Journal of Youth and Adolescence https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0951-1 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH Patterns of Romantic Pathways among 23 Year Olds and their Adolescent Antecedents Shmuel Shulman 1,2 ● Inge Seiffge-Krenke 3 ● Ido Ziv 2 ● Rivka Tuval-Mashiach 1 Received: 29 July 2018 / Accepted: 19 October 2018 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Observation of the romantic lives of the majority of young people shows that they might move between transitory and inconsistent states, being in and out of a relationship. The present study aims to better understand the meaning of these fluctuations. For this purpose, and employing a multi-method design, 144 Israeli adolescents (59.7% females) were followed from age 16 to 23. At age 23 in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants, focusing on their romantic histories. Analyses of interviews at age 23 yielded four distinctive romantic pathways differing in stability and the ability to progress toward intimacy: Sporadic and Casual Encounters, Sporadic Encounters in Response to a Stressful Romantic Experience, Steady Non-Intimate Involvements, and Progression toward Steady Intimate Involvements. The findings showed that more than half of participants belonged to the Progression toward Steady Intimate Involvements pathway, suggesting that romantic fluctuations served as means to progress toward intimate involvements. Progression toward steady intimate involvement was explained by greater secure attachment, greater capacity to face tension and to express one’s views, and greater parental support measured seven years earlier. In contrast, lower earlier intra- and interpersonal assets during adolescence were more likely to associate with a variety of romantic experiences during emerging adulthood that are characterized by romantic instabilities and difficulty to progress toward intimacy. The findings are discussed within the framework of the Developmental Systems Theory. Keywords Romantic pathways ● Adolescence ● Emerging adults ● Romantic relationships ● Longitudinal study ● Developmental Systems Theory Introduction The age of marriage has been postponed to towards the end of the 20s (Shulman and Connolly 2013) and many young people are in and out of relationships, while an increasing number tends to engage in short-term relationships or casual sexual encounters (Claxton and van Dulmen 2013). Studies assessing patterns of romantic and sexual behavior among emerging adults are mainly descriptive and focused on the frequencies of different types of romantic or sexual encounters at a given point in time (Cohen et al. 2003; Rauer et al. 2013), but are less informative about develop- mental pathways of romantic and sexual encounters, and of the possible meaning of fluctuations. Embedded within the Developmental Systems Theory (DST) and the notions of Mayes (2001) concerning the dialectics of fluidity and sta- bility, the current study explores possible romantic path- ways found among emerging adults and aims to understand the developmental function and the meaning of romantic fluctuations. Employing a multi-method approach, the cur- rent study explores the diverse pathways of romantic experiences and their possible progress into stable, and intimate, relationships. The study also examines the indi- vidual and family antecedents during adolescence, which could explain affiliation with the different romantic path- ways during emerging adulthood. Statistics and demographic studies from industrialized countries have shown that the period during which young people assume adult responsibilities, gain economic inde- pendence and marry has moved to the end of the third * Shmuel Shulman shmuel.shuman@biu.ac.il 1 Department of Psychology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel 2 Department of Psychology, College of Management, Rishon LeZion, Israel 3 Department of Psychology, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany 1234567890();,: 1234567890();,: