Watching a baby being born is like seeing something unique happen. Every parent wants to hold, cuddle, and care for their new baby. This is where everyone’s journey of love and relationships starts. Babies really depend on their caregivers to stay alive. Hence, God designed babies with a desire to connect with others and a baseline understanding of how to do it.
Babies enjoy looking at faces and can get attention by crying when they need something. They often feel better when they’re held or rocked. Plus, babies are so adorable that their primary caregivers want to keep them safe and look after them.
When kids start moving around independently, they still rely on their caregivers to help them stay safe. Even when they explore, they often check back with their caregiver for reassurance. In these early years, starting when they’re babies, children learn that relationships can make them feel secure and can comfort them when upset.
How Did We Come to Learn About Attachment Theory?
In the late 1950s, psychoanalyst John Bowlby started talking about an attachment system. He said a baby’s behaviors are done intentionally to keep a stronger/ wiser person, called an attachment figure, close so the child can stay safe and survive.
Bowlby also said it’s essential for these attachment figures to be caring and emotionally present for children to grow up healthy and happy. At that time, Bowlby’s idea clashed with what mothers were told. The common belief was that being too sensitive and nurturing would make children overly clingy and dependent. Mothers believed they needed to maintain a more distant, rational approach, even when their children were upset or sick.
Bowlby’s ideas were mainly dismissed until researcher Mary Ainsworth helped him prove them in the 1970s, as Wallin (2007) and Mikulincer and Shaver (2007) mentioned. Ainsworth’s studies demonstrated that children develop a strong bond with their parents through countless obvious and subtle interactions. This bond becomes a “working model” that shapes their expectations of how others will treat them and how they see themselves.
How does parent-child attachment influence later relationships?
Later on, researchers found that the attachment process is also at work in romantic relationships (Feeney, 2008). While originally designed by nature to ensure a child’s survival, the attachment bonds formed within this system are experienced as love, both in childhood and adulthood.
Unsurprisingly, children seek their parents’ love as if their lives depend on it because, in a way, they do. Similarly, adults can feel intense anxiety and sadness when their primary relationships and the love they provide are at risk. Children who find it hard to be soothed by their parents often grow up struggling to manage their emotions and lack the emotional ability to find comfort in their romantic relationships.
How childhood attachment determines relationships
When you’re feeling really upset, you typically turn to your attachment figures for comfort and support. It’s like activating an internal homing device that guides you toward seeking solace from those you’re emotionally attached to.
When an adult has a secure attachment style, they tend to seek out their partner or primary attachment figure for reassurance when upset. Once they find their partner is consistently available and responsive, their attachment system switches off, and they feel calm and comforted. However, individuals with an insecure attachment pattern may not consistently find this comfort in their partners or others, suggesting that their “homing device” isn’t working properly.
Recent research indicates that attachment styles, whether secure or insecure, are rooted in two core “working models” or default ways of relating: the working model of self and the working model of others. The working model of self refers to your perception of your own worthiness of love. If you feel unworthy of love, you’re likely to fear rejection and experience attachment-related anxiety.
You may identify this as anxiety, which is a sensation of tension or unease. However, it can also manifest as other troubling emotions like sadness, loneliness, or anger. Individuals, both adults and children, who harbor a deep sense of unworthiness tend to live as if their attachment system, or internal homing device for seeking comfort from attachment figures, is constantly switched to the “on” position.
If you can relate to this, you might find yourself constantly seeking reassurance from an attachment figure and consistently feeling alone, rejected, or fearful of rejection. Even at less extreme levels of attachment-related anxiety, individuals may grapple with feelings of inadequacy and a fear of not being able to cope emotionally with rejection.
People also possess a working model of others, which entails expectations regarding whether others will be emotionally available to them. If they anticipate that others won’t be there for them, they may feel uneasy about getting close and tend to avoid it. Psychologists refer to this tendency as attachment-related avoidance.
Some individuals are so convinced that others won’t be emotionally available that they choose to become completely self-reliant. They make every effort to avoid feeling the need to depend on someone else. It’s as though their attachment system or internal homing device remains stuck in the “off” position.
Self-Guided Exercise To Determine How Much Anxiety and Avoidance You Feel in Relationships
Let’s see how anxious and avoidant you feel in your relationships. Read these paragraphs and rate yourself from 0 to 10: 0 means not at all, and 10 means you relate entirely. Remember your scores to help figure out your attachment style later.
