zone and teaching me how to understand patience, messiness and all of that kind of stuff.

I assumed my issues were around abandonment because my mother left us, but my therapist said it’s more about if something bad happens knowing that if it happens it won’t just crush me. Those early relationships were just so painful in ending, and except for the one in college, they weren’t even important relationships. But the rejection was really overwhelming. Now I feel I have more confidence even if something doesn’t work out.

I started working with my analyst in therapy. I really felt that there was nobody who really knew me, I felt this pain of not really being known. Now, somewhere that changed because I no longer feel that pain of not being known which is not just him, it is also my relationships that I have today.

It was almost incidental the way that I found myself in Alon. I just found a book one day and I am thumbing threw it and there is a chapter on what characteristics you would expect to find in somebody raised in that environment and I had most of them. I went down the list and I said well, I guess I never realized how much it affected me growing up.

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For those engaged in romantic attachments, a sense of learning something new and feeling greater confidence and self awareness is important and valued.

[The shift to being a couple has been significant] and to be able to be intimate and feel very comfortable with somebody really for the first time in my life, where I reached this you know comfort level with another person, is pretty amazing to me. I think why couldn’t have been comfortable like this before?

Securing one’s space independently and being able to take care of one’s self and have a space of ones own are factors contributing to this group remaining single and independent in relationships.

I don’t want to be “rescue me,” that was too much pressure and I knew I need to do this myself.

I never really lived with anybody so it is not like I was living with these men. It was kind of interesting, I would spend a lot of time with them or we would share space at periods of time but you know it wasn’t like I gave up my space and then moved with somebody. In some way I have always had my own space that I could always go to.

I really need time to just be in my own space For the most part, the individuals interviewed for this study are content and satisfied in their lives. They are competent professionally and satisfied relationally and intellectually. Their lives have the emotional space needed to feel grounded and content in one’s relationships and choices. For many in this sample, their developmental needs are met in non-traditional alternative ways, based on their interests and social proclivities. This is a group who followed a different path, but it’s been a good journey rich in things that interest them and are deeply satisfying.

There is a good road and a bad road, and you take the good road and those roads are very clear. I’ve clearly gone down the bad road a bit according to her—but it was a good road for me.

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I'm constantly feeling fortunate, blessed, lucky and because of that, maybe it's secondary or irrelevant, but I feel like, because I have this fortunate foundation, I have an obligation to create an extraordinary life. I'm not an average person; I'm unique. I have a lifetime of knowledge that nobody on the planet has and I believe that. You know some weird little niche, my little niche and I'm not secretive about it and I'm generous with it because that is my joy.

I think I am very persistent in my life. I am not sure there could be much more that I want or that I feel I need to be going after right now. I actually feel pretty content.

As a group typically task focused and immersed in their experiences, it is a later shifting paradigm to focus on one’s own needs and asserting one’s own needs. A new focus prioritizing one’s own comfort and desires is somewhat novel and increasingly a valuable asset.

I’ve worked my ass off to get to this place and I can enjoy the beauty. It’s just a good place and I don’t’ feel bad that I got here and there are still poor people. I still care but I’m not going to make it my identity. I want something that will make me smile.

I value being able to appreciate more things and just that I knew what I needed as opposed to what sounded like a fun and more fantasy based wishes. I don’t want to spend time on fantasy.

I don't want to have regrets. I want to say that I did everything that I wanted to do. I feel I had such a wonderful life and I've have more than almost anyone on the planet has ever had historically.

I could really say, I am 40 something now, that I don’t really need any of this crap [marriage etc]. I have my own financial security, I can be alone and I am happy with myself.

The level of comfort and security found in this group regarding doing the things that matter to them results in individuals who are happy in their lives. Their responsive and caretaking nature commonly evolves into a sense of broader citizenship, in many instances resulting in a sense of civic mindedness and mission driven efforts. There is a quality of living their lives on their own terms, based on personal values and interests.

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I am not trying to be a certain person. This is what fulfills me and my life is very, very rich in a way that are natural to me and energize me.

It appeals to me to be involved in what I am passionate about [whatever it is].

You have to figure you know your mission is to figure out what really makes me happy what do I really want and you know I've gone through many ups and downs of the whole feeling needy and you know and trying to make somebody into somebody who would make me happy and I finally came full circle back to the place were I was originally which was I make myself happy.

There’s something really satisfying about doing this kind of work and I am really satisfied. There is something about learning about the mind and body that is my life work right now. I’m really, really lucky to be able to do this.

I am very, very happy with my life I am extremely I think that I am probably in the 1 or 2 percent category of people that truly enjoys their work. I really love what I do and I don’t have any regrets about my life or I don’t sit around being depressed or lonely about things that might have been or could have been or something. I am just really happy with what I have.

Being true to one’s self is seen in the satisfaction these individuals have in their lives and career choices. Being on the periphery and independent in relationships allows for a apace where one is in control of their decisions and choices and value relationships.

This independence ensures control in one’s life and the space to do what one wants.

While very caretaking and supportive of others there is a uncompromising nature to how most of the individuals in this sample engage.. A paradigm emerged later in life of factoring personal goals into relationships and choices that balances the adaptive and at times passive way this group engages in a caretaking role. This role historically set aside one’s own needs. While remaining caretaking and responsible in many venues of one’s life, a higher premium is being placed upon integrating one’s own desires into relationships.

Because I had enough experience, I know I can do things I have confidence on some levels but I feel that there is something now at this point through all of this

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experience and through all of this there is something that I can offer in a much more meaningful way and I just haven’t figured out what that is.

When you’re 18 there’s a ton of people who look interesting. As you get older, you start paring down the number of folks who are available and interesting. If you have strong beliefs you further narrow down the people you can really connect to and be with. It’s not just being set in your ways, for me it’s about not getting set in my ways.

Now I am working on balancing the other side, maybe slowing down a little bit looking at what I need to have, and not saying that I don’t have any needs and they are not important even if I did. So, now I am working on the other side of the coin.

It was important to have people in my life who have a compassion for others and even if it’s not making disparaging comments due to race or weight, it’s a necessity.

The experiential and intentional nature of this group leaves marriage as an expected event but not a goal in and of its self. It is secondary to other values and is rarely pursued, as a goal in and of it's self by the individuals in this sample. Delayed marriage and/or disinterest in marriage or intimate relationships are related to marriage assuming a secondary role to other interests and pursuits. There is a tendency in most of these individuals to gravitate towards experiences that endorse a sense of mastery and competence. Given that more intimate relationships often entail intense emotions that can be unsettling and less within one’s control, these relationships are less actively pursued than other interests.

Coming from a place of being on one’s own and peripheral to groups, there is a value placed on establishing a sense of security and comfort. Experiential learning and analytic evaluation provides processes to figure things out and establish comfort before one makes a choice. Once safety and comfort are established, often through a laborious and lengthy process, the adventurous and experimental nature of many in this group takes

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over and they propel themselves into choices to “just do it.” This process is somewhat of a default place in which one does what one likes, but in a manner that feels secure. In ways this free spirit contributes to the independent nature and vocational choices of many in this sample. Their natural competence and active engagement in interests makes them appealing professionally and interpersonally. An anomaly occurs in the domain of romantic attachments where this problem solving paradigm results in less in control and challenges the skills used by many in this sample to establish competence, maintain a comfort zone and feel in control of one’s personal space.

Developmentally, this sample masters the stages articulated by Erikson in their own manner and time. Prolonged singleness results from integrating a sense of independence and intentionality in the choices they make and the things they pursue.

While responsible and caretaking interpersonally, relationships often entail a sense of setting aside one’s self to be there for others. This caretaking role creates a sense of comfort and but may foreclose flexibility in romantic attachments. This group invests in things they are good at and enjoy. Following through on their beliefs and making a difference is a value of many interviewed. Ensuring a safe and comfortable space for one’s self as well as others is important as is engaging in experiences one finds valuable.

