ABSTRACT
These incidents can appear, at first glance, to be relatively trivial; or they can be obvious in their compelling nature. A sense of being abandoned during childbirth or a miscarriage is one of the more obvious injuries. Finding a provocative picture of a co-worker in a partner’s briefcase is hurtful but less obviously devastating, except when it becomes clear that this occurred at a time when the wife who found the picture was explicitly attempting to “prove” that she was a fulfilling sexual partner who would take risks to excite and please her spouse. Affairs can be attachment injuries or they may not be; this depends on the context of the affair and the attachment significance assigned to it. Whether the meaning of these events is immediately clear or not, partners speak of these events in life-and-death terms and move to a “never again” stance, where the main concern is to minimize risk rather than connect with the other spouse. The injury is used as a touchstone as to the dependability of the partner. The distressed couple is able to satisfactorily process the incident, and usually the offending partner has retreated to defensive position where he or she minimizes the incident or simply distances when it comes up.
