Attachment Styles and How They Present In Adult Relationships

The Different Types of Attachment

As humans, we have a natural need for love and social connection. Positive social relationships promote happiness and optimism, lower stress levels, and give us a sense of purpose in life.

Happy adult relationships are built on a foundation of love, trust, and respect. Secure attachment is the foundation of healthy adult relationships.

However, attachment in adult relationships can also be:

• Anxious
• Avoidant
• Disorganized

Understanding how attachment develops in early childhood can help you identify attachment styles and how they present in adult relationships.

Researchers say that the same mechanisms of attachment between children and their caregivers may also explain how attachment forms between adults.

When a child forms healthy bonds with their parents or other caretakers, it sets them up for healthy, meaningful relationships as adults. On the other hand, insecure attachments developed during childhood may affect mental health and adult relationships.

Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment: The Importance of Secure Attachment

According to one of the first theories of social development, Bowlby’s attachment theory, a child’s early interactions with caregivers are critical to their development.

John Bowlby, a British psychologist, noticed that babies were agitated when taken away from their caregivers. He thought this was because babies have an innate need to form a relationship with a primary figure.

Secure Attachment in Interdependent Relationships

As adults, we crave emotional connection because it provides stability and safety, as our caregiver relationships did.

However, we strive to be in deep emotional contact with another person while being independent. This ability is referred to as differentiation. People who are able to differentiate themselves are strong individuals who engage in interdependent relationships with secure attachment. They nurture vulnerability and openness by making each other feel safe and supporting each other when needed without sacrificing their individuality.

They understand that no one is perfect. But people with secure attachments take responsibility for their actions and respect each other’s boundaries. As a result, they don’t avoid conflicts but need to learn how to repair them after an argument.

Secure attachment relationships encourage development and positive self-esteem by enabling both partners to be vulnerable while still feeling safe and free to be their true selves.

Anxious Attachment Style and How It Presents in Adult Relationships

Individuals with an anxious attachment style (also called preoccupied) need constant reassurance and care from their significant other.

If your attachment style is anxious, you may stress continuously about your relationships, constantly worrying that you are not good enough, that your partner will leave you, or that they don’t love you.

How Does Anxious Attachment Form?

Anxious attachment is an insecure attachment in which a child forms bonds with caregivers out of fear rather than love or trust.

Insecure attachment occurs when a child is raised by emotionally distant parents who are inconsistent and express contradictory emotions, sending a message that a child is not good enough to be loved or that they can never trust other people. As a result, these people learned to protect themselves by acting needy or throwing temper tantrums.

Research shows that people who grew up in anxious attachment homes have difficulty making and keeping meaningful relationships as adults.

Anxious Attachment Types

Most attachment researchers agree that there are two main anxious attachment styles:

• Anxious-ambivalent attachment
• Anxious-avoidant attachment

Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment

If you were raised by unpredictable parents, never knowing what to anticipate regarding emotions, communication, and behavior, you might develop an anxious-ambivalent attachment.

In adult relationships, you may feel worthless and consistently seek to prove yourself to others.

You may be sensitive to rejection and need your partner’s approval to feel loved and significant, which creates resentment and anxiety.

As a result, you may become a people-pleaser, accepting responsibility for your partner’s feelings and behavior because you are afraid of abandonment.

Anxious-Avoidant Attachment

Most people who develop the anxious-avoidant attachment style as adults were brought up by emotionally distant parents or caregivers who did not encourage or validate them.

If you grew up without consistent care, you might find it challenging to trust people and maintain healthy relationships. As a result, you may avoid intimacy and struggle to trust others despite your need for connection.

How to Identify an Anxious Attachment Style

Anxious attachment in adult relationships stems from an internalized belief that you are not good enough to be loved. It can present itself through various self-limiting beliefs and behaviors, such as the following:

• You are afraid of emotional closeness and intimacy.
• You struggle with setting and respecting healthy boundaries.
• You need constant reassurance.
• You are jealous.
• You are hypervigilant, constantly on the lookout for potential threats to your relationship.
• You are deeply hurt by rejection.
• You struggle with low self-esteem.
• You are needy or clingy, requiring high levels of contact and intimacy.
• You feel responsible for how your partner feels or behaves.
• You make excuses for your partner’s bad behavior because you think it’s your fault.
• You need your partner’s approval to feel valuable.
• You don’t trust your feelings and judgment.
• You ruminate over insignificant things.
• You are afraid of being alone.

Summary