A participant/observer role in groups increases one’s awareness of how individuals depend on a group and encourages a caretaking response. Making sure one’s environment, and those within one’s circle of concern, is secure is part of how these individuals figure things out. In Eriksonian terms, this is a highly generative group starting at an early age. A sense of belonging is created through advocacy as a means of

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connection from the peripheral position of members of this sample. A space of their own is necessary given the independent but responsible nature of this group

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CHAPTER V

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

I am in this state were it is like that’s nice but it’s just not realistic. If I go down that path with him, I feel like I am going to ignore some part of me or some part of what I am experiencing and I just don’t feel like ignoring it. This is not going to resolve what I feel needs to get resolved. So, I tend to separate myself from it because I don’t want to go down this path of being disconnected to what I am feeling, to what’s going on with me. It is not like I can’t let go of it, it is just not a choice.

This group of competent, over forty, never married adults form a meaningful group through the coalescence of a variety of life experiences that result in a highly intentional and independent sense of identity. Six categories emerged out of the narrative data in this study. These categories include: On One’s Own; On the Periphery; The Responsible One; Independent in Relationships; Comfort Zone/Make a Difference; and A Space of One’s Own. Articulating various aspects of the experiences of this group highlights highly resourceful and competent individuals who orient in life fundamentally from an individual sense of identity rather than a more relational one.

Being on one’s own is an experience evolving out of early relationships that did not foster a reliable sense of dependency for a variety of reasons. Growing up in families where important issues and significant challenges were not discussed or acknowledged resulted in the absence of guidance within one’s families. These

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experiences evolved into resourcefully seeking alternative guidance and an intuitive comfort being self reliant. An additional aspect of these early experiences is feeling that marriage compromised at least one parents, resulting in an early paradigm of seeing intimate relationships as restricting rather than supporting self actualization. Being on one’s own, often in challenging situations, created a precocious awareness of vulnerability and a model of self reliance and trusting one’s self.

Being on the periphery is another aspect articulating the experience of this independent and resourceful group of individuals. The experience of being on one’s own positions one on the periphery of various groups. A finely honed sense of attunement emerges to both participate in and observe these experiences. Being on the periphery enhances awareness of the function group membership provides individuals and how access these functions. Whether life circumstances or one’s personality set one apart or somehow outside a protective circle of concern; understanding the rules and expectations of belonging underlies compassion in vulnerable positions and how to create a sense of belonging while being on one’s own. A number of critical thinking skills developed including observing group process as well as one’s experience and understanding how different factors influence each other. Being attuned to the various dynamics in one’s environment is a skill related to being on the periphery and managing the unspoken knowns found within these experiences and reinforces a sense of self sufficiency and independence in connections.

Being the responsible one is a role initially developed to address issues within one’s family and community, as a way to establish a sense of security and control in challenging situations. A responsiveness and problem solving orientation to challenges

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emerged from early experiences trying to support a vulnerable parent or perceived at risk individual. This generalized into a caretaking and responsible role with others and well as one’s community. These individuals understand, sometimes intuitively and at other times consciously, the impact of group membership and vulnerability. There is a drive to ameliorate these vulnerabilities by putting unspoken knowns into shared realities and taking care of vulnerable individuals or difficult situations. This process reinforces a focus on immediate issues and keeps many in this cohort focused on the Now and adapting to others or their environment to address issues. Figuring it out when something is needed, analyzing and assessing situations, involves skills many in this sample come to rely. One aspect of the inherent asymmetry being the caretaker entails a deferring on one’s own needs in an almost unthought, unspoken manner.

Independence in relationships emerges as a means to pursue one’s interests regardless of how responsive or adaptive one is to others. Being independent s sustains a connection from the periphery and maintains a sense of belonging, while protecting one’s interests. The intentional and purposeful skill set developed in assessing situations and pursing interests and goals underscore this paradigm of independence. Being true to one’s self evolves into the important tool of using experiential learning to know how things feel.. This process is generally pleasurable regardless of how one’s goals got articulated.

The creation of a comfort zone is a way to feel grounded and secure. Coming from families with various challenges, the ability to make comfort zone is important to feeling able to pursue goals and interests. Maintaining social connections facilitates comfort, but with a high level of independence. As experiential learners invested

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powerfully in the things they do, individuals come to understand and articulate parts of themselves in these events. However security, especially financial security, is critical to ensuring comfort and that one is able to care of one’s self. When situations are in one’s control and comfort zone these individuals are able to take significant risks. A rigorous, and at times obsessive, analytic assessment ensures a level of comfort prior to engaging and being able to “just do it”. Knowing one’s self and being true to this are intertwined with establishing a comfort zone and maintaining independence in relationships. These are people who make things happen, trust their ability to be responsible and actualize an idea or value and make a difference when things are challenging. Many of these individuals are advocates in their community or through global efforts like political advocacy. Most of them do not want accolades for their efforts, taking their competency and impact as a fact of the matter. For others, the recognition is an important aspect of these experiences, which are a way to learn about and actualize their self.

Having a space of one’s own is critical to securing a sense of connection but also being able to act in keeping with one’s beliefs and values. Interpersonally, this is a group that can move in and out of connections in real time and sustain their relatedness from the periphery. They have strong, sustaining and important friendships that tolerance their independent nature and need for space. These relationships provide social connections as well as important networks. While a number of individuals in this study are in a relationship, the majority have alternative sustaining social networks that provide support and assistance as needed but with a clear space of one’s own. This is not a group that chose, for the most part, to not marry. They are individuals who need a space of their own. They are invested in the freedom and creativity to be true to their beliefs,

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comfortable in their space and live their lives on their own terms.

They tend to connect

on a more global basis and their interpersonal connections are diverse. More comfortable in one to one interactions than in a larger group, many orient in relationships from an independent position regardless of assuming a caretaking and responsible position. A focus on the Now results from being immersed in experiences that keeps one’s focus off of long term goals. For a number of subjects, these experiences are valued over more conventional life goals. For the most part even their career paths emerged in a serendipitous manner often from the guidance of employers, teachers or role models than from their families growing up as staying in a comfort zone may preclude more aggressiveness in a number of areas.

Prolonged singlehood, and in some cases the decision not to marry, is less of an intention choice than the outcome of other choices and values having precedence over marriage. While passionate and rigorous in how they approach life, they can engage in certain aspects of life from a more passive orientation. The one area where this group has the least comprehensive sense of mastery is in romantic attachments. The very skills that create competence and resilience in other areas in romantic attachments are more likely to create a sense of emotional homeostasis. While doing what they want, in romantic attachment they are less likely to aggressively assert their own goals but rather assume an adaptive stance towards others. In these relationships they often are in the position of pursued rather than the pursuer. This adaptive stance is a way of establishing a sense of comfort and creating space to figure out how they feel. Interpersonally, they can be an uncompromising bunch whose interests tend to structure romantic relationships as their partners tend to organize around their interests and pursuits.

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In the domain of romantic attachments, the quantitative findings in this study help understand how success in this area comes later or is simply not an area some individuals chose to engage. In romantic relationships, unlike all other relationships studied (parents, colleagues, siblings and friends), the two-dimensional poles that articulate insecurity in attachment: anxiety and avoidance are highly correlated. The implication of this is within romantic attachments there is a static quality to these relationships. This correlation between anxiety and avoidance underlies the security of attachment, indicating the absence or presence of similar levels of anxious and avoidance in romantic attachments.

These findings seem related to the premium placed on maintaining a comfort zone in this sample where tension between anxiety and avoidance often propel one to action as one tries to resolve these feelings. In this sample, if one is anxious then they are also avoidant, creating a state where mastery of the anxiety or avoidance in romantic relationships is mediated by the presence of the other feeling state.