Attachment-Related Anxiety
Feeling emotionally close to my partner is crucial to me. However, sometimes, I feel like I want to be closer to others, which can make them feel uncomfortable. In a relationship, I often doubt myself and worry that I’m not as good as my partner or others. I’m constantly anxious about whether my partner truly cares about me as much as I care about them. I also worry a lot about whether my partner really loves me, if their feelings might change, or if they might decide to leave me. I’m especially concerned that they might find someone else when we’re not together.
Rating: ___________
Attachment-Related Avoidance
I’m very independent and self-sufficient, so I don’t need to be in a close, committed relationship. Even when I’m in one, I prefer not to rely on my partner or share deep personal thoughts and feelings. It makes me uneasy when my partner wants to depend on me or talk a lot about their thoughts and feelings. When I have issues, I usually keep them to myself and work them out alone, and I’d rather my partner do the same.
Rating: ___________
What Are The Four Attachment Styles?
As I’ve mentioned, attachment styles are best understood by looking at how people relate to themselves (which can lead to anxiety) and to others (which can result in avoidance). When we categorize the levels of anxiety and avoidance as high or low, we get four different combinations.
Preoccupied: High Anxiety, Low Avoidance
Fearful: High Anxiety, High Avoidance
Dismissing: Low Anxiety, High Avoidance
Secure: Low Anxiety, Low Avoidance
In the original research on attachment theory, attachment styles were thought to be distinctly different from each other. However, current research suggests that this view isn’t entirely accurate. Instead, different attachment styles form more of a spectrum with overlapping tendencies rather than clear-cut categories.
Combining levels of avoidance and anxiety is akin to mixing primary colors. For instance, blending red and yellow creates orange. Similarly, when adding a small amount of yellow to red, you get an orangey-red shade, and adding a touch of red to yellow results in an orangey-yellow hue. This dynamic mirrors the relationship between the two dimensions of attachment.
Imagine This: If you’re someone with high anxiety and very low avoidance, and your spouse has high anxiety but is slightly lower in avoidance, you would both fall into the preoccupied area on the attachment graph. However, you would be closer to the bottom (low avoidance arrow), while your spouse would be closer to the high anxiety arrow. This pattern shows similarities to people with a fearful attachment style.
Secure Attachment In Action: Happy With Love
Bob is generally a cheerful person. He finds joy in his job as an elementary school teacher and believes he excels at it. During his free time, he loves playing basketball and hiking with two close friends.
Bob is also happily engaged to Sarah, whom he trusts and leans on for support without hesitation. While their relationship isn’t flawless, they talk through any issues, leaving Bob feeling cared for.
Similar to about 60 percent of individuals, Bob has a secure attachment style. Securely attached people are at ease with their emotions and view themselves as lovable, competent, and caring individuals. They also see their partners as reliable, caring, and emotionally present, leading to contentment in both themselves and their relationships.
How Someone With A Preoccupied Attachment Approaches Sex
Just as securely attached individuals are satisfied with their relationships overall, they also enjoy contentment in their sex lives. Valuing emotional intimacy, they prioritize fidelity, openly discuss sex, and appreciate its pleasures.
If you are anxiously attached and have the fortune of being with a securely attached partner like Bob. You’ll likely find comfort in their stable and positive approach to relationships, allowing you to develop a more secure attachment style yourself.
Preoccupied Attachment: Desperate To Be Loved
Let’s talk about Olivia – she might remind you of yourself a bit. Olivia often looks to her boyfriend, Sam, for reassurance because she’s unsure if she’s lovable. But when Sam shows affection and interest in her, Olivia feels confused because it doesn’t match how she sees herself. She’s constantly worried about how much Sam truly cares about her.
She’s convinced that if Sam knew her, he’d leave her immediately. So, Olivia always frets that Sam won’t want to spend time with her on weekends. And whenever he doesn’t respond quickly to her texts, she thinks he’s avoiding her. This fear of rejection looms large, and it’s always on her mind.
People like Olivia, who has a preoccupied attachment style, are very sensitive to being ignored or turned down by their partner, whom they rely on for support.
The Typical Relationship With Preoccupied Attachment
Due to their sensitivities to being ignored, they use hyperactivating strategies to keep their attachment system “turned on” or activated. This ensures that they keep seeking out a reliable attachment figure. For example, they often overreact to problems and underestimate their ability to handle them. They might also constantly search for potential issues in the past, present, and future.
By harboring these negative feelings and thoughts, they intensify their need for an attachment figure, essentially crying out for one. Sadly, those who do this excessively can end up feeling constantly overwhelmed, vulnerable, and needy. Their hypersensitivity to any potential signs of rejection inadvertently leads to arguments and creates distance in their close relationships.
