This 23-year longitudinal study examined the attachment history of earned-secure young adults who coherently describe negative childhood experiences. Findings indicated that retrospective earned-secures were not more likely than continuous-secures to have been anxiously attached in infancy, and were observed in childhood and adolescence to have encountered among the most supportive and structured maternal parenting in a high-risk sample. Prospectively defined earned-secures had successful close relationships in young adulthood. (Author/KB)