Becoming more self aware of the impact of these needs and roles occurs in a variety ways and often through different defining moments. The common threads of these moments relate to a capacity for self observation, developed from being on the periphery, and their capacity to use one’s feelings to know what is important. Things need to feel right and this is a group that can take great risks when they feel grounded and comfortable. They seek situations in their lives that reinforce this sense of being grounded and keep them constantly learning and growing. They are a remarkable group but not because any one thing about them is remarkable. They have qualities one might find in married widowed or divorced individuals. Rather it’s the unique way these attributes come together in each individual that makes this group so highly individual,

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intentional and interesting. They are appreciative for what they have and recognize in a conscious way a desire to give back.

Theoretical Implications From the earliest days of psychoanalytic thought human nature is seen in a relational context (Freud, 1921, Bowlby, 1988, McWilliams, 1994, Mitchell, 1999). This sample of individuals orient in their lives primarily from an individual sense of identity and support Bowlby’s findings (1969; 1973), and those of later researchers, that early attachment experiences influence and define later relationships. The qualitative findings show how early experiences of being on ones own, often with absent parents, can create a frame through which a successful, independent sense of self evolves. By using alternative sustaining relationships, and/or attachment to a broader sense of community rather than to early intimate relationships, a capacity to be on one’s own is successfully established. As Winnicott (1958) wrote, It is only when alone (that is to say, in the presence of someone) that the infant can discover his own personal life. The pathological alternative is a false life built on reactions to external stimuli. When alone in the sense that I am using the term, and only when alone, the infant is able to do the equivalent of what in an adult would be called relaxing. The infant is able to become unintegrated, to flounder, to be in a state in which there is no orientation, to be able to exist for a time without being either a reactor to an external impingement or an active person with a direction of interest or movement. The stage is set for an id experience. In the course of time there arrives a sensation or an impulse. In this setting the sensation or impulse will feel real and be truly a personal experience (p. 4).

The individuals in this study seek this sense of authenticity, as noted in the findings about being true to one’s self, as a guide for making decisions and pursuing interests and relationships. Using this capacity to be alone as the means through which meaning is understood allows for a sense of identity to emerge that organizes around self

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actualization.

The theoretical implications of this study reinforce how being on one’s own in early relationships focus this group internally to find guidelines for choices rather than societal convention or family guidelines. Parents provide a model of getting through challenging situations, handling difficulties on one’s own and being responsible to try to establish and maintain a comfort zone. A rich tapestry emerges of highly intentional, self directed and personally motivated individuals whose identity is principally individually driven rather than relationally defined. The majority of individuals in this sample note a powerful desire to belong that is balanced by the equally strong desire to define oneself distinctly. These findings are similar to the research by Blatt & Blass (1998).

Understanding this tension between establishing a sense of connection and maintaining autonomy is important as it relates to Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s research concerning the developmental need for a secure base. In this sample, a secure base is grounded in independence in relationships, as caretakers were not always able to offer a sense of holding and security. Autonomy becomes an implicit means of adapting functionally in life by retaining independence and self sufficiency within meaningful but independent attachments.

This emerging sense of identity, as defined by Erikson, is typically consolidated at the end of adolescence and is part of a hierarchical model of development. Identity consolidation is the structure through which childhood is drawn to a close and adulthood emerges, setting the structure for greater articulation of one’s adult self. While most commonly this process occurs in adolescence and sets the stage for fidelity and partnership, love and intimacy; the majority of individuals in this study integrated a sense

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of identity and authenticity through their capacity to be alone. This skill emerged early and became a cornerstone of the secure base used for exploration of life.

Winnicott (1958) notes the ability to be alone is “one of the most important signs of maturity in emotional development.” (p. 1) even though theorists frequently focus more on fears about being alone than on this underlying psychological capacity. For the individuals in this sample, an early awareness of being on their own in their relational world and it’s resultant challenges, developed a capacity to be alone and set the stage for the ability to engage independently in a relational matrix, as a fundamental aspect of long term attachments and relationships.

Although many types of experience go to the establishment of the capacity to be alone, there is one that is basic, and without a sufficiency of it the capacity to be alone does not come about; this experience is that of being alone, as an infant and small child, in the presence of mother. Thus the basis of the capacity to be alone is a paradox; it is the experience of being alone while someone else is present (Winnicott, 1958, p. 2).

Winnicott’s understanding is a precursor to a relational understanding of development, in the significance of the interplay between self and other. The capacity to be alone found in this sample most likely developed related to the experience of feeling on one’s own and on the periphery of family, friend and work groups as a way to retain a sense of connection. It is within this relational matrix that the independent self and sense of identity is found. This process establishes the narrative through which the self evolves through independent interests and pursuits rather than the more common story of primary partnerships. As Stephen Mitchell notes (2002): We are our stories, our accounts of what has happened to us. It is not our memories alone that sustain a sense of personhood. The past is too multifaceted and full of details. To have a self, we need a protagonist, someone who does things and to whom things happen. The past needs to

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be organized into a narrative, or several alternative narratives. No stories, no self. (Mitchell, 2002, p. 145) Relationships and belonging is experienced from the periphery and a space of one’s own. Sustaining relationships are often organized around and tolerate the independent nature found in this sample, which evolved from being “on one’s own” into a capacity for what Winnicott called sophisticated aloneness. This resourceful and independent capacity developed from experiences managing and coping with early attachments with present, but absent, parents and guidance. These experiences and emerging capacities reinforce the idea that one’s sense of self is ‘relationally driven’ (Mitchell, 1999, Mitchell & Aron, 1999, Aron, 2004, Watchel, 2003, Benjamin, 1988) even when highly independent and self sufficient.

The tension between a push for self-realization and the pull for connection noted

by Mitchell and Aron (Mitchell, 1999, Mitchell & Aron, 1999, Aron, 2004) is clearly evident in findings of this study. The life choices and decisions made by members of this sample reveal an intentionality to act in keeping with individual beliefs and what feels right, to act authentically regardless of convention. Mitchell (2004), like Bowlby, believes in the compelling need to maintain early attachments, regardless of the cost, are fundamental to human nature. Using analysis and experience to manage the vulnerability internalized from early dependent attachments and feeling on the periphery, a cautious and security focused self evolves that remains open to experience. Being the responsible caretaker in relationships, this self sufficient identity protects against further vulnerability, while establishing meaningful connections. The resulting independence in relationships creates opportunities for self actualization while retaining a sense of belonging that is not reliant upon one person.

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The successful resolution of challenging early experiences found in this study, reflect a more flexible understanding of the sequential and invariant progression of developmental stages offered by Erikson as noted by Seligman and Shanok (1995) integrating relational psychoanalytic thinking into this developmental structure.

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is crucial for the consolidation of identity; as Erikson noted, personality organization reaches a new level of synthesis and organization as adolescence recedes. But, over the entire life course, there is an ongoing interplay between constraint and continuity, on one hand, and novelty and change, on the other. Our relational conceptualization of identity encompasses processes and experiences that span and link different life stages and are in that sense overarching (Aron, 1990).

Basic trust and autonomy are established by individuals in this study through a capacity to develop with high levels of separateness in early attachments. Identification with the broader community and comfort being on their own is created through self determination and industry and organizing in a responsible way around relational challenges. As discussed in Seligman and Shanok’s re-conceptualization (1995) of Erikson’s developmental and interpersonal crises, within this sample, development unfolds in flexible ways rather than exclusively in a hierarchical and invariant manner.

Thinking of identity in this way (relational re-conceptualization) allows for more flexible developmental theorizing. Conventional developmental theories have generally linked the most influential events to specific phase; Erikson, for example, correlated the resolution of the identity crisis with college graduation and marriage. But, especially in contemporary adulthood, key events are crucial developmental effects are neither concurrent with nor equivalent to the basic developmental stages‌. The outcome of such transformative experiences reflects a variety of factors, such as current social and personal actualities as well as influences from the past such as taking on a professional identity, or those which are imposed extrinsically, such as catastrophic unemployment. Identity is continuous but is thus transformed in the course of life (p. 10).

