How Attachment Styles Affect Your Relationships
Each person has a unique attachment style that determines how they experience and behave in relationships. Our attachment styles form in early infancy, and develop based on our relationships with our caregivers. These attachment styles can influence us when we later enter into adult romantic relationships. In fact, many of the relationship challenges that bring people to therapy can be seen through the lens of attachment. Learning about attachment styles and how they may impact your adult relationships can help demystify some of the otherwise baffling patterns that play out in relationships. Let’s dive in!
What is an attachment style, anyway?
Though many types of attachment have been investigated in psychological research, three types are most commonly discussed:
Anxious Attachment is characterized by a deep desire to be close to a partner. A person who experiences anxious attachment may feel anxiety when relationships do not feel close, reassuring, and connective. Those with an anxious attachment style feel most comfortable being in frequent communication with their partner.
Avoidant Attachment is characterized by a tendency to experience one's partner as intrusive, and to avoid excessive closeness. Those who identify with avoidant attachment desire more space and privacy.
Secure Attachment is characterized by one’s trust that their partner can be a safe and secure base. Those who identify with secure attachment feel comfortable in instances of both closeness and space. They likely know that after a separation, their partner will still be there for them.
3 Things to Know About How Attachment Styles Affect Your Relationships
Attachment styles can emerge in relationships in many different ways. Here are three important things to know about how attachment styles affect your relationships:
Our attachment styles are our ways of adapting to the environments we grew up in.
Attachment styles are adaptive—they were originally attempts by our minds and bodies to get our needs met by caregivers. When we enter relationships in adulthood, we may sometimes find it challenging to understand exactly why our partner is reacting to us in the way they are. This may lead us to judge our partner’s behavior, without appreciating that their behavior likely originated with the adaptive ways they had to navigate their relationships with caregivers in childhood.
Relationships are a constant, important dance of establishing our own boundaries and co-creating a space of mutual empathy with our partners. It helps to try to understand how our partner’s attachment style was shaped by how they grew up. When we empathize with our partner, we can appreciate the ways they have found resilient and adaptive ways to get needs met.
Let’s imagine a hypothetical couple.
Greg is in a relationship with Ellen. Greg has been very excited about their relationship since they started dating, and feels strongly that Ellen is someone he’d like to spend his life with. He often invites her on dates, and checks in on her frequently during the day.
Greg is often confused by Ellen’s behavior in return—sometimes she is warm, affectionate and responsive. Other times, Ellen appears distant and doesn't reply to his texts for days at a time. In response, Greg increases his contact with Ellen even more, to try to elicit more consistent responses from her. But the more communicative he is, the more Ellen seems to pull away. When Greg asked her directly whether she wanted to remain in a relationship with him, Ellen responded enthusiastically and affirmatively. Greg was left confused.
What Greg has not fully appreciated about Ellen is that in her childhood, she was often intruded upon by parents who weren’t able to respect her boundaries. Ellen grew up with many siblings who didn’t give her the space and privacy she craved. Though Ellen may love Greg very much, she may also need to withdraw in order to maintain her sense of herself.
Meanwhile, Greg grew up in a family in which he often felt he was fighting for affection. As a result, in adulthood, he feels anxious when he does not receive frequent reassurance from his partner. In discussing their childhood attachments, Greg and Ellen can come to appreciate the roots of each other’s behavior, making their relationship more intimate and empathetic.
2. Attachment styles influence how we experience closeness and distance in a relationship.
One frequent point of discussion for couples is how much closeness and distance they want to see in their relationships. While some individuals prefer frequent communication, contact, and closeness, others prefer more space, freedom, and distance. Oftentimes, our desires for either closeness or distance are related to what kind of contact allows us to feel most ourselves. While some people feel most secure in their sense of themselves when they're in a close relationship, others feel most themselves when they don’t feel intruded upon by others’ needs.
Let’s return to our couple Greg and Ellen. Greg likes to frequently text Ellen during the day, and check in on her. Greg feels this increases his intimacy with Ellen, and he likes to have a window into what she’s feeling and thinking about.
Ellen, on the other hand, dislikes texting during the day. She feels intruded upon when Greg texts her frequently, and she responds by ignoring his messages. Greg feels hurt by this, and Ellen feels frustrated by Greg’s need for constant communication.
We can understand each of their positions by appreciating that each would like to feel intimate with the other, but that intimacy looks different for each of them. Greg and Ellen can navigate this difference by discussing a compromise that feels right for both of them.
3. Attachment styles can become more secure over time through communication, compromise, and mutual respect.
Growing up, many people feel they don’t have their needs met by their caregivers. Many families, for various reasons, are unable to have open dialogue with each other about attending to children’s needs for affection, warmth, privacy, or space. This can affect the security of attachments. When seeking adult relationships, we often want relationships that are both familiar and reparative. This means we unknowingly enter relationships that recreate previous dynamics, with the hope that this time, they will somehow be different.
When we recreate relational dynamics from childhood, we perpetuate our own attachment styles. However, when a relationship can provide valuable differences from our relationships with our caregivers, our attachment styles can become more secure. Open communication and willingness to compromise can increase security in a relationship. When each person feels that they can be heard and respected for who they are, attachments can become more secure. Though neither partner can necessarily expect the other to change in an extreme way, honest conversations help each partner better appreciate the other’s experience, thus increasing intimacy. Couples can use this open forum to reach compromises that could work for both parties.
How to Compromise When Your Partner Has a Different Attachment Style
For example, Greg feels closest to Ellen when they spend most weeknights and every weekend together. Ellen, however, feels encroached upon when they spend this much time together, and she prefers to spend meaningful time with Greg once during the week and once over the weekend. Greg and Ellen discuss this difference openly with each other, and appreciate why each person prefers what they do based on their attachments. Greg and Ellen decide to compromise by spending two nights during the week together, and one night over the weekend. They frame their decision as one that could evolve and change over time, based on each person’s needs. Though each may feel they are making sacrifices for the other in this arrangement, they are experimenting with ways they can balance their own needs with the needs of their partner. This communication and flexibility helps them feel more secure in their relationship.
Therapy Can Help You Navigate Attachment-Related Challenges
Attachments help us to honor ourselves while maintaining relationships. With open dialogue and appreciation for the origin of each other’s attachments, we can support ourselves and our relationships in the long term. It can also be quite challenging to figure this out all on your own, especially if you and your partner are experiencing attachment-related conflict. Working with a licensed therapist can provide a safe place to explore your attachment style, how it shows up in your current relationships, and how to create more security in your relationships.
Rachel Ende, LMSW
Rachel Ende is a therapist in NYC who specializes in working with trauma, relationships challenges, attachment issues, depression, and anxiety. She has research experience in maternal-infant attachment.
