How Attachment Styles Show Up In Relationships

In this podcast, we examine how our attachment styles show up behaviorally and emotionally in a couple's dynamic. I discuss the most common attachment pairs, their challenges, and, most importantly, what you can do to help yourself and your partner. I will be happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Transcript

Hi there and thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast.

My name is Irina Khmelevskaya and I am an Associated Psychotherapist at a private practice and a meditation teacher.

I hope this podcast will bring you some value and insight into your relationship patterns and the ways we can manage and heal them.

If you chose to listen to this podcast I imagine you already know some basics about attachment styles.

So today we're gonna dive deeper,

Explore common attachment pairs,

How they present behaviorally and emotionally,

What the healthy attachment between two secure people looks like and what you can do today to help yourself based on your attachment style.

So let's dive in.

Let's quickly recap what exactly attachment styles are and simply put their patterns of thinking,

Feeling and behaving in relationships.

They're usually rooted in how we bonded with our caregivers as children and influence how we connect with partners,

Friends and even colleagues as adults.

There are four main attachment styles.

Secure people with this style feel comfortable with intimacy and independence.

They trust others and are generally good at maintaining healthy relationships.

There's anxious attachment style.

These individuals usually crave closeness and worry more often about being abandoned or not being loved enough.

And then there is avoidant.

These people value independence and often avoid vulnerability,

Finding it hard to trust others or to get too close.

And then the last one,

Disorganized or mixed attachment style.

It's a mix of anxious and avoidant traits often stemming from trauma or inconsistent caregiving.

These individuals may fear intimacy but also crave it.

If you ask yourself a question,

How the heck do these attachment styles form?

They usually develop early in childhood based on how our caregivers responded to our needs.

So in the first year to three years of our life,

If our caregiver was consistently loving,

Responsive,

You're more likely to develop a secure attachment style.

If they were inconsistent,

Sometimes attentive,

Sometimes distant,

You might develop an anxious style.

If your caregiver was emotionally unavailable or dismissive,

You could develop an avoidant style.

And it doesn't have to be both parents,

It can be just one of the parents that could cause you to develop a avoidant or anxious or disorganized style.

And then lastly,

If your parents or parent were neglectful or abusive,

It may lead to a disorganized style.

Good thing is that research showed that around 50 to 60 percent of adults have a secure attachment while the remaining fall into one of the insecure categories.

But even then,

Attachment styles are generally fixable.

It's something that you can go to therapy or even work on that on your own and grow into a secure attachment style.

All right,

So let's now dive into how each attachment style presents itself behaviorally and emotionally in relationships.

Securely attached individuals are usually reliable and open communicators.

They're comfortable expressing their feelings,

Needs,

And addressing conflicts directly without resorting to manipulation or avoidance.

They also encourage their partner's independence.

Emotionally,

They feel confident in their partner's love and trustworthiness.

Secure individuals rarely experience intense jealousy or anxiety about their relationship status or in general about their relationship,

Which allows for a stable emotional connection on both ends of a partnership.

As far as anxiously attached individuals,

They often seek constant reassurance and validation from their partner.

They may overanalyze texts,

Expect immediate response,

Struggle with feelings of being unimportant if their partner seems distant,

And even if the partner reassures them,

You may get to a point where it's not enough for an anxiously attached person.

Emotionally,

They experience heightened fear of abandonment and often feel insecure about their partner's feelings,

Even if reassurance is present.

So this can lead to emotional highs and lows depending on how much attention they receive and how they feel and perceive love from the inside.

Next,

Avoidant attachment.

This one is actually one of my favorite attachments to work with.

It's a truly beautiful transition when an avoidant person learns to accept vulnerability and grows into a secure attachment.

Not that other ones are not,

But I can see how much value these people receive once they accept vulnerability in themselves.

But basically,

Behaviorally,

These individuals tend to withdraw during conflict.

They often avoid deep emotional discussions.

They prioritize their independence over relationship or even being in a relationship,

They prioritize independence as of something of a higher value.

They may shut down or deflect when their partner expresses emotional needs.

Emotionally,

They often suppress their feelings and may struggle to recognize or validate their partner's emotions.

While they crave connection deep down,

They may fear losing autonomy and may appear emotionally distant or detached.

Lastly,

Disorganized attachment.

Behaviorally,

Disorganized individuals may exhibit unpredictable behavior,

Sometimes seeking closeness and other times pushing their partner away.

This may present very confusing to their partner.

They may struggle with trust and have difficulty establishing consistent patterns of communication.

Emotionally,

They may often feel a mix of fear and longing for intimacy.

Their emotional world can be very chaotic,

Marked by deep fears of rejection alongside a yearning for connection.

This can make a relationship feel like a source of both comfort and anxiety for these people.