It’s expected that their partners will eventually misunderstand them, be unavailable at times, or not respond with enough care. However, people with preoccupied attachment styles tend to react strongly to these situations. Although they might start a relationship feeling deeply in love, they often become overly focused on their own distress soon after.
As a result, they may see their partners as unloving or inconsistently available, leading to feelings of mistrust and even jealousy. This can cause them to become possessive and overly suspicious.
To make things worse, they often struggle to calm down and forgive their partners for any mistakes. This instability in their relationships makes them prone to disruptions and problems. Consequently, they typically find themselves unhappy in their romantic relationships.
The Person With A Preoccupied Attachment
Due to their strong attachment needs and challenges, some people with a preoccupied attachment style structure their lives around proving their worthiness of love or finding ways to distract themselves from their negative emotions. This hinders their ability to express themselves genuinely or pursue their interests.
Individuals with a preoccupied attachment style frequently bring their home-related issues and unhappiness into their work environment. Moreover, the persistent stress and anxiety they experience often lead to health issues.
How Someone With A Preoccupied Attachment Approaches Sex
Similarly, they approach their sex lives with a strong desire for reassurance and a fear of rejection, much like they do with other aspects of their lives. While they may enjoy physical affection like being held and caressed without necessarily seeking further sexual intimacy, they turn to sex as a means to gain the reassurance and acceptance they crave.
When men seek love and acceptance from a woman, they often approach sex with more caution, desiring their partner’s responsiveness and enjoyment. Conversely, women aiming for love and acceptance from a man may be less reserved or occasionally engage in promiscuous behavior. In both cases, individuals often feel that their partners or circumstances control their sex lives, leading to discomfort when discussing sex with their partners.
Dismissing Attachment: I Don’t Need Love
Now, let’s meet Johnny. Take a moment to see if you can relate to him or if he reminds you of someone you know. Johnny takes pride in his independence, self-sufficiency, and dedication to his job in sales. While he enjoyed spending time with his ex-girlfriend, Jen, he wasn’t overly upset when she ended their relationship.
Johnny felt that Jen made too big of a deal about his business trips, even though she only requested occasional check-ins. He also felt overwhelmed by her desire to discuss her feelings and their relationship constantly. As a result, he’s now content not having to take care of her.
Even though Johnny sometimes feels excluded when his friends talk about their girlfriends, he claims it doesn’t bother him and prefers to spend time alone. However, Johnny refuses to acknowledge, even to himself, that he actively downplays and avoids his feelings.
The Typical Relationship With Dismissing Attachment
Individuals with a dismissing attachment style will actively downplay and avoid their feelings. Similar to those with a preoccupied attachment style, those with a dismissing style also tend to believe that their partners won’t reliably offer support or comfort.
However, they protect themselves by unconsciously using deactivating strategies that “turn off” or deactivate their attachment system. This allows them to avoid feeling the pull to rely on an unreliable partner.
They effectively push down, avoid, or overlook their emotions and attachment needs. They tend to keep their distance, limit their interactions and deep conversations, and frequently put down their partners.
For instance, Johnny appeared kind when he assisted Jen with her finances, something she valued. However, this also enabled him to maintain a distant and superior stance, which heightened her negative self-perception. On other occasions, Johnny would keep his distance and dismiss Jen’s attempts to connect emotionally by labeling her as “too needy.”
This, naturally, only heightened her self-doubts. Ultimately, dismissing individuals might genuinely care about their partners, but they do so without becoming too emotionally involved or intimate. Often unaware of their own emotions, they aren’t equipped to handle emotionally distressing situations effectively. For instance, when their partners upset them, they attempt to downplay or ignore their anger. However, that anger still lingers beneath the surface, often leaving them tense and unwilling to forgive.
This situation isn’t good for their relationships, but it’s hard to fix because much of it happens without them realizing it. This situation is especially tough for partners who are anxiously attached because they often see the dismissing partner’s anger as a sign that something is wrong with them.
Why doesn’t the dismissing partner just break up? Even though they have a dismissing style, they still want comfort and connection. So they stay in romantic relationships while also making sure they’re very independent in those relationships.
How Someone With Dismissing Attachment Approaches Sex
Dismissing people handle their sexuality in the same distant and self-protective manner as they do with relationships in general. Because physical or sexual contact can make them feel vulnerable, many of them are uncomfortable with connecting through touch, like hugs or gentle caressing.
