Attachment theory in relationships
Our attachment style is solidified in childhood and becomes the model of what we expect in a relationship, what behaviours we will accept from our partner, and our patterns of behaviour in our adult relationships.
Attachment styles in romantic love and friendship.

Summary

There are several attachment styles that we can develop over our lifetimes. These form patterns of behaviours. They are:

 

    1. Secure Attachement Style
    2. Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment
    3. Dismissive Avoidant Attachment
    4. Fearful-Avoidant Attachment
    5. Earned-Secure Attachment

“Our style of attachment affects everything from our partner selection to how well our relationships progress to how they end. That is why recognising our attachment patterns can help us understand our strengths and vulnerabilities in a relationship. An attachment pattern is established in early childhood and continues to function as a working model for relationships in adulthood.”

Lisa Firestone PhD

Psychology Today

Patterns of attachment

Patterns of attachment affect your relationships and might draw you to certain kinds of relationships which reinforce your attachment style.

An attachment style is your pattern or model for how you engage with others and get your needs met. This model of attachment influences how we react to our needs and how we go about getting them met.

Our attachment style is solidified in childhood and becomes the model of what we expect in a relationship, what behaviours we will accept from our partner, and our patterns of behaviour in our adult relationships.

According to research done by Dr Phillip Shaver and Dr Cindy Hazan, the approximate breakdown of people that fit in these categories are as follows:

  • 60% securely attached
  • 20% Avoidant
  • 20% Anxious

Recognising your attachment patterns can help us understand our strengths and vulnerabilities in our relationships. It can also show us what to look for and when we are walking into a bad situation.

Anxious or avoidant attachment patterns will begin with a person picking a partner who fits that maladaptive pattern. Of course, this choice won’t make them happy, and this situation won’t be the ideal choice, but they will choose it anyway because that’s the model of a relationship they understand.

Secure Attachment Style

Children that feel secure in their attachment to their parents will feel safe moving freely, exploring their environment in safety and comfort. You will see them venture out from behind their parent’s legs, interact with the world, and move back to their parents when they are unsure or worried.
This exact scenario plays out in adults. Partners and friends lead their own lives but know that they will be there for them when they need their friends.
Adults that have a secure attachment pattern will be confident and self-possessed. They will easily interact with others, ensuring their needs are met, but also being able to meet others’ needs.
A person with a secure pattern of attachment will tend to be more satisfied in their relationships. They feel confident and connected, even when they are apart from their loved ones, so they allow themselves and their partner to move freely.
They are happy and relaxed in their relationships, whether it’s a partner or a friend. They are confident enough in the relationship to open themselves up or to relay uncomfortable truths.

This doesn’t mean they are always confident and never insecure; they are just confident and secure in their relationships.

When they are secure, support is offered readily when their partner is distressed, and they feel comfortable going to their partner for comfort.

They will tend to have an honest, open and equal relationship. Both people feel independent but still, feel connected and maintain their closeness and loving feelings when they are apart.

Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment

Working with a model of anxious/preoccupied attachment, a person will need to get close to someone and be with them all the time, seeking continual reassurance and closeness. They understand this to be how they get their needs met.

Their actions will often exacerbate their fears. For example, a desperate and insecure person will feel unsafe as they are unsure of their partner’s feelings. So they will become clingy and demand attention. They’ll be possessive, jealous and openly hostile to people in their partner’s life. They may try and control their time and demand to know where they are at all times.

Someone with an anxious/preoccupied attachment will desperately form a fantasy bond because of a feeling of emotional hunger. Instead of feeling trust and love, they think they need their partner to complete them somehow or rescue them.

 

Fantasy bond

A fantasy bond is a false sense of safety coming from an illusion of connection. A couple engaging in a ‘fantasy bond’ will forgo acts of love and togetherness for routines and placeholders of affection. They can use this as a barrier to remaining emotionally cut-off while still giving the illusion of relating and being connected.

To support this version of their reality, they will gravitate towards isolated people that find it hard to connect in a relationship. In this way, they can save this person from their isolation and feel safer, as an isolated person won’t leave them. But, then, clinging to their partner to feel safe and secure, they will simultaneously push their partner away.

Internal Monologue

“If he loved me he should want to spend all his time with me. He’s going out with friends more. I think he’s getting bored in this relationship. It’s only a matter of time before he leaves.”

What’s Happening

Socialising more with friends is proof that they do not love them that much if they don’t want to spend all their time with them alone, which means they will leave.

Internal Monologue

“They don’t always tell me where they’re going…

I need to know where they’re at all times. How else can I trust them?”

What’s Happening

When the partner of someone working from the anxious-preoccupied relationship pattern doesn’t tell them where they are at all times, this can be seen as proof of their untrustworthiness.

Any time their partner shows independence or pushes back on this behaviour to the anxiously attached person, this is validation and proof of their fears.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment

A person with a working model of dismissive-avoidant attachment will emotionally distance themselves from their partner. They can be defensive and have many walls built up which make it hard for even those closest to them to see the real person beneath. This pseudo-independent person will be distant in their dealings with friends and family while avoiding having people become too attached or getting too close to people.

Fear of rejection underlies a lot of the behaviours of a person using the dismissive-avoidant model of attachment style. They are of the ‘reject them first, before they reject you’ school of thought.

They seek this isolation to be self-sufficient, and their childhood has taught them that if you need something, you have to provide it for yourself. But sharing your feelings, being open to loved ones, and genuinely connecting with people around us is not something we can get by ourselves. 

Pseudo-independence is an illusion. Every person needs a human connection. It’s one of our most primal needs.