Meaningful relational connections are established that tolerate and accept the independent other, and serve as a secure base and the foundation of developmental

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integration. This helps to understand how members of this sample move from early experiences of being on their own to establishing a capacity to be alone as a self sufficient, resourceful and caretaking other with a reliance on authenticity and intentionality as means to self actualization. As noted in relational analytic thought, meaning is co-created through this inter-subjective matrix.

This study supports the influence of childhood experiences on adult attachments found in early attachments research (Ainsworth et al., 1978, Main et al., 1985). The individuals in this sample developmentally undergo fewer role changes over their life course, and are more consistently defined by life choices rather than interpersonal roles.

The freedom to choose a variety of paths based on individual interest results in the unconventional nature of many in this study. However it is important to note these individuals do not want to represent themselves as unconventional, they seek to blend into the broader culture. This desire to be subsumed into the broader community is most probably an adaptive strategy emerging from joining groups from the periphery.

Belonging is an intentional act, not achieved through early intimate attachments as much as by connecting with diverse groups. Understanding cultural rules and conventions is another effort to maintain a comfort zone, actively engage challenges and establish a sense of belonging that is in one’s control.

Erikson’s view of development as a series of crisis and resolutions suits this sample but the stages, as noted by Erikson, unfold in more fluid ways. (Erikson, 1968; Segilman & Shanok, 1995). Disruptions in early attachments underlie a shift in some within this sample to an identification with the group, but in a peripheral way. A secure base is established, often later, through independence within relationships. This results in

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establishing a solid base. As experiential learners, the twin process of exploration and commitment articulated by Marcia (1997) allow choices to be assessed independently to see if they make sense and feel right prior to committing to a course of action. A theoretical implication is seen in how this sample integrates their sense of self in a highly independent and self oriented way, using these two processes as internal guidelines to negotiate developmental crises. This self and other connection creates a sense of self that is in relation to the other, but in a highly individual and independent way. In this sample identity seems to integrate fewer roles and relationships, allowing for greater exploration of individual interests and passions.

In this way, the developmental steps for this sample occur in ways different from a married cohort but with equal success. Identity is typically derived from interactions with primary attachments that get reworked through the process of partnering, marriage and parenthood. Within this sample, the use of experience and alternative sustaining relationships to learn about one’s desires and self refines one’s sense of identity and self while retaining separateness from the other. The integration and reworking of early relational structures typically found in marriage and parenting, unfolds through self exploration in more individually determined venues like interests, travel, alternative relationships and careers.

The absence of a process to talk about significant events found in the families of most subjects is a complex issue reinforcing heightened attunement to situations that may become challenging. This is a group who learned early that relationships are not predictable and that security is somewhat illusionary.

Vigilance emerged as a way to anticipate and manage these dynamics rather than

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being vulnerable to them. Figuring things out, coupled with their independent and self sufficient natures, resulted for many in the assumption of responsibility in situations or regarding issues, almost without awareness. These defenses initially seem to be a means of establishing some control in the face of vulnerability, but ultimately are consolidated into a means for feeling secure and grounded. This allows for greater exploration as the unpredictability of attachments is mastered.

The need to feel one knows both oneself and another person, the need for a wholly secure attachment, is powerful both for children and for adults. But in human relationships safety and predictability are difficult to come by. We endlessly strive to reestablish that illusory sense of permanence and predictability …. Love, by its very nature, is not secure; we keep wanting to make it so.

(Mitchell, 2002, p. 49) Using Erikson’s stages, this study found the resolution of critical developmental “crises” occurred in an atypical, but successful manner. Early issues around basic trust for many in this sample encouraged self reliance and independence rather than the comfort found in dependency on others. Internal analytic and exploratory resources become a primary source for establishing a secure base and reinforcing autonomy as a means of managing feelings of shame, doubt or vulnerability. A more individually oriented identity emerged, using experiential learning and analytic skills as means to understand one’s self and develop competency, both within groups as well as in personal growth. Concerns with shame and self doubt are addressed through a process of exploration and analysis, using internal guides for assessment and to figuring things out.

Self reliance is used, rather than others or convention, to negotiate issues and developmental challenges.

Relationships and belonging are established and maintained most often through caretaking and the assumption of responsible roles. This need for a feeling of control and

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autonomy is the developmental consequence of a precocious awareness of being on one’s own and knowing that secure attachments can be disrupted. These early experiences result in this sample turning inward for security. They rely on their own resources to address concerns and create safety and opportunity.

The Eriksonian crisis of intimacy vs. isolation is resolved by developing alternative sustaining connections, often from the periphery. These relationships create sufficiently close attachments that a secure base is created and one’s interests are able to be addressed. Being on the periphery also results in openness to different groups and feeling group identified in broad terms rather than specific ones. The civic minded concern for the broader community represented both in the career choices and environmental concerns noted by a number of this sample also seems related to this identification with the broader group. Seligman and Shanok (1995, p. 9) note these processes are means for development rather than defenses against feeling overwhelmed in the Now. Erikson's conceptualization of identity drew more explicitly on the egopsychological tradition than on the relational. But synthesizing the concept of identity with an orientation that stresses internal object representations can illuminate the processes by which current actualities are integrated with inner realities. Object relations-oriented psychologies emphasize the influence of prior relationships and, sometimes, irrational motivations in constructing present experience. Mechanisms like projection, identification, and projective identification take on even broader significance when they are understood as the “pathways” for such construction, rather than simply as alternative forms of defense (Sandler and Rosenblatt, 1962; Schafer, 1968; Sandler, 1981; Mitchell, 1991).

A time orientation emerges from the data revealing a developmental implication for these subjects as noted above. They seem to exhibit a greater focus on experience in the present that prevents attention on the future. These subjects are immersed in the

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experience of “now” and, except in terms of financial security, are less concerned with future planning. Goals seem to be secondary in importance for these subjects, who tend to be engaged fully in current interests and activities. Others are meaningful in sustaining ways, but are not actively sought as resources for self exploration, nor is having relationships a goal unto itself. The practical, task focused orientation of the majority of individuals in this sample makes this a competent and resourceful group who are assets to their friends, families and colleagues. As noted by Seligman and Shanok (1995, p 10) Thinking of identity in this way (relational re-conceptualization) allows for more flexible developmental theorizing. Conventional developmental theories have generally linked the most influential events to specific phase; Erikson, for example, correlated the resolution of the identity crisis with college graduation and marriage. But, especially in contemporary adulthood, key events are crucial developmental effects are neither concurrent with nor equivalent to the basic developmental stages…. The outcome of such transformative experiences reflects a variety of factors, such as current social and personal actualities as well as influences from the past such as taking on a professional identity, or those which are imposed extrinsically, such as catastrophic unemployment. Identity is continuous but is thus transformed in the course of life.

Theoretically, perhaps this sample demonstrates that there can be a comfortable, maturational position that balances self interest with other-directedness. Fulfillment does not have to be the consequence of a switch in priority from the self to the other. Results of this study found that early elevated levels of stress caused by being on one’s own resulted in the development of a strong skill set for negotiating life independently.

However, this study also found that the resolution of these early stresses may have precociously foreclosed greater flexibility in romantic or dependent attachments because of the intensity of the drive to develop a reliable, independent self that is able to manage early challenges. By assuming a caretaking and responsible role early in life, the sense of generativity noted by Erikson is engaged earlier around a seeming identification with

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caretakers and caretaking. Identity in this sample is principally integrated through an early need to secure one’s sense of place in the broader community due to feeling on one’s own in more intimate, early attachments. Individuals resolve concerns regarding vulnerabilities and safety initially through independence and caretaking which create a means for consolidating an effective sense of self and identity. This allows for greater exploration, openness and relational opportunities throughout the life course. In Seligman and Shanok’s (1995) integration of Erikson’s sequential and hierarchical developmental stages within an interpersonal and relational analytic frame they posit a, back and forth fluid interplay, stretching temporally over the to-and-fro of the entire life span, of identity (i.e., the separateness and individuality, theoretically not achieved until Erikson’s fifth stage) and its counterpart, intimacy (i.e. connection, all the way to momentary merging, theoretically not achieved until Erikson’s sixth stage). (Wallerstein, 1995, p.5).

