The Relationship Between Childhood Wounds, Fear of Intimacy, and Marital Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Immature Defense Styles
Keywords:
Childhood wounds, fear of intimacy, marital satisfaction, immature defense styles, thematic analysis, married individuals, TehranAbstract
Objective: This study aimed to qualitatively explain how childhood wounds are related to fear of intimacy and marital satisfaction through the mediating mechanism of immature defense styles among married individuals.
Methods and Materials: This qualitative study was conducted using thematic analysis. The participants were 24 married individuals living in Tehran who were selected through purposive sampling based on their lived experience of marital conflict, emotional distance, or difficulty with intimacy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and continued until theoretical saturation was achieved. Saturation was reached after the twenty-first interview, and three additional interviews were conducted to ensure conceptual adequacy. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using NVivo software. The analytic procedure included initial coding, categorization of meaning units, development of subthemes, and extraction of main themes. Credibility and trustworthiness were enhanced through member checking, peer debriefing, an audit trail, reflexive note-taking, and maximum variation in participants’ demographic characteristics.
Findings: Data analysis resulted in four main themes: “emotional residues of childhood wounds,” “intimacy as threat,” “immature defenses as relational psychological shields,” and “erosion of marital satisfaction through cycles of distance, misinterpretation, and defensive reaction.” The findings indicated that childhood experiences such as rejection, emotional neglect, humiliation, excessive parental control, and insecurity in the family of origin were transformed in adulthood into rejection sensitivity, difficulty with emotional self-disclosure, fear of dependency, and avoidance of closeness. Participants described immature defenses such as denial, projection, withdrawal, passive aggression, excessive rationalization, and blaming as strategies for reducing intimacy-related anxiety.
Conclusion: The results suggest that immature defense styles can explain the link between childhood wounds and reduced marital satisfaction. Individuals with unresolved childhood wounds may simultaneously seek intimacy and perceive it as threatening. Therefore, couple therapy should move beyond communication-skills training and address childhood emotional injuries, affect tolerance, immature defenses, and safe emotional disclosure.
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