Stuck in Love: Understanding Attachment Styles and How it Can Affect Your Relationships

February is known as the month of celebrating love and relationships. This month encourages us to cherish the people we love – including ourselves – whether we are spending time with our loved ones or being happily alone and having a sumptuous supper.  

Communication, understanding, appreciation, and even self-esteem are all associated with relationships. One aspect of relationships that some people tend to overlook is attachment. Attachment means having a close emotional bond between two people. The man who developed this concept, John Bowlby, believed that attachment stems from parental relationships and how they influence a child’s personality and interactions with others. He noted in his research that responsiveness is a vital component of attachment. Children acquire a sense of security when their parents react to their needs regularly. This theory indicates that children carry the aspects of their parental relationship to their adult relationships. Their interactions in romantic relationships and friendships are influenced by how they were raised as youngsters.

Perhaps you noticed some patterns in your love life, or even in your friendships at school or work. These patterns are manifested from your attachment styles, whether they affect you negatively or positively. Of course, we all would like to build healthy relationships with others, and the best way to do that is to understand your behavior in a relationship. Understanding your attachment styles allows you to observe yourself objectively, providing insights into the kind of relationships you may develop. Bowlby identified four of the most common styles: secure, anxious/ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized attachment.

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Secure Attachment

Are you comfortable with expressing your emotions and opening up to others? When it comes to receiving and providing emotional support, a person with a secure attachment style is often stable. Children who receive consistent care from their caregivers develop this attachment, becoming reliable and honest people. In adult relationships, people with a secure attachment rarely feel anxiety with their partners.

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Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment

Children who get inconsistent care from their caregivers, on the other hand, develop anxious or ambivalent attachment. Because their caregivers were unpredictable, anxious children are very clingy and do not explore their surroundings in fear of being abandoned by their parents. As a result, people with anxious attachment become very dependent on their partners. They are also heavily invested in their relationships, becoming obsessive, easily jealous, and sometimes manipulative. Anxious people constantly question their worth, worry about losing their partners, and are observant of any signs that their partners are becoming distant.

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Avoidant Attachment

Children with an avoidant attachment had caregivers who were insensitive and unresponsive. They gain a sense of independence from the lack of attention from their parents and become reluctant to develop deeper and closer relationships with others. Based on an article by Jeffry Simpson and W Steven Rholes, they noted that avoidant people believe that proximity is not possible in relationships. Because of this, they tend to distance themselves from others. More often than not, avoidant people end up in one-sided relationships where they refuse to commit any further than they already have.

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Disorganized Attachment

The fourth attachment is characterized by a traumatic childhood. Children with disorganized attachment most likely experienced abusive and negligent caregiving. They are confused with their feelings and often have difficulty regulating their emotions. Much of their mindset is centered around negativity, seeing only the worst possible outcome from a situation. People who have a disorganized attachment in a relationship may be skeptical of their partner’s activities and have a hard time trusting them because of it. There are a lot of inner conflicts that prevent them from clearly communicating their emotions.

It is important to note that even if you exhibit any of these qualities, it does not mean you fit specifically into one certain attachment style, nor does it mean that you are incapable of being in a relationship. These attachment styles are not set in stone – they are simply a guide for you to develop a better mindset and understand why you may behave in a certain way. Understanding your attachment style allows you to examine yourself and how you can build a healthy relationship with others! It is fine to be insecure or jealous, as long as you are aware of your behavior and try your best to be better.

SOURCES:

Honari, B., & Saremi, A. A. (2015). The study of relationship between attachment styles and obsessive love style. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 165, 152-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.617

Ni, P. (2015). What is your relationship attachment style?: Understanding the four adult relationship attachment styles. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/communication-success/201507/what-is-your-relationship-attachment-style

Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current opinion in psychology, 13, 19-24. DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006

The Attachment Project. (2020). Attachment Styles & Their Role in Relationships. Retrieved from https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/