How does adult attachment affect your romantic relationship?

Ashley* approached me for some relationship counselling, as she thought she was spending way too much time feeling terrible in her relationship. It was so relentlessly painful for her, she was having trouble sleeping and it was beginning to affect her work. If you’ve ever caught yourself acting in ways you don’t fully understand or aren’t proud of, maybe you need to figure out your romantic attachment style and its implications for long term relationships.

Ashley found herself obsessing about her partner in ways she knew were not healthy and she was feeling confused by this as in the beginning she’d felt he was ‘the one’. Right now though all she felt was needy and neurotic with a smidgen of ‘stalker’. Once she’d told me what was going on for her it became clear she would benefit from a quick introduction to how early attachment can have an impact on adult relationships.

Adult Attachment Styles in Romantic Relationshipsr
There are various ways of describing attachment styles but I like to keep things simple so let’s go with Amir Levine and Rachel Heller’s approach in Attached. They break it down like this:

There are only 3 adult romantic attachment styles you need to think about:

1. Anxious
2. Avoidant
3. Healthy

If you catch yourself feeling like you’re spending way too much time wondering what your partner is up to then you’re probably anxiously attached by nature. If you feel you’re too much trouble or too needy, you’re probably anxious. If you call or send them an email and 15 minutes later you’re wondering why they haven’t got back to you, then you’re probably anxious. One of the biggest mistakes you could make would be to get involved with someone with the avoidant attachment style.

Unfortunately, anxious types are drawn to avoidant types like a moth to the flame. I’ll talk more about that later but let’s take a quick look at a ‘typical’ avoidant.

The Nature of Attachmentr
Ashley’s partner was avoidant by nature. He didn’t respond well to her seeking out more contact and connection with him. He wouldn’t reply to texts during the day as he was ‘busy at work’. He gave off a very clear vibe that at points she was just that ‘little’ bit too intense or needy, but he loved her anyway. Have you ever been in either of those positions?

Don’t hate me for this but avoidant men are incredibly appealing for a lot of women. They don’t seem to be able to get enough of the strong, silent type. What you need to know, is that there is a subconscious driver that pushes an anxious type toward an avoidant type like a heat seeking missile. It’s almost freakish in it’s predictability. That is why I’m sharing this article with you. For the record let me say that it’s not only men who are avoidant, but it is the most common dynamic and one that many women will come to me for help with. Most men are just too embarrassed when they feel like they’re ‘losing it’ due to having got with an avoidant woman.
Attachment through lifer
How does attachment impact adult relationships? Pia Mellody refers to it as the co-addicted love cycle - remember a lot of this is subconscious - and the cycle goes a lot like this:

Anxious type spots avoidant type across the room and is attracted to his sense of confidence and self control. Avoidant notes Anxious’ attention and get’s a thrill out of being interesting to someone so lovely. Time goes by (minutes, hours or weeks) and Anxious starts to feel more comfortable and allows some of her slightly needy/ vulnerable nature to become more visible. Early in the relationship Avoidant finds this endearing and enjoys the adulation of Anxious.

At some point avoidant begins to feel impinged upon or limited and starts looking for the door either literally or metaphorically. Anxious please pay attention to this next bit. Subtle withdrawal begins to occur, not replying to texts etc. At it’s most simplistic Anxious’ needs are no longer being met and given the nature of anxiety it all begins to get much worse. Anxious will try to be more loving, seek more connection and refuses to give up on her lover.

Using Ashley’s experience, a snapshot of this particular dance would be: Mark comes home very late without any real explanation and in the meantime Ashley has been driving herself slightly nuts imagining him off with his friends and flirting with other women. She’s feeling threatened and seeks reassurance from Mark who receives this as ‘yet more neediness’ and withdraws to the bathroom. Ashley ends up really upset, Mark returns to the bedroom and to Ashley’s great distress promptly falls asleep.
Patterns of attachment in adultsr
You see an anxious type will move toward their beloved in times of stress whereas an avoidant will move away. Do you get that? This is why some people are in so much pain in their relationships.

There isn’t really space to go into all of it but you’ve probably experienced it either subtly or not so subtly at some point in your life. What’s interesting is that these positions aren’t fixed in stone. If you get with someone more anxious than you it can push you into an avoidant position or vice versa. I’m going to botch the quote a little for our purposes but Pia Mellody roughly states: ‘Scratch the surface of an avoidant and you’ll find an anxious type. Scratch the surface of an anxious type and you’ll find an avoidant.’

If you are an anxious type trying to get along with an avoidant you need to pay more attention to your feelings. All that excitement and thrill you’re feeling is actually a form of terror as the wiser piece of you begins to freak out about the mess you’re getting yourself into. If you are anxious I would tell you not to ever get involved with an avoidant but you’ll probably ignore me for at least another 3 turns of that cycle.
What are your options?
My advice would be that if you’re anxious you have 3 options:
a. Find someone who’s anxious too and you can get busy empathising and reassuring each other. This could be quite healing for both of you.
b. Find someone who is healthily attached and can bring a bit of kindness, compassion and forgiveness to your situation.
c. If you insist on giving an avoidant a chance then you will need help. It would serve you to educate yourself about boundaries and begin to re-parent yourself. It’s my contention that this is the real purpose of great coaching or therapy; it’s re-parenting, allowing you to develop your own more functional adult self.
If your attachment styles are not compatible you are signing up for intense pain and frustration particularly if you are more on the anxious side of the equation.

What can you do?
So what is your romantic attachment style? The fact that you’re still reading this would point to you being an anxious type. Given you’ve read this far and I’ve been where you are now, I’m going to give you access to this recording for free. It won’t be there for long so grab it now. It’s the best primer on boundaries and self esteem I can offer you.
If however you’re avoidant and still reading let me just say this: you have some really good reasons for becoming avoidant. All the avoidant’s I’ve ever worked with had a hard time getting any space for themselves as children. They learned early on that their needs would never be met in a relationship and built defences on that basis. There is a tendency to write off an avoidant as a waste of time but it’s not true so long as you’re willing to engage with being in a relationship. For an avoidant, intimacy is a moment by moment decision. Keep asking yourself how you could turn toward your partner rather than away from them when feeling impinged upon.

* Names are always changed to protect the innocent.