Have you ever wondered why some people tend to form relationships super easily, while others really struggle? For some people, opening up, trusting or committing to someone else feels like a natural thing to do. For others, this kind of vulnerability feels terrifying, overwhelming and suffocating.
The patterns in the way we relate to someone in a relationship is called an attachment style.
Psychological researchers have found that there are three main attachment styles:
1. Secure Attachment: feeling comfortable with intimacy, generally bring warmth and a strong capacity for love and affection
2. Anxious Attachment: craving intimacy, but overly concerned about their relationships, worrying about not being loved back and fearing abandonment
3. Avoidant Attachment: overwhelmed by intimacy, feeling a loss of independence in a relationship and trying to maintain space and distance in a relationship
Generally, people fall into one of these categories as their ‘dominant’ attachment style. However, based on my clinical experience, attachment styles can shift and change, based on certain life experiences.
For example, someone who is securely attached might become anxious if they are in a relationship with someone who betrays them. However, in the opposite way, someone who is anxious might become more secure with time, if they find a healthy, stable relationship.
No matter what your ‘dominant’ attachment style is, by building insight into your attachment patterns, you can understand yourself better and how you behave in a relationship.
What is attachment theory?
Attachment styles come out of attachment theory, developed by the renowned psychologist John Bowlby. Attachment theory suggests that your current attachment style, as an adult, was determined by the way your parents treated you when you were a child.
The idea is that your parents ‘taught’ you the rules of a relationship. For example, if you felt scared, you knew that you could go to your dad for safety. Or if you felt hungry, you could go to your mum for food.
But, in some people’s childhood, the ‘rules’ about relationships were confusing or even problematic.
It’s possible that when you felt scared, you didn’t know whether your parent would comfort you or turn you away, because they were busy or just didn’t know how to help.
It’s possible that when you felt hungry, you were told to stop complaining or figure it out for yourself.
Despite the fact that many adults realise that their parents were just trying their best, dealing with their own issues or mental health problems, these kinds of situations can still impact children and the way they view relationships as an adult.
As John Bowlby says; “we are only as needy as our unmet needs.”
Impact of Different Attachment Styles
Anxious + Avoidant
Imagine that someone with an anxious attachment style starts a relationship with someone who has an avoidant attachment style. Their dynamic might sound something like this:
Anxious – “Can you tell me what time you are finishing work tonight?”
Avoidant – “I don’t know”
Anxious – “It’s really important that I know, otherwise I will be worried about you”
Avoidant – “I’m not sure… just eat dinner without me”
Anxious – “Just tell me a time”
Avoidant – “You’re being annoying”
Anxious – “You’re stressing me out!”
and so on..
In this situation, both people are triggering each other, or more specifically, their attachment styles are triggering each other. The anxious person is seeking reassurance and certainty, however the more that they push for their need to be met, the more that the avoidant person pushes back, asserting their need for space and flexibility.
Quickly, this situation can escalate into conflict, with both people feeling exasperated and that their needs are not met.
Similarly, when two people with anxious attachment styles come together in a relationship, while they might be able to empathise with each other’s fears and cravings for closeness, this can also become a co-dependent relationship, where both people struggle to do things independently or feel constantly burdened to provide reassurance.
Finally, when two avoidant attachment styles come together, while there may be less conflict due to both people maintaining distance in the relationship, there may also be a lack of communication, intimacy or vulnerability. Ultimately, this can lead to feelings of loneliness and a ‘low commitment’ relationship, which may not feel satisfying to either person.
The Secure Attachment Style
Attachment research tells us that anxious and avoidant attachment styles develop because of a lack of a secure base when that person was a child. A secure base is generally the parent or caregiver who was mean’t to be there for the child, making them feel secure to go explore the world, express who they are and develop their identity.
When there was a secure base the child learn’t that whenever they needed their parent, they were there for them. This gave them the confidence to try new things (i.e. be less anxious about taking risks) and the assurance of comfort if those things went wrong (i.e. enjoying soothing comfort/ cuddles/ encouragement when feeling upset).
