People have different attachment styles that affect their relationships one way or the other. Couples with opposite attachment styles tend to complicate their relationships in ways they didn’t plan for. This doesn’t only affect romantic relationships but also family and business relationships.
Childhood experiences often fuel attachment styles. The U.S Census Bureau states that over 18.4 million children live without a biological, adopted, or stepfather in the home annually. That is 1 out of 4 children living without a father figure in their lives. These children are more prone to violence, domestic abuse, drug abuse, and all forms of abnormal behavioral problems.
Furthermore, the number of children reported to be abused in 2020 was over 600,000, according to Statista. What is the major cause of this abuse? Neglect.
As adults, children who were constantly abused have withdrawal symptoms. Sometimes, they find it hard to commit to any relationship.
What are Attachment Styles?
Humans shouldn’t live and grow in isolation. People crave human contact. We love to seek comfort and support from people around us.
Nurturing and sustaining relationships from an evolutionary perspective is the only way we’ve been able to survive all these years. Attachment styles due to our experiences are the way we relate not just to our romantic partners, but to everyone that we come in contact with.
Attachment styles, as mentioned earlier, resulting from childhood experiences. Once a child doesn’t have good nurturing from their parents, he/she may likely have problematic adulthood.
Parents are the first caregivers. The child needs care, comfort, and soothing from them. The care a child receives from their parents determines how they will perceive and handle close relationships later on.
To make this work, parents have to provide a safe environment for that child to grow. They also have to understand the child’s needs and unique abilities. Anything that falls below this standard can become problematic to the family.
Attachment Styles: The 1950s Attachment Theory
The Attachment Theory is centered around emotional attachment between humans. This theory sprouted in the 1950s by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. They observed that the manner in which children receive love and care as infants or toddlers will determine their attachment style as adults.
However, note that your attachment style will not totally determine the quality of your romantic relationships. There are certain ways to manage seemingly disastrous attachment styles and correct the way people respond to situations or things.
Attachment theory helps people to know why their relationships failed/succeeded the way they did. It also helps them to know the kind of people they attract.
What are these attachment styles?
There are four adult attachment styles:
- Secure
- Anxious
- Avoidant
- Fearful-avoidant
1. Secure attachment style
This is preferably the best and safest secure attachment style any adult can develop. People with secure attachment styles are super confident and comfortable in their own skin. They are independent and don’t feel the need to suppress any other person.
Secure attachment involves a person being comfortable with expressing emotions openly. They depend on their partners, and in turn, their partners can depend on them. These people don’t seek extra validation from their partners. They are okay being whole.
People with anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant attachment styles are usually advised to date secure people who can handle basic fluctuations in their emotional capacity and give them the assurance they need.
They are not afraid of rejection and moving on with their lives. Most of them are very loyal and sacrificial. They are also trustworthy but scared of trusting people.
Secured people aren’t scared when their partners need space for themselves. They know how to repel loneliness.
How do you know you have a secure attachment style?
Meet Caleb:
- Caleb isn’t worried about being away from his partner
- He isn’t afraid of openly expressing his feelings for his partner
- Caleb wants to have his partner around when he is upset
- He has high self-esteem
- Caleb is comfortable sharing his feelings with other people
- He loves being intimate
Insecure Attachment Styles
2. Anxious attachment style
Anxious people often see their partners as better halves. They don’t feel complete without their partners. These people dread people alone. Thinking of living without their partners or being alone generally can trigger high levels of anxiety.
Anxious people always see themselves as negative or bad people but see others in a good light. This makes them very depressed because they feel inadequate or incomplete. In most cases, they’re most likely better than the people they’re comparing themselves to.
Anxious adults tend to seek responsiveness, attention, and care from their significant other. They value their relationships deeply, but somehow worry that their partners may not see it that way. As adults, they get worried when their partners don’t respond to messages on time, when their phone is switched off, or when they cancel appointments due to emergencies.
People with this attachment style are terribly scared of being abandoned or left alone. In relationships, anxious people seek safety and security more than anything else. They want to feel safe and seen. The only cure for their anxiety is the love, attention, care, support, and responsiveness they get from their partner. Once they don’t get it, they feel unloved and can have anxiety attacks.
An anxious person tends to enter abusive or toxic relationships often. He/she is prone to manipulation and abuse because their toxic partner is willing to reassure them of their love and constantly get them to do things against their will.
Anxious people have issues trusting others. Yet, they rely on them for their emotional support and balance. They depend on other people to solve their internal problems. Their behavior can be irrational and overly emotional in most cases. Women are more likely to have this attachment style than men. Things bother them a little too much.
How do you know you have an anxious-dependent style?
Meet Catherine
- Catherine continuously fears that her relationship will end
- She hates sharing her problems with her partner (or people generally) because she feels he might not really care or try to solve it.
- Every activity is enough ground for suspicions
- She fears that her partner doesn’t love her anymore
- Catherine fears that her partner wouldn’t want to get too emotionally close
3. Avoidant attachment style
This is also known as the Dismissive attachment style.
This is a kind of insecure attachment style in which people fear intimacy. They feel that relationships suffocate them. They are independent and love doing things their own way.
People with an avoidant attachment style hate the idea of commitment. When the relationship is becoming too serious, they tend to bring up excuses why they should come out of it.
That is what they feel a relationship does to them. They often have exit strategies for every situation, especially when it comes to relationships.
People with avoidant attachment styles structure their lives in such a way that they owe no one any form of commitment whatsoever. Firstly, they are often overly confident. They can walk into a room and make everyone believe that they’re worth a billion dollars. Sometimes, they can be very charismatic and social.
However, they are low at expressing their emotions. They rarely show their partners or other people their feelings. This is because they fear being misunderstood or judged or laughed at.
Such people hardly reveal any parts of themselves to their significant other. Plus, they lack warmth and empathy and often use sarcasm as a cover-up. They hate relying on other people for anything.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that these kinds of people are often very controlling and manipulative in their romantic relationships. This is because they’re the most likely to leave. If an avoidant person dates an anxious person, the relationship will most likely be a disaster. Why? Anxious people are highly sensitive, so the avoidant person will capitalize on that, directly or indirectly.
People with avoidant attachment styles find it hard to trust anyone.
How do you know that you have an avoidant attachment style?
Meet Mark
- Mark loves keeping things to himself, especially when he is around his partner
- He often doesn’t talk about his feelings to his partner
- When he is feeling upset, he prefers to stay away from his partner
- He doesn’t care if his partner leaves him
- Mark always anticipates that his partner will let him down, so he tries to exit the relationship first
4. Fearful-Avoidant attachment style
The Disorganized or the Anxious Avoidant attachment style. This attachment style brings out the worst of both sides. On one hand, they crave attention and intimacy from their relationships, but on the other hand, they push away anyone who tries to get close to them. Such people either spend their time in abusive or toxic relationships or miserable and alone.
They have low confidence and self-esteem. So, they tend to either abuse or be abused by people. Such people prefer to suppress their emotions rather than express them. They don’t trust people, so they don’t rely on others for help or emotional support.
This hurts them more because they don’t know how to solve their issues and they won’t allow others to help them.
People with this attachment style tend to have very unstable and complicated relationships, and as such, are prone to several dysfunctional psychological behaviors.
How do you know that you have a disorganized attachment style?
Meet Patrice
- Patrice wants to stay with her partner, even though the relationship isn’t working
- She wants to get close to her partner, but is also scared of getting hurt. So she pushes him away
- Patrice is prone to manipulation and abuse because she doesn’t think highly of herself