When a dismissive-avoidant person is close to someone, they will not seek out their partner when they have a need; they will focus on themselves and try and take care of themselves in solitude. This solitary practice of self-care naturally leads to a more inward-focused life. They will deny the importance of loved ones and extricate themselves when they feel too attached for fear of becoming dependent on others.
In reality, their model for meeting their needs is to pretend that they don’t have any needs, and they are “perfectly fine, thanks.” In the past, this has been lauded as a great way to be. Self-sufficient people are better off and more trustworthy. Self-reliance is honoured because these capable individuals can support themselves and others. But pseudo-independence is an illusion, and it only serves to prevent connection and to stifle emotional growth.

They will shut down emotionally when everything becomes too much. This will become most evident in heated arguments, where they can seemingly switch off their feelings at will. This makes it easier to deal with highly tense situations, so as a survival mechanism it is useful. But when it comes to those crucial moments when we need to connect with our partner, this cold and logical approach usually doesn’t go over well.

The avoidant person does have needs that are not being met, but they will never ask for help or even admit to themselves that they need help. They might reach a point where they’re blind to their own needs while harbouring a growing resentment. Eventually, they will wonder why their partner isn’t meeting their needs.

They will choose someone who is possessive and demands attention and give themselves over to those demands. They feel less isolated with a needy and clingy person, but the relationship will be choppy as a pattern emerges. While they are busy subverting their own needs in preference for someone else’s, they get more distant from their own needs and have less time to parent themselves. Neglecting their emotional needs while attending to someone else’s full-time is a maladaptive pattern that won’t last.
At some point, the needy partner will dial up the drama, and in this tense and distressed state, the anxious and frightened partner will be met with an avoidant person who doesn’t seem to care. And no matter how bad it gets, the person operating from a place of Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment will be relatively impassive, which might give the impression that they don’t care.

Internal Monologue

“I don’t need anybody for anything. I can do everything just fine by myself. Relying on other people is just asking to be let down. Everyone lets me down in the end.”

What’s Happening

They are protecting themselves from being hurt by shutting people out. They have convinced themselves that they don’t care about having a relationship. They have fought hard for self-reliance, and they don’t want to come to depend on anyone.
At some point, the needy partner will dial up the drama, and in this tense and distressed state, the anxious and frightened partner will be met with an avoidant person who doesn’t seem to care. And no matter how bad it gets, the person operating from a place of Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment will be relatively impassive, which might give the impression that they don’t care. They might even convince themselves they don’t care, as their hard-won self-reliance means that they “don’t need anybody for anything.”
Note: They may care very much, but this may not be evident from their actions. A belief in self-reliance means that they have walled off their emotional state from themselves. This means their emotional threshold is relatively low, and their ability to express their needs is almost non-existent. Once their point is reached, they will shut down emotionally and say, “I don’t care” and “I don’t need you.”

The Dismissive-Avoider and the Anxious-Preoccupied in a Relationship

The person who feels isolated and disconnected will very likely appreciate these demands on their attention because it fits their need to connect.
But the jealousy and the controlling nature of their partner will grate on them as they lose their independence.

The more the clinger clings, the more the avoidant partner withdraws.

Fearful-Avoidant Attachment

The working model of the Fearful-Avoidant Attachment person is that they will reach out to others and seek out intimacy to have their needs met, yet they are sure that if they get too close to someone, they will be hurt by them. The person they are seeking safety, intimacy and connection with is the same person that will turn on them. They are frightened to be too close and scared to be too distant. They need intimacy and will cling to their partner for fear of being rejected. But they will struggle with feelings of being trapped. Unsurprisingly, living in a state of turmoil, their relationships will be rocky and marked by dramatic highs and lows.
They will fight to keep their feelings in check, but they can’t as they are torn between their mounting anxiety and their need to run away from their feelings. As a result, they will be overwhelmed by their emotions and react unpredictably, experiencing emotional storms and mixed and conflicting feelings all at once.

Earned-Secure Attachment

While attachment styles are developed as children, based on your relationship with a parent or early caretaker, this does not have to define you forever. The way you relate to those you love in your adult life can be changed if understood. Uncovering your defences and patterns will allow you to come to know your attachment style and begin to shape it in ways that will enable you to have more connected and harmonious relationships.
You can begin to open up and connect without fear, manipulation or avoiding your needs. You can build a shared understanding of your patterns and operational models, and together you and your loved ones can earn secure attachment.

Why do we choose the partners we choose?

We choose partners that fit into our model of how a relationship should be. But in practice, we are often finding partners that confirm our pre-existing model. For example, when a person grows up with an insecure attachment pattern, they carry this into future significant relationships.

Two avoidant people aren’t likely to get very far in a relationship.

Likewise, two people that are possessive and controlling are probably going to blow up pretty fast.

So we protect our patterns and our styles by choosing people that fit the mould. Even if it’s not healthy, and even if it hurts us over and over again, we still need connection and validation. So if we are unaware of our attachment style, we will still walk into those relationships that are not in our best interests.

How can we earn a Secure Attachment style?

By becoming aware of your current attachment style, and then building new models that allow you to have healthier relationships.

 

  • Therapy can help see and acknowledge maladaptive attachment patterns.
  • A good role model with a secure attachment style is a solid base to work from. Open up to them and understand their approach to relationships. If they are amenable, you can have a stable relationship with them and develop yourself from that solid foundation.
  • Challenge your defences and your insecurities.
  • Develop a new model of attachment by sustaining a loving and emotionally satisfying relationship.

References

How your attachment style impacts your relationship. Lisa Firestone, Psychology Today, 2013.

Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987, Vol. 52, No. 3, 511-524.