Do You Think You Chose the Person You Married?

Do You Think You Chose the Person You Married?

The sentence “I chose my spouse” is a simple truth for most people. We saw, we met, we loved, and we married. Psychology, however, questions the subject of this sentence. Who is the “I” that chooses, and where and how are that “I”‘s preferences shaped? The short answer is: We make the choice, but the shape of the options, criteria, and desire is largely established before we ever decide.

The Choice Before the Choice: Whom Do We Meet?

Mate selection begins after the pool of candidates narrows. We encounter people in the same neighborhood, school, workplace, or social circle. Therefore, spouses are far more similar in education, socioeconomic status, religion, and age than expected (Kalmijn, 1998). Proximity and repeated contact also increase attraction. Merely encountering a stimulus repeatedly strengthens a positive attitude toward it (Zajonc, 1968). In other words, a significant part of what we call “coincidence” is actually a narrow corridor presented to us by the social structure.

Culture also determines the width of this corridor. In societies where family approval is decisive, mate selection is a familial process rather than an individual preference. The differences between family-initiated and couple-initiated marriages in Turkey are quite interesting in this regard (Hortaçsu, 2007). Not surprisingly, in family models where interdependence is valued (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007), mate selection also naturally involves the approval of families.

The Parent Within Us: Attachment and Early Relationships

The psychoanalytic tradition sees the traces of childhood relationships in the choice of a love object. Freud (1914/1957) speaks of an “anaclitic” (attachment) type of object choice based on caregiving figures. Adult love can be a continuation of the intimacy pattern learned with the primary caregiver.

The empirical counterpart of this idea is found in attachment theory. According to Bowlby (1969/1982), based on their experiences with caregivers, the child constructs “internal working models” regarding themselves and others. These models silently tell us what to expect when intimacy is established. Hazan and Shaver (1987) demonstrated that romantic relationships can also be read as an attachment process. Secure, anxious, and avoidant patterns are observed in adult relationships as well. Attachment styles show a moderate level of stability from childhood to adulthood (Fraley, 2002). However, this stability is not absolute; new relationships can alter these models.

This is precisely the picture we frequently encounter in clinical practice. Some people confuse the “familiar” with the “right.” Someone who had an anxious childhood might feel an intense attraction to a partner whose attention fluctuates. This happens because emotional intensity is a feeling familiar to them. The choice itself feels freely made, but the criteria were written long ago.

The Perception of Beauty: Where Biology Meets Culture

Attraction is the arena where the tension between the innate and the learned is most visible. A meta-analysis on facial attractiveness revealed a surprising consensus in attractiveness judgments across cultures, observable even in infants (Langlois et al., 2000). The evolutionary approach links this consensus to signs of health and reproductive fitness. Buss (1989), in a study conducted across 37 cultures, found certain commonalities in mate preferences. However, the same study also shows that cultural context significantly alters the weight of these preferences.

Some biological explanations are exaggerated in popular narratives. Wedekind and colleagues’ (1995) “T-shirt experiment” pointed to an odor preference related to immune genes. But a meta-analysis combining studies on humans and non-human primates found no general tendency towards genetically dissimilar mates; it only detected a preference for mates with more diverse immune genes (Winternitz et al., 2017). Similarly, the study reporting the association of the vasopressin receptor gene with pair-bonding and marital problems in men is intriguing (Walum et al., 2008). Still, to claim that a single gene “determines” mate selection is scientifically indefensible. Genetic predispositions alter probabilities; they do not write destiny.

The cultural layer of beauty perception is a separate issue. Media, peer groups, and family intensively teach us which bodies and which faces will be considered desirable. What we call “my type” is born from a combination of biological tendencies and learned aesthetics.

We Think We Know What We Want

Perhaps the most surprising finding is this: When people list their ideal partner preferences, the criteria they produce do not predict their reactions in actual encounters well. In speed-dating studies, people’s stated preferences did not differentiate attraction during face-to-face encounters (Eastwick & Finkel, 2008). A comprehensive review of these findings shows that ideal partner preferences are weak in predicting initial attraction (Eastwick et al., 2014). In other words, our “conscious criteria” and what we are “actually attracted to” often do not align.

The misattribution of physiological arousal also adds to this picture. Men who experienced excitement on a wobbly bridge found the woman they met more attractive (Dutton & Aron, 1974). The body’s excitement can easily be interpreted as attraction to a person. This reminds us that “feeling” is not always a reliable compass.

On the issue of similarity, the picture is clear. The belief that “opposites attract” is popular and stems from Winch’s (1958) complementary needs theory, but its empirical support is weak. In the context of attraction, both actual and perceived similarity show strong associations; however, in existing relationships, while the effect of actual similarity is not significant, perceived similarity remains predictive (Montoya et al., 2008). Murstein’s (1970) stimulus-value-role theory also emphasizes that the process is a gradual testing of compatibility.

So, What Determines Relationship Quality?

Initial attraction and subsequent happiness are not the same thing. A massive machine-learning analysis covering 43 longitudinal studies showed that when a person’s own perceptions about the relationship (partner’s commitment, appreciation, sexual satisfaction, conflict) are taken into account, individual traits and the partner’s self-reports brought no additional explanatory power (Joel et al., 2020). In other words, how we live the relationship after making the choice is just as decisive as whom we choose.

Conclusion: A Limited but Real Freedom

Do we choose our spouses? Yes, but we do not choose in a vacuum. Society determines the candidate pool, childhood relationships shape a portion of the criteria, biology and culture influence part of the attraction, and our bodies and circumstances dictate some of the momentary feelings. This picture does not mean helplessness. On the contrary, it points out exactly where freedom begins. A person who notices the pattern they are repeating and asks, “What is this attraction telling me?” can pull their choice out of the automatic realm and closer to a conscious decision. Psychotherapy is precisely the arena for this awareness.

Perhaps a mature preference is being able to ask “Who made me choose?” before declaring “I chose.”

Kaynakça

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