In simplified terms, a distinction can be made between three different attachment styles. The secure attachment style and two insecure attachment styles, the avoidant attachment style and the anxious attachment style. The interesting thing is that your attachment style affects your choice of partner and the course of your relationship in adulthood. Find out more about the different attachment styles and how they can influence your behaviour in the following sections.
Attachment styles: which ones are there?
1. secure attachment style
If you belong to the secure attachment type, you feel comfortable with your partner's closeness. You can communicate your needs and desires and share the ups and downs of your life with your partner. It is also not difficult for you to respond to your partner's needs and give her warmth and security.
2. avoidant attachment style
If you belong to the avoidant attachment type, you feel the need to maintain your independence and autonomy. Too much closeness makes you uncomfortable and you prefer to keep your partner at arm's length. You may want a partnership, but if your partner makes attempts to restrict your independence and freedom, you react by withdrawing (emotionally or physically). This can manifest itself in different ways, perhaps you are no longer available, turn your back on your partner or perhaps even attack them verbally with a put-down, as this will certainly hurt your partner and take them away from you.
3. anxious attachment style
If you are an anxious attachment type, you long for closeness and warmth in your relationship. If your partner is not available to you, you quickly panic. You then try to re-establish physical or emotional closeness by making attempts to connect (e.g. calling several times) or displaying protest behaviour, e.g. by withdrawing offended or making hurtful statements in the hope of getting your partner's attention.
Research on attachment styles - an excursion into developmental psychology
Attachment styles were originally investigated in infants interacting with their primary caregivers. This was done with the help of the strange situation test: one-year-olds were observed with their caregivers in a strange room. There were toys and another stranger was present. If the caregiver was in the room, the children began to explore their surroundings and play. If the caregiver suddenly left the room, the children began to scream and protest - they crawled to the door and wanted to get back to their caregiver. When the carer returned, the children were happy, calmed down and started exploring again.
But not all of them. And this is where the attachment style comes into play. Securely attached children behaved as described above. Children who were not securely attached showed different behaviour.
Avoidant children hardly showed any outward reaction to leaving the attachment figure, although increased cortisol levels could be detected in them, so they also experienced stress. Of all three attachment types, they were the most likely to engage in interaction with the stranger as a distraction. When the attachment figure returned, they showed hardly any reaction.
Anxious children were difficult to reassure on reentry and sometimes showed contradictory reactions - they initially despaired when their attachment figure left the room and sought their closeness on reentry, but also reacted negatively or even aggressively. Even when the caregiver was present, they were more clingy and explored their surroundings less than infants who showed one of the other two attachment types.
The attachment system
And this is an important mechanism that is disrupted here, which also comes into play in adulthood. If we are secure in the support of our attachment figure (i.e. securely attached), we can go out into the world and explore and grow without concern. However, if this secure harbour is lost (in the case of small children, even when this is out of sight), our attachment system is activated and we desperately try to re-establish physical and emotional closeness.
How attachment styles develop
It has long been theorised that the attachment style develops in the very first years of life through interaction with the primary caregiver and thus remains in place for the rest of life. This connection does exist, but it is less pronounced than initially assumed. Genetic predisposition and romantic love experiences as adolescents and adults can be just as formative as the first years of life. Attachment styles can also change from time to time during adulthood; they are malleable.
How your attachment style can influence your adult love life
A securely attached partner really is like a secure harbour, relatively independent of the attachment type they are dealing with. The ability to communicate their own needs concretely, honestly and confidently, and also to respond to their partner's needs, takes the wind out of the sails of many (unconscious) strategies of other attachment types. The situation is different with the other two attachment types, and a couple constellation of insecure attachment styles often causes difficulties.
In fact, there is research that shows that people with avoidant attachment styles prefer anxious partners, and women with anxious attachment styles are more likely to be in relationships with avoidant men. The theory behind this: Both are thus confirmed in their self-view. The avoidant woman experiences being strong and independent and that partners actually want to curtail her autonomy. The anxious man sees his deepest fears confirmed, that he wants more closeness than his partner can give and concludes from this that he is not lovable enough.
A typical relationship pattern between an anxious woman and an avoidant man could look like this: After a nice evening of sex together that wasn't non-committal and emotionally distant, he doesn't get in touch the next day. After experiencing so much closeness, his attachment system has become active, so he keeps his distance and returns to his comfort zone at arm's length.
The lack of contact in turn activates her attachment system and she tries to create more closeness again by calling him (i.e. to return to her comfort zone). With her tendency to panic, she reproaches him, to which he may react by making fun of her emotional dependency, which in turn hurts her further. Another common behaviour could be protest behaviour on her part. If he only contacts her again after three days, she will wait at least as long until she contacts him again to attract his interest.
Such relationship patterns between anxious and avoidant partners are therefore characterised by ups and downs. The temporarily non-existent availability of the avoidant activates the attachment system of the anxious partner, who wants nothing more than to be close to the avoidant partner. LeidenThese passionate experiences that anxiously attached people have in relationships with avoidant partners are then at some point equated with love - so that partners with a secure attachment style may not seem so attractive at first. They simply lack the thrill at first. They don't play games, but lay their cards on the table and feel comfortable with closeness.
What you can do if your attachment style is adversely affecting your love life
So if you have an anxious or avoidant attachment style, it is important to first learn to recognise and communicate your needs. As an anxious partner, you should clearly formulate your needs for a committed relationship from the outset. However, the combination of insecure and avoidant partners will always lead to painful conflicts in which the anxious partner often has to make one-sided concessions. Accordingly, a sensible approach is for partners with an anxious attachment style to recognise and avoid partners with an avoidant attachment style at an early stage.
If you are already in a relationship with this combination, it will require constant attention and an open dialogue to enable a working relationship. For anxiously attached people, it can be helpful to know that the avoiding partner has a stronger need for autonomy and that this need has nothing to do with their own person. Avoidant partners can also learn not to reflexively give in to the instinct to flee for more space, but to consciously decide against fleeing and in favour of being close to their partner in order to be there for them. It is also important in conflict discussions not to show harmful behaviours .
Conversations around conflict and compromise will not be easy to manage, and professional support can make this process easier. For this you are welcome to contact me. Have you already addressed your attachment style in the past? Has this article helped you to better categorise certain patterns in your relationship? Feel free to leave a comment! If you are interested in the topic, you can also read about it in this book to learn more about the different attachment styles.