How to help your anxiously attached partner

It's easy to brand us anxiously attached folk as needy.

Our request and prompts for reassurance may seem a little ott, especially if you lean avoidant.

We spend a lot of time second-guessing our lovability and overanalyzing our relationships. The anxiety that results simmers our fears until they boil over in the protest behaviours that make us act in the high-maintenance ways that drive you away.

It's difficult for you when we get to this point because, even though you may think you're providing us with the reassurance we requested, our attachment system is screaming "danger" so loudly that we can't quite hear you.

You then come to believe that nothing you say or do will ever be enough to satisfy us...

Please know that the reassurance you offer spontaneously feels and affects us differently than what you say in response to our insecurities.

Words of affirmation are a firm favourite for insecurely attached partners. The words that express your love and care for us are everything to the anxiously attached.

When you tell us how you love us and how we matter, it means the world to us.

I've been known to follow an "I love you" with a "why?" because hearing the story and depth is incredibly soothing to a sensitive attachment system.

So go a step further and tell your partner what you love most about them, they'll enjoy hearing it.

Every unprompted act of reassurance helps to keep the volume down on an anxious attachment system, which increases at the slightest perceived disconnection.

The more we get used to that volume being down, the more we relax into our secure attachment.

If you are more anxiously attached than your partner share this with them so they can support you in becoming secure.