How to Manage Your Attachment Style
I met Vivian at a barre workout class. She was always the first one there, doing enthusiastic butt clenches and micro squats before class even started. I also like to arrive early to workout classes, mainly to alleviate my anxiety about getting a good spot. Week after week, we’d see each other, both of us clearly trying not to look annoyed when our teacher arrived late.
One of those mornings, we started talking, and I learned how much we had in common. We shared several close friends from the East Coast. We’d moved to San Francisco the same year. We also loved the same neighborhood café, which we began visiting together after class.
It was in that café where she confessed: “All of the guys I like don’t like me back, but all of the guys who like me, I think are boring.” As we waited in line to order, she glanced around and whispered, “What am I supposed to do? Am I going to have to settle?”
Vivian didn’t like to think of herself as someone who settled. She worked in corporate PR at a large company, handling what’s known as “crisis comms.” That year and the years before it, the crises had been relentless. She was expected to be battle-ready at all times, prepared for any lawsuit or hit piece. She exercised five times a week, ate a strictly vegan diet, and had just obtained her sailing license. The woman was in control of everything. Everything but her dating life.
Vivian knew I worked as a dating coach and matchmaker. She had shared a little bit about her dating life in our previous conversations, but this was the first time she had really opened up.
“So, let’s take a step back. What’s your dating history like?” I asked her.
“In a word: disappointing,” she said. “I had a thing with this guy for two years. I don’t even know if I should really call it a thing. He sure wouldn’t. He lived in my apartment building in New York, and we’d hook up whenever he felt like it. Then there was this guy at work when I first moved here, but he sent a lot of mixed messages, and it sort of fizzled. Lately, I’ve been on the dating apps, and I’ve been on what feels like a million dates, but as soon as someone says they like me, I immediately lose interest. Tell me the truth. Am I cursed? Am I going to die alone?”
I laughed. “No, you’re great. You’re beautiful and interesting, and you know how to sail a friggin’ boat. I just think you might be looking for the wrong things.” I was trying to stay on my side of the mat but felt myself slowly veering into coaching mode. I wanted to help.
“The wrong things? I didn’t say anything about going after tall guys or rich guys.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, interrupting her. “Have you ever heard of attachment theory?”
Of all the relationship science insights I share with my clients, attachment theory is one of the most powerful. It’s a popular framework that helps explain why we’re attracted to certain types of people, why past relationships haven’t worked out, and why we’re plagued by certain bad habits.
You can read entire books on the topic, including Attached, by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, and Hold Me Tight, by Sue Johnson, but attachment theory has made such a difference to my friends, my clients, and my own life that I wanted to include it here, too. I’ve worked with people who struggled with dating for years, learned about this framework, and used it to completely shift their approach. It’s not easy, but the results can be powerful. I know more than a handful of people who owe their marital success to what they learned from attachment theory. (Clearly, I’m very attached to this theory.)
After ordering our drinks, Vivian and I sat in a cushion-filled nook at the back of the café. I began to explain what attachment theory is and why it matters.
It all dates back to the work of developmental psychologist John Bowlby. He believed that children have an innate attachment to their mothers. Later, psychologist Mary Ainsworth investigated how attachment might vary between children in a now-famous experiment called “The Strange Situation.” She invited mothers and babies (between twelve and eighteen months old) into her lab and observed them in a series of different scenarios.
First the mother and baby entered a room filled with toys. The baby felt safe to play and explore because the mother functioned as the secure base—someone who could provide help if they needed it. Then the lab assistant instructed the mother to leave the room, and observed how the baby responded to both the mother’s absence and her return a few minutes later. The experiment explored a baby’s ability to trust that their needs would be met, even with the temporary absence of their secure base.
Some babies showed signs of distress as soon as their mother left. When she returned, these babies would be temporarily soothed and stop crying but then angrily push the mother away and begin crying again. Ainsworth called these babies “anxiously attached.”
Another group of babies cried when their mother left but stopped as soon as she returned. They quickly resumed playing. These were the “securely attached” babies.
A third group did not respond to their mother leaving the room; nor did they acknowledge her when she returned. They pretended they weren’t bothered by the situation, but the researchers could tell from their elevated heart rate and stress levels that these babies were just as upset as the ones who cried. These were the “avoidantly attached” babies.
Ainsworth and her team concluded that we all have the same need for attachment and attention, but we develop different coping strategies to deal with our particular caregivers.
Years later, researchers found the same theory applies to our adult attachment style—whom we’re attracted to, how we relate to them, and why many of our relationships succeed or fail. But don’t blame your mom for your relationship issues just yet. Our relationship with our parents is one of only a number of factors that determine our adult attachment style.
“Which one am I?” Vivian said.
“Well,” I said, “those anxiously attached babies who cried when their mothers left the room and continued to cry when the mother returned? As babies, they worried their needs would go unmet, and lashed out with anger and frustration. As adults, they’re afraid of abandonment and want to be in constant contact with their partners.”
“That is so me.”
I smiled at Vivian because she had sent me seven rapid-fire texts in a row when I hadn’t shown up to class the week before.
When people are anxiously attached, their brains flood with “activating strategies,” thoughts that compel them to regain closeness. For example, they might think about their partner nonstop. Or they may dwell on their partner’s good qualities while undervaluing their own. This distortion leads to panic. And when they don’t hear back from their partners immediately, they worry they’re being abandoned. They can shake their anxiety only when they’re actively communicating with their partner. This also leads them to jump into relationships and stay in them past their expiration date because they fear being alone and worry that this is their only shot at love.