As an adult, someone who is securely attached brings this confidence and self-assurance into their adult relationships. They don’t fear attachment, because they have only had positive past experiences. They also don’t fear being alone, because they have been shown the tools to cope (i.e. soothing and comfort) which they can now provide to themselves.
Unfortunately, even with a secure base, someone might still not develop a secure attachment style. This is because some people are just born with a more anxious or avoidant temperament. So, there are no perfect guarantees in life that a secure base leads to a secure attachment style, even though it certainly plays a helpful role overall.
So, we are then left with the question; can I change my attachment style?
The simple answer is, yes!
Maybe you’ve read this blog post and considered that you might have an anxious or avoidant attachment style, and want to try and change that. Or maybe you’re unsure what your attachment style is, but you reflect that you probably didn’t have that secure base as a child, and it may have impacted how you behave in a relationship today. The good news is, changing your attachment style is very possible, with a few key steps.
How to change your attachment style
- Opposite action
In psychology, we have this theory that your immediate, automatic reaction in stressful situations is probably not a good thing to do, because it is coming from ingrained unhelpful patterns, such as your dominant attachment style.
So, if you are anxiously attached, the opposite action when you are feeling triggered would be to resist the urge for reassurance, provide your partner with space and work on your own emotion regulation to cope with the moment.
Instead, if you are more avoidant, the opposite action when you feel overwhelmed or upset would be to resist the urge to run away or storm off, try to engage with your partner and attempt to see their point of view.
Easy, right?
Unfortunately not. Changing your automatic reaction or dominant attachment style behaviour takes a lot of consistent practice. It is hugely challenging to channel the opposite action to what you feel like doing. However, if you commit to this challenge, and both partners are willing to work on their attachment styles together, then change is certainly possible.
2. Communicate your attachment style to others
Communication is always a good thing in a relationship, because it leads to more understanding and empathy for the other person. By ‘confessing’ your attachment style to your partner, they can understand why you might react in a certain way.
While I think we have to be careful how we treat this information, I do believe there is a place to gently reflect to your partner if you think they are being anxious or avoidant. Knowing your partner’s attachment style can also be quite relieving, as you may no longer take their behaviour personally.
For example, if your partner is seeking reassurance, you might not jump to the conclusion that they don’t trust you, but understand that their anxious attachment style causes them to doubt both themselves and others. This then allows for more compassion for their experience, and potentially an opportunity to remind them that they don’t have to be anxious anymore, especially if you are creating a secure base within your relationship.
3. Try to build a more secure attachment style
Research has found that securely attached individuals have higher levels of relationship satisfaction, commitment and trust. In the book ‘Attached’ securely attached people are described as; “they feel extremely comfortable with intimacy and closeness and have an uncanny ability to communicate their needs and respond to their partners’ needs.”
Wow…are securely attached people just superior beings, gods amongst us mortals?
I don’t think so!
Instead, I believe that secure attachment is more of a skill that can be built up in various ways, including good practice, a healthy amount of self-awareness, therapy or the support of a good partner, friend or role-model.
Here are some skills you can practice to emulate that secure attachment style (taken from the book ‘Attached’):
- Try to resolve conflict, rather than escalating it. Do this by stopping yourself from acting defensively or insulting your partner.
- Be mentally flexible. This means being open to someone else’s point of view, and potential criticism too.
- Effectively communicate. Share how you are feeling.
- Loosen your boundaries, let people in. Be comfortable with getting close to others, at a physical level (be more open to giving or receiving hugs) and an emotional level (sharing and communicating).
- Be quick to forgive. Don’t hold on to grudges and assume the worst in people.
- Treat your partner with respect and be generous with your love.
- Take responsibility for the well-being of others. As a securely attached person, you know you can rely on others, so it only makes sense you would be comfortable with others relying on you.
It may be a lot to take in, but realising that we are all a work in progress, with the capacity to improve our attachment styles and patterns in a relationship is the right place to start. We then can find ourselves on the road to happier and healthier relationships.