As greater self assurance and competency develop throughout one’s life, a sense of ego integrity emerges, allowing the opportunity for more flexible, dependent relationships to emerge for some interviewees later in life. The achievement of a sense of comfort in the securing a space of ones own, while sustaining relationships and engaging in meaningful pursuits, results in high levels of life satisfaction and a sense of identity and purposefulness, regardless of intimate romantic attachments. This group represents a successful consolidation of identity, with a meaningful pursuits and relationships. It is a different pathway for development than that of marriage, but equally effective.

Other theoretical implications of this study relate to how this sample supports the social psychology and adult attachment research related to this growing demographic.

Being outside the mainstream, even for a successful and competent group of individuals,

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raises questions for these individuals about whether there is something wrong with them (Gordon, 2003).

The Cockrum and White (1985) finding that being unmarried is more

acceptable for male subjects is questioned by the findings in this sample. While the majority of subjects reported times when they worried about being never married, all the male subjects spoke to their concerns about being viewed differently or as outside the mainstream within their communities due to their unmarried status. This finding was consistent regardless of their comfort being single and may indicate a leveling of the playing field between men and women regarding aspects of prolonged singleness in our culture.

Similar to Hoeffer’s (1987) findings that unmarried women are healthier and happier with a positive outlook on life, the women in this sample report nurturing and caretaking relationships and are in general very happy in their lives, although there is no comparison group in this sample. Many in this sample felt at some point “not being married” indicated something was wrong with them, an experience also noted by subjects in studies by Barker (2005), Waehler (1996), Lewis (1994) and Cole (2000).

Yet, while some subjects reported times when they had a sense of distress about remaining unmarried, similar to Lewis’s findings (1994) and Coles (2000), this was not a consistent finding in the study. Rather, this sample reveals a sense of acceptance of singleness, even viewing it as a preferable choice. This finding could be related to the life stage of individuals in this sample compared to Lewis and Cole’s studies that focused on women under forty vs. this study that focused on individuals over forty.

In Eriksonian terms the difference noted between these samples may reflect how individuals affirm a sense of generativity vs. stagnation, given the absence of marriage,

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through other sources of meaningful pursuits. In this study, individuals find meaning and comfort living their lives in keeping with their interests and beliefs and having these choices within their independent control. While gender differences are of interest, this sample is too small to make any generalization of findings, especially given the overall size of this sample and the small male sample of only five subjects.

In looking at the research on marital status, this study’s findings are similar to those of Seccombe & Ishii-Kuntz (1994) and the Roper Organization (1980). Few individuals in this study consciously chose to remain single, this was more the outcome of other life choices.

Although many in this sample thought they would marry, it is not

clear if the study replicates Walsh’s (1995) or Cole’s (2000) findings that never married women have a strong preference for marriage over non-marriage. Most of the subjects in this study, both men and women, preferred their single status and control over their lives compared to marriage. While some subjects desire marriage, marriage would need to add to their lives in a clear way.

Similar to the research by McDill et al. (2007) and Barile (2001), the majority of this sample are satisfied with their lives and engage in meaningful pursuits. They have meaningful relationships with family, colleagues and friends that enrich their lives.

Interestingly, like McDill’s subjects, a number of individuals in this sample noted never married family members in their families of origin. Dalton (1992) and Fuller’s (2001) research finding that singleness is experienced as a stigma and coupled with loneliness, burden and loss is not supported by this sample; rather high levels of life satisfaction and meaningful relationships are found in this sample.

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In looking at how this group compares to early descriptive research on singleness, similar to Adam’s (1976) women, this group has “psychological autonomy having core personality traits which value independence, autonomy and individual freedom”.

Waehlers’ findings with never married men are echoed in this sample with “staunch independence and self-reliance, emotional detachment, interpersonal passivity, and idiosyncratic thinking” (Waelher, 1996, p 37).

Being on one’s own, on the periphery, independent in relationships and independent minded parallels the attributes noted in Waehler’s findings as well those found by Levy-Simon (1987) whose subjects valued autonomy and freedom. What Waehler found as interpersonal passivity, in this sample is understood more as an adaptiveness to others. Other studies report descriptive qualities of never married subjects such as being their “own person” (Reilly, 1996, p 10), feeling passionate about what they do (Reilly, 1996; Caragan and Melko, 1982) and valuing personal growth that are also found in the qualitative findings of this research. Like Burnley’s research (1992) the individuals in this study have well developed social networks and are not overly worried about loneliness.

Additionally, these findings echo those of Robinson-Rowe (2002) who found midlife (40-52) life satisfaction in women who reported feeling positive about being independent, living single, having academic, career and intellectual pursuits, as well as having the ability to travel with never married women friends. Like this research, the subjects in this study were not willing to “settle” in a relationship in order to marry. This study also supports Cwikel’s study (2006), in finding these individuals well prepared for productive aging, well educated and with few financial difficulties.

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While this sample is clearly not large enough to make generalizations, the study supports the current body of research on never marrieds finding they lead satisfying, productive lives, are in good health, with strong support networks, financial independence and life satisfaction (Haring-Hildore et al. 1985; Veenhoven, 1984, Obrien, 1991). The individuals in this sample have a youthfulness to them, which may relate to Simon’s (1988) suggestion that fewer role changes provide a different kind of benefit for those who remain single.

This study supports other research on never marrieds indicating a preference for long term, monogamous sexual relationships, with an unwillingness to compromise other needs for relationships (Adams, 1976, Peterson, 1981, Levy-Simon, 1987; Bower, 1997).

A number of subjects in this study support Waehler’s (1996) findings with his bachelor subjects. Feeling relationships are seen as a “burden” (p. 40). This finding was found in both men and women in this study although the sense of burden was not viewed negatively in the majority of instances.

Looking at implications for attachment research, the theoretical findings of this study support a two-dimensional analysis of attachment characterized by the use of the dimensions of anxiety and avoidance. The significance of these two dimensions in looking at romantic attachments is clearly reflected in the strong correlation of anxiety and avoidance in romantic attachments within this sample. Hazen and Shaver’s (1987) adult romantic attachments work found the bond between partners is similar to that between parents and children. The development of the “caretaker, responsible one” attribute in this study echo the finding in Hazen and Shaver’s research that romantic love is attachment based and part of a motivational system (Fraley, 2002, p. 3).

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The connection found between early experiences of being on one’s own and later tendencies for independence in relationships and self reliance, reflect the work of Bowlby and Ainsworth, where disruption in early caretaking underlies later patterns of relationships. In this study, strong supportive, non-romantic relationships provide effective social networks for members of this sample as potential alternatives to romantic pairing. The high correlation between anxiety and avoidance noted only in romantic attachments supports the finding from Hazen and Shaver (1987) that romantic relationships can be challenging. While the romantic relationships in this sample range in terms of the security of those attachments, a central quantitative finding in this study is how anxiety and avoidance are highly correlated in the romantic relationships within this sample (Table Five). The theoretical implication of this finding is that early relationships influence coping strategies in this sample where dependent relationships, in this instance romantic attachments only as they demand a greater sense of dependency, are engaged in less flexible and more fixed ways. Such strategies most probably reflect the residue of earlier challenges in dependent relationships found in childhood. Romantic attachments in this sample are not pathological, but are secondary in importance for many subjects who have meaningful, sustaining relationships in other domains.

The romantic attachments in this study are characterized by an uncompromising need to secure a space of one’s own and echo findings in adult romantic attachments (Zeifman and Hazen, 1977; Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998, Bowers, 1997) indicating the need for a secure base and that separation causes emotional distress. Bowers (1997) noted caretaking characteristics similar to good parenting characteristics in the romantic attachments of his subjects. A similarity was found between how parents behave as

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caretakers with children and the interactions found between sexual partners in this study.

