The 4 Attachment Styles Impacting Your Relationships!
Relationships bring pleasure, yet they also take work. We all know this. Human connection adds vibrant color to our long days, warmth to our cold nights, and meaning to our ever-changing seasons.
What’s less obvious to most is the need for introspective thought. The kind that is so powerful, the newfound knowledge leaves you with no choice but to come to terms with past decisions, and adjust your future behaviors.
This sort of wild, thought-provoking, and self-realizing inner-trip came to me a few months back. It took me by surprise, and completely shook my world. It came to me after meeting someone who reminded me of no one, and inspired me to feel everything- deeply.
Our connection grew quickly. We shared similar values surrounding the topics of wellness & nutrition, spirituality, and personal development. He made me laugh- often, his efforts were consistent, and he also happened to be fine as fuck. He moved with a creatively-unique appeal; a physical aesthetic that could, and did, quite literally turn heads. He lit up all of my senses, and seemed to be everything I’d spent late nights attempting to manifest through laws of attraction.
Yet, about three months into our passionate journey, something began to feel off. An explosive argument led to things ending abruptly. Within minutes, everything we’d spent time developing was painfully uprooted.
I’m not one to mope around after a “loss.” I’m a researcher at heart, and in the weeks following, I spent much time evaluating my role in the dysfunction.
This is the point where I was slapped in the face with a profound insight: Everyone has an attachment style, yet not all are sustainably compatible. That is of course, unless both parties are clear on which attachment style they approach the relationship with, and commit to understanding the other.
My goal is to help others build awareness of their own unique attachment styles. This is a foundational step in developing healthy relationships, friendships, and overall human connections that thrive.
Had I known even a fraction of the information I’m about to share with you, perhaps we could have developed a bond to last lifetimes, or at least longer than three dreamy months. But hey! We live and we learn, right?
Before we jump into individual attachment styles, I’ll share with you 3 dimensions of attachment. These are three factors that impact every single relationship you form; whether you’re connecting with parents, friends, coworkers, intimate partners, or even that random stranger you met on a drunken night.
Dimensions of Attachment
- Closeness: personal comfort level dealing with emotional intimacy. How easy is it for you to be vulnerable with others? On the flip, are you comfortable engaging others’ emotions as they open up to you?
- Dependence/Avoidance: personal comfort level depending on others, as well as your comfort with others’ dependance on you. Do you heavily depend on others as your source of happiness? Maybe you actually don’t believe anyone is capable of meeting any of your needs, so you avoid intimacy whenever possible. Do you consider yourself a reliable, consistent partner? Or, does the thought of being held accountable by another send you running like Forrest Gump?
- Anxiety: personal level of concern with abandonment or rejection from another. Are you confident enough in yourself to believe that the people you attract will accept all of you and stay? Perhaps your emotions are so stable you’d be just fine either way. Or, maybe you worry that you’re not truly worthy of another’s time and affection, so you fear any wrong move on your part will make your partner ghost you and forget you existed.
Our parents, or primary caregivers, are our first influencers to dimensions of attachment. They are the first “other” we attach to. As helpless little humans, we depend on others for everything; primarily physical and emotional security. When a child feels a physical pain or emotional threat, they will instinctively look towards adult caretakers to address any and all needs.
How a caretaker responds to a child’s needs in various situations is essentially what shapes our attachment styles. Without giving attachment styles much thought, we carry similar frameworks for how we relate to others and go about getting our needs met into adulthood.
To better understand this point, here are four commonly described attachment styles:
Attachment Styles
1. Securely Attached
Positive view of self. Positive view of others.
Starting at birth, a secure attachment is developed between a caretaker and child when the caretaker is consistently responsive to the child’s needs. The parent is in tune with the child’s concerns and aligned with their emotions. A secure attachment diminishes fear of abandonment or emotional neglect in the child.
Example:
A) Child is nervous about playing in a new environment, and cries when dropped off by caretaker.
B) Caretaker acknowledges/responds to this upset, as well as others, in an urgent and consistent manner. The caretaker helps alleviate any lingering fears the child may have about its new environment, which communicates a healthy sense of exploration to the child.
C) The child connects the dots between vocalizing discomfort, and having their immediate needs addressed. Trust in another’s care develops, as well as a subconscious belief system for how to go about having future needs met. Also, short-term detachment from the primary caregiver creates a healthy space for the child to recognize the power of connectivity and distance.
As an adult, those with a secure attachment style typically find comfort in connecting with others, and do so with ease. They have a positive view of themselves, and trust themselves to communicate how they’d like their needs met. They also trust that others are capable of meeting their needs, without the urge to control another’s actions.
