Is Your Marriage Helping or Impeding the Stress of Lawyering? 

In May, the WSBA Well-Being Task Force released its Final Report, which describes a continuing high incidence of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse among members of the Bar. This has been a long-standing issue, having been described by Beck and colleagues in the 1995 study, Lawyer distress: Alcohol-Related Problems and Other Psychological Concerns Among a Sample of Practicing Lawyers.

The sources of these challenges are well known to Washington’s attorneys and include the adversarial process and incivility, long work hours, financial pressures, and a culture of perfectionism. Among the greatest barriers to seeking professional support are concerns about stigma and confidentiality. The legal profession is, for the most part, a culture of toughing it out—being strong.

As a licensed marriage and family therapist for over 35 years (and an attorney for more than 50), in reviewing the report I was struck that scant mention is made of both the ameliorating and exacerbating contributions of our closest relationships. It has long been widely accepted that a secure primary bond (intimate partnership, such as marriage) protects us from the burdens of high stress and the myriad other challenges we face as attorneys. At the same time, intimate partner conflict intensifies the distress which may be caused by outside forces.

A Brief History of Attachment

Back in the 1940s and ‘50s, British psychiatrist John Bowlby made the then-revolutionary observation at that time, that the distress of babies was based not in their fantasies (as the dominant psychoanalytic community insisted), but in the kind of bond that was formed with their parents. He termed that bond “attachment” and posited that it was characterized by three factors:

1. The need for physical proximity to and touch from the parent;
2. The baby looking to the parent as a “safe haven”; and
3. The parent functioning as a “secure base” for the baby, meaning that if the connection was inconsistent or absent, the baby will divert their psychological energy away from exploring their world and redirect it to the relationship.

Researchers such as Philip Shaver and Cindy Hazan found that these deep, pro-social needs for physical touch, a haven, and secure base did not go away when people hit adolescence and beyond—they were transferred from our parental caregivers to our romantic partner.

Therefore, every adult who is in an intimate partnership, such as marriage, is in an “adult attachment relationship.” As lawyers are in a high-stress profession, with significant responsibilities, partnership issues, long hours and often facing adversarial elements, this adult attachment relationship can serve to help us cope with those stresses or, unfortunately, aggravate them.

When Things Go Awry

Most couples find a way of co-creating a secure bond, in which inevitable conflict is brief, does not escalate, and is satisfactorily resolved. Regardless of whether the blowout is large and acute or moderate yet chronic, it will result in one partner feeling disconnected from the other. The distress this causes is common to all mammals. It is entirely natural—and it causes deep anxiety within the person feeling the disconnection—and usually experienced by a deep sense that something isn’t right and needs to be corrected somehow.

The easiest, most natural way to get relief is to tell the partner what they are, or are not, doing that is causing the distress. That person is “pursuing” the other to regain this emotional connection. Yet, if we switch to the experience of the other, the message is usually received as a criticism—a statement that “I am unhappy and the reason is YOU.” People who are in receipt of this message will feel a sting. It sucks to feel that the person you most want to be happy is unhappy because of you.

This person usually does one of two things. They may emotionally or physically withdraw to get space from this message that they are failing. The other common option is to defend themselves and accuse their partner of hypocrisy.

Lawyers and Attachment

Attorneys are particularly vulnerable to intimate-partner conflict, based on the findings of the WSBA’s Well-Being Task Force Report. According to the report, 58% of the survey respondents reported feeling regular or occasional burnout. Additionally, 56.8% reported anxiety symptoms, 66.9% experienced stress from billable hour expectations and 36.5% from carrying student debt exceeding $150,000.

Living in a professional environment awash with high levels of stress, coupled with a cultural “tough it out” attitude in which the principal barriers to seeking professional help are stigma, lack of time, and institutional norms, it is small wonder that the practice of law imposes significant burdens on attorneys’ personal relationships. Common scenarios experienced by practitioners include:

• The spouse who protests with increasing intensity about the lack of time and connection with the overburdened attorney who hopes that periodic top-shelf vacations will suffice. However, this does not quell the continued expressions of dissatisfaction and loneliness.
• Attorneys’ decidedly logical approach to disagreement, which causes a disconnected partner to feel unacknowledged and unheard, thus driving up their frustration and harsh “pursuing” behaviors.
• Attorneys are conflict-resolution professionals who are averse to their own interpersonal conflict, lacking the tools to successfully engage and repair inevitable intimate conflict in their own lives.
• Attorneys’ training, which tends to view conflict as something one “wins,” rather than sorting out and resolving different deeply held beliefs and desires.
• Attachment science tells us that unresolved, chronic, intimate conflict robs us of the “secure base” we need to perform at our highest in our professional lives and the stress we experience from falling short of our professional expectations due to that preoccupation only exacerbates the tensions at home.

The good news is that our primary bonds, if secure, will shield us from the distress which is unfortunately prevalent among laborers in the field of the law. Though unfortunately derided in the profession as “touchy feely” concerns, those who face these challenges and work to create or regain a “safe haven” with their partner will likely enjoy deeper personal and professional satisfaction.