A caretaking role is found in these subjects, although it focuses on non-romantic relationships. They tend to be intentional around managing the fear that these relationships will entail a potential loss or burden. As noted by Jay Belsky (Bowers, 1997) the caretaker role may evolve out of ambivalent attachments developed in stressful and insecure times as an evolutionary means to have more helpers within the broader community. The caretaking and responsible roles assumed by members of this sample may correspond to compensatory functions evoked in prolonged singleness because of less focus on reproduction.

The major theoretical implication of this study is that remaining unmarried later in life is an alternative, but equally successful, developmental pathway and provides for a successful consolidation of identity. Erikson’s stages are experienced, but in a more fluid and less hierarchical manner allowing for the development of a secure base through alternative sustaining relationships and an independent and individually driven sense of self.

Clinical Implications Its been an interesting dynamic in relationships, both with friends and with romantic relationships, I’ve always felt a certain independence and while I wouldn’t say that I have a lack of commitment because many of my friendships go back 20 or 30 years, I have strong friendships but with a certain independence.

Understanding the factors influencing individuals delaying marriage has implications for how we work with members of this group therapeutically. Remaining single throughout most or all of one’s life course is to be part of a minority group, even a growing minority group. Societal views about the never married are often less based on

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facts than misperceptions. It is not uncommon for this group to be misunderstood by the mainstream population, as well as clinicians, who made more traditional choices. This study makes accessible to clinicians aspects of the life experience of this demographic and aids in the general understanding of the experiences of competent, always single, older individuals.

Assumptions of loneliness and a life unlived should be replaced with a perspective that respects the client and values her role as an active, decisionmaking participant in her own life. The current literature creates the portrait of individuals who may or may not prefer to have a partner and who have determined that marriage is perhaps not the number one priority in their lives (Gordon, 2003, p. 35).

This sample fits easily into the literature described by Gordan (2003). The early experiences of being on their own and on the periphery of either their family or broader community lead to the members of this sample becoming self reliant and developing a skill set allowing them to effectively figure out what is needed in situations, assume a responsible position regarding these issues and be attuned to the spoken as well as unspoken expectations and need within the individuals and groups.

A powerful skill set of analytic and experiential aptitudes developed in these individuals regarding how to figure things out analytically and experientially as a prelude to following one’s heart and pursuing one’s interests. This is a group who assume responsibility to competently create a sense of safety and comfort and to make a difference when things feel wrong. They have strong perspective taking skills resulting from negotiating a position on the periphery of the various groups to which they are related. Their assessment skills include the ability to immerse themselves in experiences while retaining a observational stance regarding group and individual interactions, as well as their own experience.

They are independent minded and rely on their own internal

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process to figure out the meaning of things and then use their comfort with experiential learning to see if their assessment feels right. Often this process is done privately as an additional way to protect them self from adapting to the expectations of those around them. They are comfortable acting on their own to pursue things that matter to them and have little interest in convention for conventions sake. Despite their unconventional nature, in general these individuals tend to be rule followers and are upholders of community and value a sense of belonging. They easily assume a caretaking and responsible stance towards their community or others although they retain independence in relationships. This independence is a way to protect and secure a space of their own interpersonally as well as an intuitive place given their experience being on their own.

The asymmetry in this caretaking role often entails a setting aside of one’s interests and desires to secure a connection and be responsive to others. There is a sense that relationships and connects are a burden, although a burden this sample of individuals are happy to bear most of the time. Yet, relationships are not seen as intuitively replenishing or additive.

It is important for clinicians who work with this cohort to understand this extensive skill set as well as the motivating factors that organize the relational patterns of this group. These generally tend to be fairly clear and consistent priorities and include: safety and comfort first, personal freedom over relationships, blending in a community over being separate, experience and analysis over convention, traditions over isolation, competence over dependency. As a group who tend to be experiential learners, who enjoy delving into experiences, they have an orientation in time that is more focused on Now than the future or the past. Their intentional and thoughtful process is used to make

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decisions using analysis and these skills as guideposts for actions. Decisions occur, often after an elaborate process of figuring things out that also reveals the anxiety many in this sample feel in their independent position.

Understanding the challenges facing this cohort is also clinically important.

These are individuals who value their competence and trust their own assessments. They are more in the Now than future oriented given their experimental nature and may need assistance in looking forward to ensure they think through certain life goals before they are foreclosed. In addition, maintaining a comfort zone may keep this cohort in more static relationships and comfortable, but less challenging, environments. Learning to feel more comfortable outside of their comfort zone is a clinical process that may facilitate more open relationships, career opportunities and titrate the cautious, primarily self reliant nature of this group.

While the life experience and attachment styles of older always single adults is the primary focus of this study, valuable information about other issues for this cohort also emerged in this data. These are individuals who have well established and effective friendships and networks. Typically these individuals have significant support systems that are alternatives to a primary relationship. Regardless, their relationships tolerate the independent nature of these individuals and allow them a space of their own. This is a group that is very security conscious in terms of attending to issues that would impact their ability to take care of themselves Despite an adventurous and/or entrepreneurial spirit and a willingness to take significant risks to pursue their interests, they are fiscally conservative and cautious. For some having a family was important and the absence of a partner did not get in the way of having children. While for the majority of this sample

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marriage and children were not specific goals, for those who desired them this decision was approached in the same thoughtful and thorough manner as other decisions. Once they answered all their questions, often an elaborate process, they moved forward to just do it. In some cases, certain experiences may be foreclosed to some of this sample given their elaborate analytic assessment process to figure things out before doing things. On the other side, since this group typically is private in their decision making process they may circumvent certain important feedback.

In the domain of romantic attachments, the quantitative findings in this study help us understand how traditional means of success, i.e. marriage, and for some more general success in romantic attachments comes later or is simply not an area in which some individuals choose to engage. In romantic relationships, unlike all other relationships studied (parents, colleagues, siblings and friends), the two dimensional poles that articulate insecurity in attachment: anxiety and avoidance are highly correlated. The implication of this is to create a static quality in which people find themselves relationally. The polar tension between anxiety and avoidance, which underlies the security of attachment, implies that if one is not anxious relationally they will not seek to change what is happening relationally. So, the relational style will establish a level of comfort and remain there unless something occurs that pushes the individual to recognize/feel that something is not working well enough.

Given that if one is anxious then they are also avoidant within this sample group, these two emotions together tend to create a state where mastery of the issues creating these feeling states is mediated by the presence of both. In other words, if one is not anxious or avoidant, there is not motivation for change because there is no discomfort. If

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one is both anxious and avoidant; mastery is not achieved because the situation underlying these two feelings is avoided. Thus the high covariance of anxiety and avoidance in this group creates a state where mastery of either the anxiety or avoidance becomes mediated by the presence of the other feeling state. This group is typically cautious and self protective in the context of intimacy, which is an unknowable space between two people that entails a surrender of the self to the unknown and an other.

Identity for members of this sample is a dynamic category with a central organizer being an independent sense of self and independence in relationships. This independent, coupled, living life on their own terms, results in fewer role changes for these individuals contributing to a youthful nature as life long learners. Using Erickson’s stages in a non-linear way, these are individuals who are more self reliant than dependent on others. They are willful and confident in their pursuits despite any anxiety or fear.

Relying on their own sense of initiation and self control, being true to their beliefs and values is an important aspect of how this group addresses issues of identity and role articulation. In many instances there is a sense of advocating for community, and being civic minded and involved in broader issues. Thus, developmental tasks per se may evolve "out of order." These individual are not attached in principle to singlehood, they are there is a desire to marry, but not stronger than, the need to feel sure about their protecting a space for their own actualization and self expression. In most ways, the members of this sample are successfully resolving the developmental crises identified by Erikson, but do so in an atypical way and not always in the order typically presented.

As successful, responsible and competent individuals who value personal accomplishments of one’s choosing, there is a sense of giving back and generativity and a

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general caretaking and responsive role with those in need. A question that needs to be considered is whether, rather than being behind their married counter-parts, does this cohort represent a small but growing evolutionary progression?