Secure attachments show little anxiety or fear of abandonment. The classic act of self-sabotage in intimate relationships is generally not an issue for those with secure attachments because these individuals are in touch with their own emotions, and seek to understand others before jumping to conclusions or ungrounded fears.
These types value their own independence, and also allow their partners to breathe; without sacrificing healthy connectivity.
2. Avoidantly Attached
Positive view of self. Negative view of others.
In an avoidant attachment, the caretaker addresses the child’s needs from a distance, or appears to be disengaged from physical and emotional needs entirely. Avoidant attachments are filled with emotional distance and rejection of intimacy.
These individuals have learned to disable their emotional layers; keeping as much as they can inside while refusing to let much else in from others. Partners to an avoidant often crave more connection, which can cause severe discomfort for both individuals.
This is because avoidants equate the closeness that others crave with a loss of independence, and are often ill-equipped, unable, or unwilling to meet the emotional needs of their partner.
Example:
A) A preoccupied caretaker regularly ignores their child’s request to play together.
B) The child may go about finding alternative ways, or other people, to play with outside of their primary attachment.
C) The child learns to detach from a desire to have their needs met by the primary caretaker, because it knows alternative methods for having their needs met exists. They learn to avoid seeking closeness to and from others, often out of fear of being rejected.
As an adult, those with an avoidant attachment style have learned to keep others at an arm’s length, especially intimate partners. It is difficult for these individuals to let people in because they often fear that doing so will threaten their independence. Avoidants consider their independence to be sacred because they often carry the subconscious belief that others are ultimately incapable of meeting their needs.
3. Anxiously Attached
Negative view of self. Positive view of others.
Those who are anxiously attached have an opposite perspective of connection when compared to avoidant attachments; however both avoidants and anxiously attached share a common, deep-rooted fear of rejection.
While avoidants have a positive view of self and negative view of others that causes them to reject intimacy, anxious attachments are characterized by a low self-worth and a high regard for others.
In other words, those with an anxious attachment style often view others as “the prize,” while simultaneously overlooking the value they themselves add to the relationship. They constantly seek validation from others as they fear they are not enough.
Anxiously attached individuals have a strong desire to maintain physical and emotional intimacy, and anxiety sets in at any point where the stability of the relationship begins to feel threatened.
Often, anxiously attached individuals will “cling” to their partners. They require constant reassurance about where they stand in another’s life.
Example:
A) A caretaker keeps the child close to them at all times.
B) The child develops little to no skills for exploring new environments, experiencing diverse connections, or learning how to go about getting their needs met in unfamiliar situations. The child fears detaching from their primary source of comfort, security, and connection.
C) When the caretaker must separate, the child has no internal framework for how to cope with the separation. Feelings of abandonment are triggered.
As an adult, anxiously attached individuals struggle to create protective boundaries for themselves because much of their connection is based on fear of if, or how long, their partner will stay. Their happiness and overall well-being is often someone else’s responsibility, which creates a vicious cycle of insecurities.
4. Disorganized Attachment
Unsure of self. Narcissistic tendencies towards others.
In adulthood, a disorganized attachment is often linked to unresolved traumas that occured during childhood.
This style is developed in those who grew up in a chaotic environment, or with parents who exhibited traumatizing behaviors, such as arguing, violence, or negligence.
Example:
A) Parent 1 constantly takes long work trips; leaving Parent 2 alone to maintain a parental bond with their child.
B) The child is left at home with parent 2. Due to feeling overworked and undervalued in the home, Parent 2 becomes argumentative, irritable, and violent.
C) The child witnesses frightening and traumatizing behavior from Parent 2, causing it to dissociate from emotions to avoid feeling any further pain.
In a disorganized attachment, the caretaker regularly overlooks the child’s needs. A lack of empathy, antisocial behavior, and narcissistic tendencies are carried into adulthood by the child. They often find connection with others to be intolerable.
Since they were innocent during their caretakers fits of rage as a child, they often have a difficult time holding themselves accountable for dysfunction or recognizing their own faults in adult relationships.
While most of us display a dominant attachment style, keep in mind that it is possible, and quite likely, to have a combination of these qualities.
When clarifying your own thought patterns and behavioral approach to relationships, try not to force yourself into a box. We’re complex beings with intricate layers, and our outlook on attachment is no different.
The goal in learning about attachment styles is to identify your inner-child’s needs, and develop a system for getting those needs met as the adult that you are now. As is the case with any healthy relationship, the attempt to remain mindful of and attend to another’s needs should be reciprocated and balanced.
This means learning where your partner stands in regards to attachment, and committing to loving them in that phase.
You had little control over the bond formed between Little You and your primary caretaker. However, you can now decide to re-parent yourself, form a healthy attachment between your Self and others, and learn to love your partner’s inner-child, too!
