Is your attachment style wreaking havoc on your love life?

If you are unhappy in an area of your life, but unable to make a change….you might be attached.  

What is attachment?  

Attachment is by definition an emotional bond.  It occurs initially between a child and his or her caregiver, but later appears in everything from our relationship to food, to money, to time, to our children, as well as who we choose to date.  For purposes of simplicity and understanding, let’s talk about how attachment styles impact who and how you love.  

How do you know if you’re attached?  

You’re attached if you’re unable to accept what is and let go emotionally. This doesn’t mean you’re able to end the relationship. I know many married couples who are still emotionally attached to previous partners. If you’re married or in a committed relationship, but still fantasizing about someone that “got away”, you’re attached. Whether you’re technically in a relationship or not, does not impact attachment.

If you’re anxiously attached, you feel insecure/unhappy in the relationship most of the time.  There is a great deal of fear of abandonment or rejection and a low level of reciprocity, so you fix, sacrifice, provide, and over-function to increase your worth to this person.  You feel emotionally needy, and powerless, and seek to get control by being everything from a purse to a nurse.  These relationships don’t feel good, but there’s an attachment to them working out, so the anxious person bends and breaks to try and get the other person (most likely an avoidant) to show up consistently in a loving and available way.  In short….anxiously attached relationships feel like hell.  How do you know you’re attached?  You aren’t satisfied, you aren’t getting your emotional needs met, but you can’t leave.  You want it to “work” so you can be happy.  There’s a great deal of emphasis put on the potential of the person and who they appeared to be at the beginning of the relationship rather than the reality of the relationship and the person themselves.  These relationships feel pressure-filled and intense, which make for great chemistry in the beginning, but later become more similar to a prison of unmet expectations and disappointment.

The other side of the spectrum of attachment is avoidant.  Most of us flip from one to the other depending on who we are in a relationship with, but you know you’re an avoidant if you need lots of independence in a relationship.  Closeness, emotional vulnerability, and someone giving you consistent love and attention all sound nice, but when you get it, you lose interest or feel smothered.  Often these people end relationships until there is distance again (either forced or by happenstance).  Then the avoidant usually comes back around temporarily, and the cycle of closeness rather than distance is repeated.  It is not uncommon for an avoidant person to end a relationship out of boredom or disinterest, only to then put the person they did not want, on a pedestal for years after. Avoidants tell themselves there is one perfect person, and typically devalue or overvalue potential partners based on how available they are.

Both attachment styles have one thing in common…they love a challenge, and the IDEA of a relationship.  An actual relationship, and how to sustain it, is an entirely different ballgame.  This is why anxious attachers become more anxious as the relationship progresses and avoidants become more avoidant.  Both are sabotaging in their way without even realizing it.  

Recognize yourself? 

If you see yourself in either of these examples, it’s not the other person that needs to change.  It’s you.  That’s great news.  Focusing on the other person shaping up, and becoming something they “used to be” or “could be” is futile.  We change when we want to, and it takes a lot of intentional work.  Think about aspects of your life you want to change.  How easy has it been for you to make those changes?  And that’s with intrinsic motivation driving you.  Imagine how hard it is to change for another person.  It’s impossible in the long term.  

What’s more effective is to understand what is driving you to want someone who seems unavailable. That’s where your power lies.

Now what?  

The key to getting off the attachment seesaw (aka freedom) is to work on your attachment style.  This is the only way towards a happy and healthy relationship with anyone.  I’ve witnessed many relationships shift when one person begins becoming more securely attached, including my own.  Everything I teach and preach I experienced in my own life after years of being on the anxious/avoidant road to nowhere.  Want to have something different?  Change begins with change and self-responsibility. If you resonate with this post, there is hope. Attachment like everything else in your life is something you have the power to change. It just takes awareness, acceptance, and the willingness to give yourself something different through intentional effort. You don’t have to figure it all out either. I do that for you. When you change your attachment style you change your entire world.