We Can Understand Our Deepest Needs

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Depending on the influences of our parental and cultural upbringing, we can struggle to form these secure and healthy attachments. In this way, our close relationships become a mirror in which to meet our whole selves. Secure in this whole self, we can understand our deepest needs and seek to have them met as we confidently stake out our place in the world. When this is the case, conflicts are seen as a way to build the empathy and understanding that can bring us even closer together. Perhaps as children we experienced a sense of disinterest in us, so we learned how to cope on our own. Or maybe we were only intermittently attended to, so we anxiously cling to any scraps of attention and affection that come our way, not trusting that there will always be enough. When the foundation for our connections has been built on shaky ground, we must heal these core wounds so we can create the secure relationships we desire. Attachment theory, also known as the science of how we connect in early childhood, was pioneered by the psychologist in the 1950s. This can affect the way we relate with others throughout childhood and into adulthood. At an emotional rock bottom, I knew the time had come for me to make a change. I realized I needed to forge an inner sense of security that had been lacking all my life as I discovered that my own anxious attachment style was at the heart of my unhappiness. As I described in the introduction, those who experienced being anxiously attached are frightened of being abandoned because their parents were so inconsistent in providing connection.

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It's All Over Now

To protect themselves from this happening again, they tend to focus all their energy on finding a relationship. Their need to maintain the connection often emotionally suffocates their partners because they can’t stop themselves from obsessing over their partners’ level of commitment. When this new person begins to pull back, feelings of not deserving love often come to the surface. Their lives can become an endless search for a relationship that will prove they are lovable, but the need to cling for reassurance out of fear and insecurity creates demands that often lead to the very abandonment they fear. Meanwhile, people with avoidant attachment have a strong need to hit the eject button at the first sign of intimacy. As children, their parents consistently offered warmth and care, communicating how lovable they were. This primes them to expect and want interdependency in their adult relationships. They are able to offer their love and support to a partner without losing their sense of self, so they can easily transition from a feeling of being closely connected to more on their own without becoming afraid that the relationship is ending. Many of us have experienced more than one attachment style as children. Maybe our mother was anxious and inconsistent and our father was often silent behind his newspaper. Since we have both those patterns inside us, either of them can come up depending on who we’re in a relationship with now. If we’re feeling a friend or partner is clinging to us, the avoidance we experienced with our father may activate us to pull away.

One Of These Days

If we’re with someone who has a tendency to pull away, we may find the anxiety we experienced with our mother rushing to the surface. As we move through this work together, you will get greater clarity about your own tendencies, patterns, and needs in different situations. This will gradually help you have a better understanding of what you need in a romantic partner. People who have had a secure upbringing often wonder why they still have insecure feelings at times. It is important to realize that all of us can still have anxiety when our partners have a strong tendency to pull away from intimacy. Those feelings are an adaptive early warning system telling you to be more aware of what is happening between the two of you. Neither of these attachment styles is better than the other. The way we are in relationships is part of what makes us who we are. Whether anxious, avoidant, or secure, our way of connecting with others has developed over the course of our lifetime as we adapt the best way we can to conditions in our family. Rather than something that needs to be changed overnight, the real strength lies in learning to understand and work with the unique needs of our attachment type while we are healing, so that we can focus on relationships that allow us to thrive exactly as we are. For your part, you perceive relationships differently, believing that in order to love and be loved, you must give everything you’ve got, and then some. That it is virtuous to be selfless in your relationships.

Why Oh Why?

These proportions have changed some over the following decades, with secure attachments becoming fewer while insecure ones are on the rise, probably because of the increasing stress of daily life. Our earliest attachment experiences strongly influence how we come into adult relationships, particularly the most intimate ones. The closer the relationship, the more it stimulates our earlier expectations about our attachment. Their research also suggested that particular kinds of attachment styles may be attracted to each other. As I mentioned in the introduction, anxious and avoidant people are often drawn to each other. Meanwhile, the anxious person is hypervigilant in their quest for stability, something that the avoidant person is unlikely to be able to provide. When we first met, everything was wonderful between us. He was very thoughtful and would plan lots of fun dates for us. Best of all, his attention was consistent. He even seemed to express his emotions openly and freely, telling me he loved me without hesitation. But the closer and more intimate we became, the more our individual fears about relationships kicked in. This manifested differently for both of us, according to our attachment styles.