Significance for Clinical Social Work Before I started therapy I was of the belief that I was such a smart guy that you need to heal whatever is wrong yourself. I do believe that you need to be in control and make it happen. But, when you’re in a situation like I was in where I didn’t have anybody I could open up to, I really needed to talk to a therapist.

Even though my therapist wasn’t very good, our couple’s therapist was better, but it really helped. It helped cut through the bullshit I was telling myself. Later I did a lot of work on my own.

For those clinicians who work with adults, marriage is frequently a topic raised by our never married clients as they approach middle age or face their own aging. Better understanding the life experiences of competent, older never married individuals normalizes the life decisions of individuals within this cohort. A richer understanding of strengths, choices, challenges and developmental processes experienced by this cohort is important knowledge for clinical social workers to have concerning this growing demographic.

The issue of marriage or remaining single has never been viewed as a completely benign conflict by our culture (Gordon, 2003). Normalizing the life experiences of capable and accomplished individuals who remain single into later life dispels the view of this cohort as ‘losers’ who are not able achieve marriage. A powerful clinical question exits concerning the anxiety and worry of individuals in this cohort regarding whether to remain single. Subjects wonder if, in some way, it indicates that something is wrong with them. This issue is addressed in this study as well as other research.

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Clearly, as psychotherapists, all of these areas are of great interest as we seek to understand and assist our clients within this cohort. As clinicians, understanding the range of experiences of this growing population helps identify potential risk factors as well as assets within this group. Understanding this demographic in more finely wrought detail should facilitate work with individuals who are within this group and decrease preconceptions about why and who remains single and unmarried. Understanding the decision to not marry from a normative perspective is grounding and de-pathologizing for members of this cohort. Socially, this study seeks to dispel some of the common myths about those who remain unmarried.

Understanding the normative life experiences of competent, older never married individuals and detailing how and why interesting, capable and appealing individuals remain single into later life will help clinicians better understand the never married cohort. Providing clinicians with factors that influence these life choices and articulating the developmental progression of individuals within this cohort provides clinicians a far richer understanding of the most common strengths, choices, challenges and developmental processes experienced by members of this cohort. A clinical point of reference for this group, within a developmental perspective, is helpful given the growth of this demographic over the last 30 years both within the United States and abroad.

Implications for Future Research A number of cultural shifts also influence this demographic. As women and men assume less traditional roles, does individual development serve a function increasingly separate from the evolutionary imperative of the development of family? Perhaps these

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role changes are most significant for unmarried women and for married men; as women are increasingly able to support themselves making them less financially dependent and men are increasingly able to let themselves be financially supported by spouses. As the traditional roles men and women assume change, does this growing demographic of prolonged singleness indicate a beginning wave of an evolutionary process where following one’s interests in an unencumbered way provides a generative function for the broader group? Does the high correlation of anxiety and avoidance in romantic relationships reflect a need for comfort that forecloses more relational opportunities or is the purposeful and intentional nature of this group offering a successful solution to challenging situations. These questions and others are points of interest for future research.

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APPENDIX A SEMI-STRUCTURED QUESTIONAIRE

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Semi Structured Questionnaire 1.

What kinds of experiences or choices have contributed to your remaining unmarried?

Rationale: Begin to elaborate individual, social, familial or cultural factors that have influenced the subject’s remaining unmarried.

2. What do you appreciate or enjoy about being unmarried? Did you become aware of this through the process of remaining unmarried? Rationale: Begin to access the personal meanings, subjective experience and potential motivators impacting remaining unmarried. Identify and clarify the kinds of values, ideals and emotional investments, which have motivated and influenced the life choices of the subject.

3. What are the things you find unsatisfying about being unmarried? Rationale: Begin to define and understand the role definitions and boundaries, life stressors and developmental strivings of individuals who remain unmarried.

4. What has been personally difficult about being unmarried? Rationale: Begin to articulate significant unmet life goals and developmental yearnings, looking at where the subject’s emotional investments are under or over developed.

5.

Has the experience of remaining unmarried changed you or how you see yourself? Rationale: Begin to identify the personal narrative and sense of self as specifically related to the subject remaining unmarried.

6. How would you describe your self in terms of risk taking within work and social contexts? Rationale: Identify personal attributes that may influence life choices.

7. How would you describe yourself in terms of resilience within work and social contexts? Rationale: Identify personal attributes and qualities that may impact upon life choices. Source, Nature of Data, Population and sampling, setting 8. Briefly describe your family growing up? Rationale: Identify family themes that may influence life choices.

Focus Questions: § What are the critical life experiences, relational patterns and developmental processes for competent, older never married adults? § Are capable, older never married men different from capable, older never married women in terms of attachment, developmental processes or relational patterns? § Are there differences in capable, older never married adult’s relational patterns in terms of their romantic vs. non-romantic relationships? § How do capable, older never married adults describe themselves in terms of risk taking attitudes in relationships vs. work or leisure activities? § How do capable, older, never married adults describe themselves in terms of life satisfaction? § Is there a history of trauma or duress within the early family life of capable, older never married adults? If so, did these experiences affect their attitude towards marriage? § What do older (40+ year old) capable, never married individuals describe as defining and/or transformational moments in their lives? § What are the defining characteristics of capable, never married adults?

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Issue Questions on Meaning and Process: § What kinds of experiences, self-perceptions, social networks, cultural pressures and individual identifications characterize the experience of the competent, older ( 40+ year old) never married? § What are the defining experiences¡, if any, for competent, older (40+ year old) never marrieds, which contribute to remaining single later in life?

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APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE FOR NEVER MARRIED INDIVIDUALS

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Thank you for participating in this project. The following questionnaire will take you approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. You may stop at anytime or take as long as you like to finish.

This project is exploring patterns of attachment, issues of identity and developmental processes for older, never married adults. Once you have completed the study you will be able to see your own patterns of attachment, using contemporary adult attachment research tools. You will also see you personality type using contemporary identity research tools.

1. General Information The following are a series of questions about general information about you. a. Questionnaire ID Code ____________________ M ____ F____ Age ________ b. What is your religious affiliation Protestant Catholic Jewish Orthodox (such as Greek or Russian Orthodox) Moslem Other Don’t know No religion c. What is your primary ethnic background Caucasian Afro-American Chicano Chinese Filipino Japanese Indian/Pakistani Latino Korean Arab Native American Pacific Islander Puerto Rican Other Asian Other (specify) d. Are you a US citizen? Yes ____ No________

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f. What are your political beliefs? I Extremely liberal Liberal Slightly liberal Moderate, middle of the road Slightly conservative Conservative Extremely conservative Haven't thought much about this Don't know g. Are you currently in a exclusive relationship? Yes/no If yes, how long have you been in the relationship?

2.

The next series of questions are about your close relationships and

attachment style. Please answer them to the best of your ability. There are six sections :one each for your mother, father, closest friend, sibling and partner.

A. The statements below concern how you feel in emotionally intimate relationships.

This section is interested in how you generally experience the relationship, not just in what is happening currently. Respond to each statement by clicking a circle to indicate how much you agree or disagree with the statement. a.

Please answer the following 10 questions about your mother or a mother-like

figure 1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

3. I talk things over with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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10. I don't fully trust this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree b.

7 Strongly Agree

Please answer the following 10 questions about your father or a father-like

figure 1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

3. I talk things over with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

10. I don't fully trust this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree c.

7 Strongly Agree

Please answer the following 10 questions about your closest friend

1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

3. I talk things over with this person.

1

2

3

4

Strongly Disagree 4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

10. I don't fully trust this person.

1

2

3

4

5

Strongly Disagree d.

6

7 Strongly Agree

Please answer the following 10 questions about your closest sibling or if you do

not have a sibling, your closest relative.

