The Impact of Attachment Styles in Relationships

Are you a possessive lover? Have you ever been accused of being “too clingy”? Or are you someone with commitment issues? Do you struggle with being emotionally vulnerable?

The problems you’re experiencing in your relationships may just have something to do with attachment styles.

How we were brought up often influences how we deal with other people and forge bonds. Eventually, these govern how we handle interpersonal dynamics and conflicts, which is why it’s important to understand ourselves as best we can for us to have good relationships.

One method of doing this is to determine the cause for some of our most irrational habits and deep-seated internal issues. This, in turn, can help explain why we are the way we are with our family, our friends, and, of course, in our relationships.

So if you have the tendency toward being dismissive with your friends, or if you’re prone to jealousy, or even if you’re the type to be in emotionally strong partnerships, the most likely reasons for these positive and negative behaviors can boil down to our way of building intimate relations — our attachment styles.

Attachment Theory and Attachment Styles

Pioneered by British psychologist John Bowlby in the ’50s, attachment theory began as a research on the link between infants and their mothers. Later on, it evolved into a series of studies about how humans create emotional bonds between each other.

Bowlby defined attachment as “lasting psychological connections” and highlighted how vital a child’s bond is to their mother or primary caregiver in order to have a normal emotional and social development and build healthy adult relationships later on.

Further research into attachment theory paved the way for an outline of the different approaches people have in their intimate relationships.

Depending on how they conduct themselves and express their feelings, as well as how they react to threats against their emotional connections, people tend to fall into one of these four categories of attachment styles:

Secure attachment style

A secure attachment style is exactly that: an ability to forge healthy connections with others.

People whose emotional needs were provided from infancy tend to exhibit this type of connection building. They are comfortable expressing their needs, able to trust and rely on their partners, and have little to no fear of attachment.

This is the most ideal of the four attachment styles, and is considered the gold standard for people in relationships.

Ambivalent or Anxious-Preoccupied attachment style

This second attachment style is characterized by people having high levels of anxiety over their relationships.

The opposite of Avoidant, which is the next type, someone who is often called “needy” or “clingy” may possess a constant fear of abandonment that can be caused by neglect issues from childhood.

A person who is ambivalent or anxious can have attachment needs that also manifest as overcompensating and always going the extra mile to make sure their partner doesn’t leave them.

Avoidant attachment style

Dismissive behavior in a relationship can come from someone’s avoidant attachment style.

If you belong in this group, you’ve probably been called a “lone wolf” more than a few times in your life, and you’ve built a reputation for being extremely self-sufficient and individualistic. In your relationships, you also tend not to depend on your partner for much of anything, especially in terms of emotions.

Someone dating an avoidant can feel as though their partners are always cold and closed off, which is why an avoidant and anxious relationship can lead to a lot of conflicts and misunderstandings.

Disorganized attachment style

Out of all the attachment styles, this one can show the most inconsistent and erratic patterns of behavior.

Usually exhibited by those who grew up in abusive homes, a disorganized attachment style can come across as intense fear of rejection as well as an inability to properly regulate emotions.

These people can be very confusing to their partners, and a relationship with someone who has this attachment style may be rife with severe insecurities and even aggression.

Attachment Style Compatibility

The impact of attachment styles in relationships of adults is pervasive and hard to deny, so in order to have a healthy relationship with your partner, you need to prioritize attachment style compatibility.

Couples don’t necessarily have to possess the same attachment style, but knowing what each of yours is and how to accommodate both is a good place to start.

For example, many people wonder exactly how to deal with avoidant attachment when they’re someone who is anxious-preoccupied in their relationships.

After all, can anxious and avoidant relationships work when the two only seem to exacerbate the negative aspects of each other?

Signs of secure attachment can be seen between any couple as long as they are prepared to accommodate both their needs and shortcomings. The important thing to have is the desire to identify areas where conflict can stem and decide together how to go about addressing them.

So no, you don’t need to figure out how to get out of avoidant attachment right away, or forcibly push back your anxious or disorganized tendencies. You don’t even need to force yourself to change attachment styles, but you do have to acknowledge that to build a healthy relationship, you have to be willing to grow and meet your partner halfway.

Relationship Attachment Model

Couples don’t need to be experts on the Integrated Attachment Theory or be certified relationship experts to understand attachment styles and their impact on relationship dynamics.

You can start small.

The Relationship Attachment Model, developed by clinical counselor and dating expert John Van Epp, is a simple resource many people can use in building healthier emotional connections.

It looks into five aspects that can serve as progressive stages in two people’s bonding process.

Know

At this stage, you get to learn the most basic things about someone.

Knowledge is the foundation of other deeper levels in a relationship. The more you get to know someone, the easier it is to forge an emotional bond with them.

Trust

After knowing essential things about someone — including love languages and attachment styles — it becomes less difficult to believe in them, and this is where trust comes in.

The dynamic now shifts into partners being able to have faith in one another, which is a vital foundation in all healthy relationships. You need to be able to have confidence in someone despite knowing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Rely

With knowledge and trust comes reliance: the ability to depend on someone else without fear or reservation.

Everyone has attachment needs, and people in relationships must be able to count on their partners to help fulfill them.

Commit

The willingness to commit to someone is the next stage. This is where you take ownership of the relationship and your responsibilities within it.

When you dedicate yourself to achieving attachment styles compatibility, to navigate the nuances of your partner’s lapses and imperfections, you are one step closer to a relationship that’s worth keeping.

Touch

Physical intimacy becomes easier when couples have met each other’s emotional needs.

There are plenty of signs of secure attachment, and they don’t often come in the right order, but the moment touch becomes as fulfilling as it is primal, you know your bond with your partner is now stronger.

Final Thoughts

The journey to forging strong emotional connections is also a journey in self-discovery.

Learning about your attachment styles equips you with the knowledge of how to be a better person as well as a better lover. The first step to solving a problem, after all, is by acknowledging there is one.

Secure attachments don’t happen overnight, and a healthy relationship can take a lifetime to build.

If you’re lucky, you may just find someone willing to spend the rest of theirs working on one with you.