Every couple fights. Whether it’s about whose turn it is to do the dishes or the deeper questions of trust and commitment, conflict is a natural part of romantic relationships. No two people, no matter how deeply in love, are completely aligned in their needs, values, or expectations. But the real question is not whether couples fight—it’s how they fight.
Handled constructively, conflict can bring partners closer, encouraging honest communication and strengthening intimacy. Handled destructively—with anger, control, or withdrawal—it can erode trust and drive couples apart. A recent study published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy shines new light on why people approach conflict so differently, pointing to two key influences: our attachment style and our experiences of past trauma.
The Study: College Students and Conflict
Psychologists Ahva Rashin Mozafari and Xiaomeng Xu set out to examine how past interpersonal trauma and attachment styles shape the ways people handle romantic disagreements. They studied 365 college students in established relationships of at least six months. Most were in their early twenties, though participants ranged in age from 18 to 70.
The researchers asked students to report on their experiences of trauma, their attachment styles, and the strategies they used when managing relationship conflicts. The results revealed patterns that were both striking and sobering.
A Hidden Weight: Trauma in Relationships
Trauma was alarmingly common among the participants. Over a quarter had experienced physical abuse in childhood, and nearly the same number reported physical abuse in adulthood. About 27% had endured childhood sexual abuse, while 28% reported sexual abuse as adults. More than one in four reported being raped, with 18% experiencing rape more than once. Emotional abuse was even more widespread, reported by 63% of participants. In total, an astonishing 85% had lived through at least one form of interpersonal trauma.
These numbers highlight a painful reality: many people carry invisible wounds into their relationships. And those wounds often shape how they respond when tensions rise.
The Role of Attachment: Anxious and Avoidant Bonds
Attachment theory offers one of the most powerful lenses for understanding how people connect with others. From childhood, we develop emotional patterns based on how our caregivers responded to our needs. These patterns—secure, anxious, or avoidant—carry into adulthood and shape how we bond with romantic partners.
Highly anxious individuals crave closeness but fear abandonment. They may worry constantly about whether their partner truly loves them, leaving them vulnerable to jealousy, neediness, or emotional volatility. Highly avoidant individuals, on the other hand, value independence and feel uneasy with emotional intimacy. They may keep partners at a distance, avoid vulnerability, and struggle to express affection.
Insecure attachment—whether anxious or avoidant—creates tension when conflict arises. Instead of approaching disagreements with openness and compromise, insecurely attached individuals often react in ways that push their partners further away.
What the Study Found
Mozafari and Xu’s study found that individuals with insecure attachment were significantly less likely to seek compromise during conflicts. Instead, they tended to react with strategies that damage relationships:
- Aggression: lashing out in anger, criticism, or hostility.
- Domination: trying to control or overpower their partner.
- Submission: giving in completely, not out of agreement, but out of fear of losing the relationship.
- Separation: breaking up or threatening to leave when things get difficult.
Interestingly, the researchers found that while past trauma was linked to insecure attachment, trauma itself was only weakly tied to aggressive reactions during conflict. What mattered more was how trauma shaped attachment patterns, which then influenced how people dealt with disagreements.
As the authors concluded: “Interpersonal trauma is associated with higher levels of insecure attachment; and insecure attachment is associated with lower levels of compromise and higher interactional reactivity, submission, domination, and separation.”
Why This Matters for Love and Growth
Romantic relationships are among the most important bonds in people’s lives. They can provide safety, intimacy, and purpose, but they can also mirror past wounds. This study highlights that when conflict emerges, our ability to compromise—or our tendency to lash out, withdraw, or submit—is not just about the argument at hand. It is deeply tied to our emotional history and the attachment strategies we developed long before meeting our partner.
For couples, this offers both a challenge and a path forward. Recognizing how attachment influences conflict can create space for empathy. A partner who reacts with anger or withdrawal may not be uncaring—they may be carrying unresolved fear or insecurity. At the same time, insecure attachment doesn’t doom a relationship. With self-awareness, open communication, and sometimes therapy, couples can learn to move from destructive conflict to constructive dialogue.
Beyond the Numbers: The Human Story
Behind the percentages are real people navigating love with the weight of their pasts. A woman who grew up fearing abandonment may cry and panic when her partner seems distant, not because she doesn’t trust him, but because her childhood taught her that distance means rejection. A man who learned to rely only on himself may shut down during arguments, not because he doesn’t care, but because intimacy feels unsafe.
When these hidden stories collide in conflict, the results can be painful. But when both partners work to understand them, relationships can become not just a place of conflict, but a place of healing.
A Path Toward Healthier Conflict
The findings remind us that conflict is not the enemy—avoidance, aggression, and disconnection are. Compromise, empathy, and constructive communication are skills that can be learned, even for those carrying trauma or insecure attachment patterns.
Ultimately, love is not about never fighting. It’s about learning to fight well. And fighting well means recognizing the ghosts of the past, understanding the needs of the present, and building a future where both partners feel seen, heard, and valued.
