Having a love life can be complicated enough as it is. Not only do you have to find a person that is compatible with you and your beliefs, attitudes, and goals, but you also have to learn to adapt to their ways of thinking and being. In a healthy relationship, you experience joy, comfort, and security, but you’ll likely encounter compromise and disagreements, as well. It comes with the territory. 

Gaining an understanding of attachment styles and the attachment style that both you and your partner possess can make navigating that territory much easier. This insight can help you better understand how you and your partner function within your relationship.

Attachment styles develop when we are young based on how our caregiver(s) interacted with us and met our needs, and these styles can exist in three primary ways: secure attachment, anxious attachment, and avoidant attachment (sometimes referred to as dismissive). Although your style can ebb and flow, as well as be a combination of the three depending on the scenario, you are likely inclined in the direction of one of the three. This week, we are going to discuss the anxious attachment style and what that looks like in romantic relationships.

Anxious Attachment in Relationships

Anxiously-attached individuals are quite insecure in their relationships across the board, causing less satisfying and more poorly adjusted relationships. They experience consistent feelings of underappreciation and abandonment by their romantic partners, regardless of how much attention or thanks they are doled out. They are likely to place hope in their partners, but their inability to shake harboring negative self-views and constantly questioning their worth keeps that hope from coming to fruition in a healthy way. Overall, this attachment style causes a person to hold all of their self-esteem in their relationships, rather than in themselves and their gifts to the world. 

Individuals with an anxious attachment style are also likely to remain hypervigilant for signs that their partner is slipping away from them, which can result in “smothering” behavior that might drive their partners away. They might constantly ask for reassurance and affection from their partner, while also having a difficult time trusting their partner fully. For example, an anxiously-attached individual will likely call his or her partner multiple times in one evening out of concern for what they’re “really” doing or accuse their partner of flirting with someone of the opposite sex even if it’s a harmless and mature conversation. 

All of these indications of anxious attachment are relatively apparent, but this type of partner will be especially evident in the bedroom. When it comes to sexual connection, anxiously-attached individuals are desperate for true intimacy but mistakenly consider sex the sole means to obtain that. As a result, sex and love become synonymous, when they are, in fact, not at all. 

The Love Addiction

Anxious attachment also causes an inability to be alone or single, which often results in succumbing to unhealthy or abusive relationships. We all crave love and affection, and it is largely what drives us in our daily lives. Whether with our friendships or relationships with siblings or romantic relationships, we long to love and be loved. We want to feel safe and secure in our relationships. An individual with an anxious attachment style is no different but will do anything to experience it, even in the wrong places with the wrong people. 

Whether you notice an anxious attachment style in yourself or you think your partner possess these qualities, it’s important to remember that this is not yours or your partner’s fault. As mentioned previously, attachment styles are determined quite young, and anxious attachment strategies are no different. These strategies are developed by infants who receive love and care, but the frequency and sufficiency is unpredictable and inconsistent. 

Nevertheless, your attachment style can change, even though the process might be slow and arduous. There is a lot of hardwiring needing to be reconfigured, which is best done with the help of a licensed professional counselor. It doesn’t have to be this way— not in your love life and not in your day-to-day feelings about yourself and your worth. Call to set up a consultation today, and let’s set to work on those wires.