Are you anxious, avoidant, or secure?
Ever wonder why you cling to your partner while they seem to be a bit more independent, or vice versa? Or why you want to talk it out after a fight while your spouse needs some alone time? It could have to do with your relationship attachment style. And understanding it can make or break a relationship.
After decades of studying relationships and conducting couples therapy, it’s become fairly easy for Sue Johnson, Ed.D. to recognize the patterns that emerge between partners. How they fight, how they reconcile, and sometimes what leads them to split for good can all be decoded using attachment theory, the clinical therapist and author argues.
“It’s the best theory out there for explaining who we are and how we relate to others,” Dr. Johnson says.
Whether you’re tired of tiffs snowballing into shouting matches or want to feel closer to an emotionally-distant spouse, understanding attachment theory and your own attachment style can make a huge difference in your love life.
What is attachment theory?
Attachment theory was first developed in the mid-20th century by British psychiatrist John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth. Their work mostly focused on the relationship between child and caregiver and highlighted how crucial early bonding is for emotional development.
The theory suggests that children who grow up in an environment with attentive parents sensitive to their needs will develop what psychologists call a “secure base.” They cultivate an understanding that they’re supported, which leads them to feel more confident and secure, Dr. Johnson says. But children with parents who are dismissive, absent, overbearing, or abusive won’t develop that same secure sense of attachment, which can have far-reaching consequences. (We’ll dive more into that later.)
“As a developmental model, this gradually shaped how we saw children,” Dr. Johnson says. But at the time, it didn’t extend to how psychologists viewed adult interactions. It wasn’t until the late 80s that things began to shift, starting with research conducted by Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver, who noted the similarities between how children bond with their parents and how adults behave in romantic relationships, Amir Levine, MD, told us.
“That really started the whole field of adult attachment,” says Dr. Levine, a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist at Columbia University. He’s the co-author of Attached, which examines the three major attachment styles and how they can deeply impact our love lives.
What’s your attachment style type?
To figure that out, you need to know what each attachment style means. The main adult attachment styles are anxious, avoidant, and secure. Everyone basically falls into one of these three categories. Hazan and Shaver found that about 56 percent of their research subjects were secure, 20 percent were anxious, 23 percent were avoidant, while a small portion displayed a combination of attachment styles.
Anxious attachment style
Anxious types crave intimacy and closeness but are hypervigilant, attuned to anything that can be viewed as a potential threat to the relationship. Oftentimes they feel their relationships are “brittle” and that they need to be very careful about how they behave with their partners, Dr. Levine says. “So they don’t really say what they want, because they fear it will drive the other person away,” he says, which can lead to a cascade of other issues.
Dr. Johnson says people raised by emotionally volatile caregivers, who can be generous and compassionate at one moment and aggressive or belittling the next, are more likely to develop an anxious attachment style, Dr. Johnson says. “The child learns that if they want any kind of connection, they’ve gotta watch for it, fight for it, and pick up on any sign of rejection,” she says.
Avoidant attachment style
Avoidant types don’t feel comfortable with too much intimacy and will attempt to create distance in their relationships, keeping their partners at arm’s length. In times of conflict, they’re more likely to shut down and walk away during an argument.
Where anxiously attached people are “terrified that they don’t deserve love, avoidant types numb that fear and insist they don’t need love anyway,” Dr. Johnson says.
Secure attachment style
Secure types feel entitled to love and are generally more comfortable with closeness. They have no problem turning to their friends or partners when they’re feeling vulnerable, and because of that “they literally experience the world as safer,” Dr. Johnson argues.
How learning your attachment style can strengthen your relationship
“Each attachment style has a different way of looking at and experiencing the world,” Dr. Levine says. So, understanding your type and that of your partner can give you a window into how you connect and interact with each other. (You can learn your type using Dr. Levine’s compatibility quiz.)
Dr. Johnson says many of the couples she works with aren’t even aware of their own patterns of behavior, let alone that of their partners. Over time all couples develop a rhythm for how they coexist and how they approach conflict, she says. An avoidant partner, during a period of stress, may insist on excessive amounts of time alone to avoid discussing an issue with her spouse. An anxious type may be given to outbursts, or become extremely demanding, constantly texting or calling.
Understanding that certain behaviors are common responses to feelings of vulnerability can help couples unravel what causes friction and hopefully lead them to shift their interactions.
“The science shows that we have these different attachment styles and we’re going to love very differently and we’ll want different amounts of closeness,” Dr. Levine says. “So if we can figure that out, we can really suss out some compatibility issues.”
