What's your attachment style?

Our attachment style forms by the time we are 18 months, even though we have no real memories of it. As part of our basic survival strategies, we learn how to adapt to our parents and their capacities to connect with us emotionally. We carry this attachment style into our adult relationships.

The holy grail of attachment patterns is secure, when love and connection come easily and naturally, and any issues are repaired quickly with mutual resolutions and forgiveness. You truly see and accept your partner with or without any perceived quirks. You communicate your feelings and needs openly, and you’re lovingly responsive to theirs. Trust comes easily, and you equally enjoy both togetherness and independence in your relationship.

The anxiously attached partner needs constant reassurance and connection. They will often sacrifice their own needs for the other person. Trust is hard, so they are often preoccupied with worry about the relationship. They tend to take things personally and overthink them in terms of the worst possible outcomes. Emotional outbursts, irrational jealousy, constant checking on, even acting out can all be used in counterproductive attempts to create intimacy. They are the people who will always want to know where you are, what’s happening and send multiple text messages to ask why you didn’t text back. Regardless, they can be a real asset to the relationship, being such advocates for connection, they are usually the first ones to spot something being off and willing to repair it.

Avoidant types are independent, slow to commit, and hard to reach emotionally. They value their freedom over intimacy and enjoy alone time more than connecting. Vulnerability is challenging for them, and they tend to create a lifestyle that protects them from “suffocation” through a relationship. Attempts to reduce their autonomy or to exert control over an avoidant would be triggering for them. In response to demands for closeness, they may choose to engage in behaviours that create even more distance. 

The less mentioned attachment style is disorganized, and it tends to encompass the worst aspects of both anxious and avoidant styles. This pattern craves intimacy but fears it at the same time. Relationships and dating make them nervous. Their desire for a real connection is genuine, but comes with equal amounts of fear that may cause them to act erratically, and sabotage a relationship. As a result, they can pull away or act erratically to protect themselves from a perceived rejection despite the sincere desire to love and be loved.

While we all have a dominant style, it’s common to notice traits of all of them in various quantities. These days I mostly enjoy a secure attachment from considerable inner work, and the beautiful relationship I am in but, my origins were more in the anxious style with sprinkles of avoidant!

Healing and improving your attachment is possible through self-work, reflection, understanding where it came from, and reparenting those parts of ourselves that got hurt. A loving, trusting, safe relationship can also do miracles to develop a secure attachment. The safer and more accepted we feel, the more securely attached we grow.