Why Does My Partner Keep Talking About Attachment Styles?
Attachment is all the rage right now, it’s all over TikTok and Instagram, and can feel more like understanding your zodiac sign than understanding a relational theory grounded in lots of research.
Becoming fairly familiar with attachment theory, and healing your attachment adaptations is so important for healthy, secure social connection. Notice I’m not focusing on attachment “styles” because this assumes attachment is fixed, and attachment adaptations CAN and DO change, heal, and become more secure.
Attachment is a phenomenon that begins in infancy. A baby’s primary concern is keeping their caregiver regulated so that he or she can experience being seen, soothed, and made to feel safe as much as possible. The baby innately learns how to either ramp up the connection side of their attachment needs by becoming more obvious about their need for co-regulation or they ignore the connection side of their attachment needs by limiting their needs for connection because they are learning through experience that those needs are inconsistently met by their caregivers. I want to clarify that this is NOT conscious. Babies are not developmentally capable of making these very evolved intellectual decisions. This is all happening on a neurobiological level, aka in the nervous system.
Let’s talk about the popular attachment tendencies:
Secure - This is a person who believes no one is perfect all the time. Adults with secure attachment can see a rupture (disagreement, fight, tension) has occurred within the relationship, and can stay regulated and humble enough through the discomfort of that rupture to offer connection, support, and repair. They believe independence and interdependence are healthy and necessary, but that a relationship is a co-created ecosystem that requires a 50/50 sense of responsibility. They have curiosity about, and lean in to, how someone else sees the world and believes that differences make us stronger, not weaker. They have a grounded sense of self and allow for fluctuation in their own internal emotional world.
Anxious-Ambivalent (often referred to as Preoccupied Attachment in adulthood) - This is a person who learned to distrust relationships but still desperately desires love, attention, and affection (as we all do!). This person cautiously enters relationships with fear and trepidation, and insecurity increases their goal of keeping people close at all costs due to their deep fear of rejection and abandonment.
Avoidant (often referred to as Dismissive Attachment in adulthood) - This is a person who adapted to feeling insignificant in childhood by shutting off their natural curiosity toward emotions and intimacy with others. Often, they find it difficult to relate emotionally to people with big feelings, or ask for what they need from others, and they downplay their own emotional desires.
Fearful-Avoidant (also referred to as Disorganized Attachment) - This is a person who may have experienced childhood trauma. They may have had their basic emotional needs met in a very inconsistent and unpredictable way. They hold a core belief that they do not deserve love or closeness, have intense relationship patterns or no relationships at all, and tend to be very distrustful and fearful of others, pushing others away and potentially behaving in ways that ensure their own abandonment by others.
I want you to know something really important. Attachment adaptations are BRILLIANT, not bad. The internal circuitry of our nervous systems is remarkable. Without these adaptations and strategies some of us may not have survived or thrived as we have in our lives. However dysfunctional it may sound, we created opportunities to get our needs met, and those maneuvers worked as children. The goal of attachment was, and always will be, to preserve relationships with others in order to survive. However, what worked in our childhoods might be the opposite of what is needed now in our adult relationships. So we must learn to shapeshift a bit. This is possible and I’ll tell you how:
Shifting toward secure attachment from anxious-ambivalent requires learning to self soothe and ground independently so that you can more healthily request and engage in co-regulation that doesn’t overwhelm others. This includes giving gentle requests instead of demands, seeking support from resources outside of your relationship as well as within other relationships, and managing your expectations of others’ responsibility to care for you.
Shifting toward secure attachment from avoidant may require you to stop disappearing and disconnecting when triggered. Instead, explore the ways in which you have been dismissive of your own emotions and others’ emotions, and the ways in which you have denied emotions their value and usefulness. Recognize that you are not needless and start to practice stating those needs instead of resenting others for not understanding you. Lean into curiosity, ask questions, and explore with interest your feelings and the feelings of your partner or potential partner.
Shifting toward secure attachment from fearful-avoidant requires developing a sense of self trust and trust in others. Highly active fear responses require lots of trauma work, self soothing and allowing others to soothe you, challenging beliefs and narratives of oneself and others learned in childhood, and practicing lots and lots of self care and grounding techniques. The most supportive and healing antidote to fearful-avoidant attachment is finding and maintaining safe, affirming, and consistent relationships.