Attachment Styles and Relationships

What are Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles are various ways of interacting with other people, which are heavily influenced by a person’s bond with a parent or other caregiver in childhood. Attachment theory comes from the research of psychiatrist and psychologist John Bowlby, who identified that isolation from caregivers in childhood is a traumatizing experience. Dr. Sue Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, expanded on this idea, and her work with adults and couples is based on the discovery that the need for secure connection to others continues throughout life.

 Types of Attachment Styles

There are four different attachment styles. The first one is known as secure attachment and the remaining three are all variations of insecure attachment – anxious, avoidant and disorganized.

Secure Attachment

When a child’s needs are met by consistently reliable and available caregivers, they typically develop a secure attachment style. They learn when they're an infant that if they are hungry they will be fed, when their diaper is soiled it will be changed and that when they cry somebody will comfort them.

If this experience continues throughout childhood and there's somebody who is responsive to them, they typically become a securely attached adult who feels safe in the world, knowing that there are trustworthy people around them and that it is possible to get their needs met. This gives them a secure base with which to launch themselves into the world with confidence.  

People with a secure attachment style tend to be more resilient in relationships and better at regulating their own emotions. If they do not get an immediate response to their needs, they can usually tolerate it without becoming distressed because they trust that their needs will be met at some point.  

Insecure Attachment

When a child’s needs are not met due to an unavailable, inconsistent, abusive or neglectful parent, they typically develop one of the following types of insecure attachment styles or strategies, due to the uncertainty about whether their needs will be met. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an intentional refusal to meet a child’s needs on the part of the caregiver. There are many circumstances that can lead to a child’s need for a responsive caregiver not being consistently met by the parent, such as addiction, physical or mental illness, incarceration, or even a parent having long working hours or having to travel for work frequently.

Anxious Attachment Style

A person with an anxious attachment style seeks ongoing proof that they are loved, and that the other person is there for them. They tend to be clingy, jealous, controlling, fearful of betrayal, rejection or abandonment and highly emotionally expressive in relationships.

Avoidant Attachment Style

When a person has an avoidant attachment style, they tend to have difficulty being vulnerable in relationships. They push their emotions away and distract themselves with work or keeping busy, or they numb their feelings with substances. They do not trust others easily and will often be guarded in relationships or avoid being in a relationship in the first place. They are often highly independent, taking pride in not needing to depend on others and finding it particularly difficult to ask for help.

Disorganized Attachment Style

A person with a disorganized attachment style flips regularly between anxious and avoidant states, so essentially they are a blend of the other two types of insecure attachment style. Disorganized attachment style is associated with trauma or abuse in childhood. Often a child will have experienced a parent or caregiver as being intermittently available, or responding to their needs in an unpredictable or inconsistent way. They long for closeness and connection and will often get close to another person relatively quickly in a new relationship.

Unfortunately they also fear closeness, because they are unable to deal with the vulnerability of trusting another person. Having bonded with somebody, they often pull away or shut down, sometimes even sabotaging the relationship.

Attachment Styles and Compatibility

The attachment style of each partner in a romantic relationship can have a big influence on how the couple interacts, and will also play a role in predicting how compatible they will be.

The ideal pairing is two securely attached individuals. They will most likely navigate differences well and be able to regulate their emotions easily because they are emotionally available and emotionally responsive to each other.

Another common pairing is one anxious partner and one avoidant partner. This couple will definitely have some problems and challenges, but they will be able to meet each other’s needs at least some of the time. They often find themselves in the classic pursuer/withdrawer dynamic, with the anxious partner protesting their unmet needs through anger and complaints and the avoidant partner shutting down in response.

A pairing of two avoidant partners is unlikely to succeed and may not even get off the ground in the first place. They may find a way to bond that is based on something other than emotional availability, such as a shared hobby, but there is likely to be little meaningful emotional connection between the two.

Two anxious partners will also struggle, as each will be stuck in their own worries, unable to be emotionally present to reassure the other. This couple will be likely to trigger each other’s attachment fears, such as fear of rejection and abandonment, regularly.

A person with a disorganized attachment style probably faces the biggest challenge in romantic relationships. The partner they will be most drawn to at first is likely to be a person with an anxious attachment style, but that is not actually the best pairing for them. The initial attraction to an anxious person will become an issue once the bond has been well established. After that, the avoidant side of the disorganized attachment style will start to emerge and they will want more space. This will heighten anxiety in the anxious partner, who will begin to protest the disconnection with increased pursuing behavior. A person with a disorganized attachment style is better suited to a securely attached partner, but is likely to push too hard for connection at the beginning of a relationship, frantically trying to connect as quickly as possible and end up frustrated by a securely attached partner’s lack of urgency.  

Most people with an insecure attachment style can do well with a more securely attached mate, because over time they are likely to find reassurance in the stability and emotional availability of the secure partner.

 Can Attachment Styles Change?

Attachment styles are formed early in life and whilst they tend to be quite consistent over time, luckily, they can be influenced by a romantic partner. We can have corrective emotional experiences in relationships that increase our felt sense of secure attachment.

Additionally, people tend to deviate from their main attachment style with certain other individuals or in certain contexts. For instance, a person who is generally avoidant may have one person in their life that has never let them down and with whom they have always felt safe and secure. They may be able to open up emotionally with that one person in a way that they are unable to do with anyone else. Even securely attached people can go through a period of insecurity if their emotional needs go unanswered for too long, but they will typically return to their main attachment style once the temporary disruption is over.

The best thing a couple can do is to identify what each partner's attachment style is and where it comes from, by closely examining who was there for them when they were a child and who was unavailable or let them down. Once they have figured out their main attachment styles, they can think about how their attachment styles influence the way they interact in their relationship. If they have difficulty accessing and sharing their emotions and unmet needs with each other, a couples’ therapist who specializes in Emotionally Focused Therapy can help them increase their secure attachment to each other.