1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

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1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

3. I talk things over with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

10. I don't fully trust this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree d.

7 Strongly Agree

Please answer the following 10 questions about your closest work relationship or

or work like (ie volunteer etc) relationship (specify role/position____________).

1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

3. I talk things over with this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

10. I don't fully trust this person.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

e.

7 Strongly Agree

Please answer the following questions about your current partner. Note: If you

are not currently in a dating relationship with someone, answer these questions with respect to your most significant former partner.

1. I'm afraid that I will lose my partner's love.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

2. I often worry that my partner will not want to stay with me.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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3. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

4. I worry that romantic partners won’t care about me as much as I care about them.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

5. I often wish that my partner's feelings for me were as strong as my feelings for him or her.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

6. I worry a lot about my relationships.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

7. When my partner is out of sight, I worry that he or she might become interested in someone else.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

8. When I show my feelings for romantic partners, I'm afraid they will not feel the same about me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

9. I rarely worry about my partner leaving me.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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10. My romantic partner makes me doubt myself.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

11. I do not often worry about being abandoned.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

12. I find that my partner(s) don't want to get as close as I would like.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

13. Sometimes romantic partners change their feelings about me for no apparent reason.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

14. My desire to be very close sometimes scares people away.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

15. I'm afraid that once a romantic partner gets to know me, he or she won't like who I really am.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

16. It makes me mad that I don't get the affection and support I need from my partner.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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17. I worry that I won't measure up to other people.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

18. My partner only seems to notice me when I’m angry.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

19. I prefer not to show a partner how I feel deep down.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

20. I feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with my partner.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

21. I find it difficult to allow myself to depend on romantic partners.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

22. I am very comfortable being close to romantic partners.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

23. I don't feel comfortable opening up to romantic partners.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

24. I prefer not to be too close to romantic partners.

1

2

Strongly Disagree

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

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25. I get uncomfortable when a romantic partner wants to be very close.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

26. I find it relatively easy to get close to my partner.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

27. It's not difficult for me to get close to my partner.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

28. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with my partner.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

29. It helps to turn to my romantic partner in times of need.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

30. I tell my partner just about everything.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

31. I talk things over with my partner.

1

2

Strongly Disagree Colleague

3

4

5

6

7 Strongly Agree

193

32. I am nervous when partners get too close to me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

33. I feel comfortable depending on romantic partners.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

34. I find it easy to depend on romantic partners.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

35. It's easy for me to be affectionate with my partner.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

7 Strongly Agree

36. My partner really understands me and my needs.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Strongly Disagree

3.

7 Strongly Agree

PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO MAKE ANY COMMENTS THAT COME TO

MIND AFTER COMPLETING THIS SURVEY. Thank you for your time in answering these questions.

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APPENDIX C EXPERIENCES IN CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS-REVISED (ECR-R)

195

Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) Fraley, Waller & Brennan http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl Attachment Style Questionnaire The statements below concern how you feel in emotionally intimate relationships. We are interested in how you generally experience relationships, not just in what is happening in a current relationship. Respond to each statement by clicking a circle to indicate how much you agree or disagree with the statement. When you have answered all the questions, the web page will determine your attachment style.

I often wish that my partner's feelings for me were as strong as my feelings for him or her.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I worry that I won't measure up to other people.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

My partner only seems to notice me when I'm angry.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I find it easy to depend on romantic partners.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

I find it relatively easy to get close to my partner.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

It's not difficult for me to get close to my partner.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I'm afraid that once a romantic partner gets to know me, he or she won't like who I really am.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree My romantic partner makes me doubt myself.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

196

I find that my partner(s) don't want to get as close as I would like.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I prefer not to be too close to romantic partners.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

I am nervous when partners get too close to me.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I find it difficult to allow myself to depend on romantic partners.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I feel comfortable depending on romantic partners.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I worry that romantic partners won't care about me as much as I care about them.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I often worry that my partner will not want to stay with me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I talk things over with my partner.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

It helps to turn to my romantic partner in times of need.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I get uncomfortable when a romantic partner wants to be very close.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree

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It makes me mad that I don't get the affection and support I need from my partner.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree It's easy for me to be affectionate with my partner.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I don't feel comfortable opening up to romantic partners.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree Sometimes romantic partners change their feelings about me for no apparent reason.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I worry a lot about my relationships.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

I usually discuss my problems and concerns with my partner.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I prefer not to show a partner how I feel deep down.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I'm afraid that I will lose my partner's love.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

When my partner is out of sight, I worry that he or she might become interested in someone else.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I am very comfortable being close to romantic partners.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I rarely worry about my partner leaving me.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

198

I tell my partner just about everything.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

My partner really understands me and my needs.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree 6 7 Strongly Agree

My desire to be very close sometimes scares people away.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I do not often worry about being abandoned.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

When I show my feelings for romantic partners, I'm afraid they will not feel the same about me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree I feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with my partner.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree

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APPENDIX D FRALEY SURVEY ON CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

200

Fraley Survey on Close Relationships (10 Min) Please answer the following 10 questions about your mother or a mother-like figure 1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 3. I talk things over with this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 10. I don't fully trust this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

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Please answer the following 10 questions about your father or a father-like figure 1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 3. I talk things over with this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 10. I don't fully trust this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

Please answer the following 10 questions about your dating or marital partner. Note: If you are not currently in a dating or marital relationship with someone, answer these

202

questions with respect to a former partner or a relationship that you would like to have with someone.

1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 3. I talk things over with this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 10. I don't fully trust this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

203

Please answer the following 10 questions about your best friend 1. It helps to turn to this person in times of need.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

2. I usually discuss my problems and concerns with this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 3. I talk things over with this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

4. I find it easy to depend on this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

5. I don't feel comfortable opening up to this person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 6. I prefer not to show this person how I feel deep down.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 7. I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 8. I'm afraid that this person may abandon me.

1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Disagree

6 7 Strongly Agree

9. I worry that this person won't care about me as much as I care about him or her.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 10. I don't fully trust this person.

1 2 3 4 Strongly Disagree

5

6 7 Strongly Agree

204

APPENDIX E RELEASE OF INFORMATION

205

Release of Information The following information is provided for you to decide whether you wish to participate in a research study on never married, older (40 and older) individuals. You should be aware that you are free to decide not to participate or to withdraw at any time during the study.

Karen Daiter, M.A. is conducting this study as part of the requirements for fulfilling the Ph.D. program at the Institute for Clinical Social Work. The purpose of this study is to explore and describe the perspective of never married older adults about their experience.

The focus is on the normal processes by which one remains unmarried.

Your participation in this study will involve two in-depth interviews each lasting approximately an hour and completing a two-page fact sheet. The researcher, Karen Daiter, will be the only one meeting with participants, conducting interviews and reviewing the fact sheets. You are free to choose not to answer any question or to discontinue the interview at any time. Interviews will be tape-recorded and you will be assigned a pseudonym before a professional typist transcribes the audiotapes. Typed transcriptions will be edited for confidentiality. The audiotapes will be erased following the transcription. Portions of your transcripts and information from your fact sheet may be used in publications or presentations. In order to assure your anonymity and protect your privacy, all names will be replaced with pseudonyms and identifying information will be altered or omitted. Identifying information includes but is not limited to place of residence, occupation, physical characteristics, etc.

Since the researcher will be asking about your thoughts, feelings and perceptions, you may experience the interview as an emotionally significant experience. There are no known risks associated with participating in this study, however, should you feel concern or distress following the interview, Ms. Daiter (312-332-7595) is available for debriefing under the supervision of Mark Smaller PhD (312-922-1313).

The expected benefits associated with your participation in this study are the opportunity to explore and share significant experiences and to participate in meaningful research.

Participants will be asked to comment on their interview experience and the researcher welcomes your feedback on the process.

You are invited to ask any questions about the study before, during or after your participation. Ms. Daiter will also be happy to share the findings with you after the study is completed.

I understand the above statements and agree freely to participate in this research.

Sign________________________________________Date _______________

206

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