So it's very difficult for these people to be in a relationship and usually therapy is highly recommended for people with disorganized attachments.

So if anxious and the wouldn't can usually work through attachment issues on their own with psychoeducation,

Reading some worksheets,

Disorganized attachments are usually recommended to go to therapy to be able to learn how to deal with all of this.

Alright,

Let's bring this to life with some common couple dynamics and how attachment styles play out.

We'll explore how these dynamics manifest and what partners often feel or express.

Alright,

So let's start with a secure attached couple.

A couple in which both partners are securely attached.

When both partners in the relationship are securely attached,

They trust each other and communicate openly.

When one of the partners for example has a stressful day,

They feel safe to share their feelings and the other partner would listen without judgment and without perceiving the stress of another partner as if they didn't love them or if they just wanted to be distant.

So these couples often present themselves as calm,

Connected and mutually supportive and they were likely to discuss conflicts without becoming overly defensive or avoidant.

Now let's look at a very common pair in couples therapy which is anxious and avoidant pair.

Let's give them names to not get confused.

Let's imagine Sarah and Tom.

Sarah has an anxious attachment style,

She craves closeness and reassurance.

Tom on the other hand is avoidant and values independence.

So what happens when Sarah seeks emotional intimacy,

Tom might pull away which triggers Sarah's fear of abandonment.

This dynamic often looks like Sarah texting frequently,

Asking do you still love me while Tom might respond with short detached answers or delay communication altogether because he feels flooded like there is too much.

So both partners end up feeling unfulfilled,

Sarah feels rejected and Tom feels overwhelmed.

If you recognized yourself in the example with Sarah and Tom,

Here is what we usually offer to these couples.

Sarah for example can practice grounding techniques,

Deep breathing before reaching out to Tom,

Writing down her fears,

Writing down her thoughts before reacting impulsively and practicing to be with herself,

Be happy with herself,

Not dissolve into another person and find a hobby,

Find something she really enjoys.

And then for Tom we would work on tolerating vulnerability,

Learning to take steps into emotional intimacy,

Learn how to be more present and set some goals that in general for a couple will help them find a middle ground where Sarah's anxieties are gonna ease up and Tom feels he doesn't feel flooded in a situation so it could be like a weekly check-ins or an activity that they both enjoy so it creates emotional intimacy that is safe for Tom to experience and that will give Sarah that connection,

The feeling of connection.

All right moving on to the next common pair in couples therapy secure and anxious couple.

So let's give them names again for example Mia has an anxious attachment style while Ethan is secure.

So in this situation when Mia feels unsure about their relationship,

Ethan would reassure her with consistent actions and words for example if Mia worries about Ethan's late response to text,

Ethan might say I was in a meeting but I'm here now how's your day?

Over time this will help Mia to feel more secure because of Ethan's stability and it can help her become more calm and eventually outgrow her anxious attachment.

Of course there are some situations where even with reassurance the partner may not feel like they can trust their partner.

In this case I would recommend moving into a higher level of care going into weekly therapy but let's talk about what can help Mia.

In this situation Mia can focus on building her self-worth outside of relationship like pursuing her hobbies or journaling about her strengths joining a dance group where she can find a community of women she can relate to as far as Ethan he just needs to stay patient and maybe learn about Mia's attachment and understand where she comes from so when he continues to provide reassurance and encourage Mia they will be able to grow into a secure couple together.

Alright let's meet our last couple Lee and Jake.

Disorganized plus avoidant.

Lee has a disorganized attachment style and struggles with both craving and fearing intimacy.

Jake who is avoidant often feels overwhelmed by Lee's intense emotions and retreats.

This might look like Lee accusing Jake of not caring while Jake shutting down and avoiding the conversation.

Lee's behavior usually stems from deep fear of rejection while Jake's withdrawal is a defense mechanism against emotional overwhelm.

What helps such a couple usually is trauma focused therapy to address the fears of abandonment and this push and pull dynamic.

For Jake something that can help is practicing mindfulness techniques to tolerate emotional vulnerability and engaging in open communication with their partner.

Alright I hope these examples have brought some perspective to the presentation of attachment styles and couple dynamics.

One of the most important things that I want you to take away from this podcast is while we're learning about attachment styles and how they may limit our current relationships they do not define us and healing is most definitely possible.

By educating yourself on these attachment styles and their presentation in relationships you have expanded your awareness and awareness is the key to change.

If you have gained a new insight about your or your partner's attachment style today share it with your partner.

Understanding each other attachment styles may help avoid overreacting or misunderstanding in the relationship and can help your partner better cater to your needs.

Thank you so much for joining me in this talk today.

I will be happy to read your insights to this talk and answer any questions in the comments.

I will also be soon releasing meditations for avoidance and anxious attachment healing so stay tuned.

Thank you,

Bye!