They might avoid sex altogether, sometimes choosing to satisfy themselves through masturbation. Alternatively, they might keep their emotional distance by only engaging in one-night stands or short-term relationships that lack deep intimacy. Even in more intimate relationships, they tend to show little affection and may emotionally withdraw during sex. This can leave their anxious partners feeling unattractive and undeserving of love.
Fearful Attachment: Unsure About Love
Steve sees himself as emotionally unstable. He’s felt this way since he was young. When he was just fourteen, his father left, and his mother was busy working long hours to support the family. As a result, Steve had to take care of himself essentially.
He sees himself as flawed, needy, helpless, and unworthy of love. Steve believes that others can sense there’s something wrong with him, so they keep their distance. Even though he desires a committed, romantic relationship, he avoids getting close because he fears rejection or misunderstanding.
The Typical Relationship With Fearful Attachment
People with a fearful attachment style often experience a conflict between a strong fear of rejection and a deep need for reassurance and closeness. They can act in contradictory and confusing ways when they’re not completely avoiding relationships. They tend to perceive their partners as emotionally distant and may sometimes go to great lengths to seek their approval.
They seek attention by employing hyperactivating strategies, like exaggerating their distress. However, when they sense their partners getting too close, they feel vulnerable to getting hurt. So, instinctively, they try to protect themselves by pushing their partners away, using deactivating strategies to avoid intimacy.
In Steve’s case, he would spend his weekends fixing up old cars, which limited the time he could spend with his girlfriend (when he had one). This ongoing struggle between being too close or too distant leaves people with a fearful attachment style feeling constantly distressed, insecure, extremely passive, and emotionally distant.
As expected, they are highly prone to anxiety, depression, and other emotional challenges. Fearfully attached individuals often perceive their partners as emotionally distant, causing them to view their partners negatively and find it difficult to understand their feelings.
For example, when John was dating Suzie, and they met after work for dinner, he would often assume she wasn’t interested in him when, in reality, she was just tired from a long day. This tendency naturally leads to tension in relationships.
However, individuals with a fearful attachment style are more inclined to internalize their feelings rather than confront them directly. This might be because they feel unworthy of love, leading them to stay in relationships even when they’re deeply troubled or even abusive.
On the contrary, due to their unease with intimacy and feeling appreciated—despite desiring it—they are more likely to sense something is amiss and end a relationship, even when they’re in love and their partner genuinely cares for them.
How Someone With Fearful Attachment Approaches Sex
Just as they find it difficult to be emotionally close to their partners, they also struggle with physical intimacy. Sometimes, this leads them to engage in casual sex as a means of maintaining emotional distance and safety while still attempting to fulfill their need for comfort, acceptance, and reassurance.
They might pursue this through one-night stands or short-term relationships, which they end when they start feeling vulnerable. When they’re less concerned with fulfilling their attachment needs and more focused on self-protection, they’re likely to avoid sexual intimacy and the vulnerability that comes with it.
Choosing Your Attachment Style
Labeling yourself based on your attachment style, like preoccupied or fearful, can be tempting. However, it’s important to remember that you’re more than just a category. You’re a unique individual with many aspects to consider. The key to reducing relationship anxiety and improving yourself lies in understanding yourself better.
So, when you read about the four attachment styles, consider how much you relate to each one rather than just trying to fit into a single category. It’s also important to recognize that your attachment style can change with therapy, personal development, etc.
Romantic relationships often offer a unique chance to improve your attachment style for better emotional health, and SimplyMidori can guide you in that process.
Besides evaluating your own attachment style, it’s essential also to consider the styles of others, like your current or past partners, friends, or colleagues.
Your attachment-related anxiety might lead you to make hasty and often incorrect emotional judgments of others, which can result in misunderstandings of their emotions, struggles, and actions. These misunderstandings can lead to significant issues in your relationships.
By better understanding your partner’s attachment style, you can comprehend them and the dynamics of your relationship more effectively. Additionally, by solidly understanding secure attachment, you can recognize the advantages of striving for it yourself and understand how having a securely attached partner can benefit you.
Conclusion
Reading about these attachment styles may lead you to believe that the only “good” way to have a healthy relationship is by having a secure attachment style. However, this impression would be incorrect. The “best” way to attach is to be in a romantic relationship that brings you happiness.
If you lean towards having a preoccupied attachment style and are married to someone with a similar tendency, but both of you are content and fulfilled, then embrace that happiness. Enjoy your relationship as it is suited to you. While moving towards a more secure attachment style can be one significant path to finding joy in your relationship, it’s not the only way. As you reflect on your life and consider changes you might want to make, remember that the ultimate goal is finding happiness in love.
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