“Anxiously attached folks,” I said, “and I’m not pointing any fingers here, also engage in ‘protest behavior.’ ”
People with anxious-attachment styles often act out in order to get their partner’s attention. They might call or text an excessive number of times, threaten to leave to make the other person jealous, or withdraw and ignore phone calls to underscore a point.
And what about the avoidantly attached babies who acted uninterested when their moms returned to the room, even though they were upset? They felt like they couldn’t rely on their caregiver, who met only some of their needs. They develop into avoidantly attached adults: They try to minimize the pain of rejection by pretending they don’t actually want to connect. They don’t believe they can rely on others to meet their emotional needs, so they avoid getting too close to anyone. When intimacy increases, they try to pull away. Those attempts to disengage are called “deactivating strategies.” If you’ve heard someone say, “I’m not ready to commit” or “I just need space” or “My job is really demanding so I can’t see you right now,” then you’ve experienced avoidantly attached behavior.
People with this attachment style also tend to dwell on their partner’s imperfections and use those as an excuse to exit the relationship and regain independence. They fantasize about how much happier they’d be if they were single or with someone else.
When I outlined the avoidant-attachment style, Vivian nodded. “That sounds exactly like everyone I’ve ever dated,” she said.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” I told her. This pattern is actually extremely common. It’s called the “anxious-avoidant loop.” Anxiously attached people expect that the person they love will pull back and they in turn will need to chase them. It’s what happened with Vivian’s ex who lived in her apartment building.
“It was so exciting,” Vivian said. “I’d wonder: Will he call me back? Can I see him this weekend?” That possibility of rejection created anxiety, a feeling Vivian confused for butterflies. And when the guy started pulling away, she felt it even more intensely.
The avoidantly attached guy, meanwhile, was probably experiencing something else entirely. People with this attachment style fear losing their independence. So when Vivian started pulling closer, it likely reinforced his unhealthy view of relationships—and made him want to withdraw even further.
“If you think about it this way,” I said, “the anxious-avoidant loop makes sense. Avoidantly attached people are so good at pushing other people away, the only time they end up in a relationship is when the other person is especially persistent.”
“I am nothing if not persistent,” Vivian said.
The server finally arrived with our drinks. Vivian looked out the window, watching a couple on the bench outside the café. “What about that last group of babies, who stopped crying when their mom returned?” she asked.
“Those are the securely attached babies, who felt confident their mothers would meet their needs. People with a secure attachment style make ideal partners. They’re reliable and trustworthy. They tend to avoid drama and, if not, are able to defuse it when they see it coming. They’re flexible, forgiving, and good at communicating. They behave consistently. They create healthy boundaries. They’re comfortable with intimacy. People with secure-attachment styles end up reporting higher levels of relationship satisfaction than avoidant or anxious folks.”
“I have literally never dated anyone like that,” Vivian responded. “Are secure people, like, one percent of the population?”
In reality, 50 percent of the population is secure, 20 percent is anxiously attached, 25 percent is avoidantly attached, and the remainder fall into a group called anxious-avoidant. That might seem like good news. The problem is that while securely attached people make up 50 percent of the general population, there are far fewer in the single population. That’s because secure people tend to get snatched up quickly. They’re good at building healthy relationships, so they tend to stay in them. That’s why the dating pool is full of anxious and avoidant daters.
When I explained all of that to Vivian, she sighed. “I give up,” she said, sipping the last of her smoothie.
She said that, but she didn’t.
EXERCISE: Determine Your Style
If you’re curious about your own attachment style, answer these questions:
- How comfortable are you with intimacy and closeness? How much do you tend to avoid intimacy?
- How anxious do you feel about your partner’s love and interest in you? Do you constantly worry about the relationship?
You may be anxiously attached if you crave closeness but are insecure about your relationship’s future and your partner’s interest in you. You may be avoidantly attached if you feel uncomfortable when things get too close, and you value freedom over connection. You may be secure if you are comfortable with intimacy, spending time alone, and don’t often worry about the relationship.
You can take the online quiz linked from my website, loganury.com, to confirm your attachment style.
Despite what Vivian had said about giving up, in the months following our conversation, she made an effort to approaching dating differently. She started looking for secure partners. It took time. She’d go out with someone new and complain that they were “boring.” When I dug deeper, I discovered this usually meant the person was being nice to her. For example, she told a guy with whom she’d been on two dates that she was visiting Seattle the next weekend. He then sent her a list of restaurant recommendations. When she told me that story, she ended by saying: “And that’s why I never want to see him again.”
“Wait, what?” I said.
“He clearly likes me way too much. It’s pathetic.”
I did my best to help her see the situation differently. This guy was trying to be helpful because he liked her. It was a secure act and not a pathetic one. We worked on helping her break that anxious-avoidant loop.
If you relate to Vivian’s story, and believe that you’re anxiously attached, that’s your homework, too. Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone you find boring is secretly secure. They might actually be boring. But it’s time to stop pursuing the chase. That was the challenge I gave Vivian: Try to date secure partners. The ones who text when they say they will. Who let you know what’s on their mind. Who don’t play games and avoid or even de-escalate drama.
The same goes for you, my avoidantly attached readers. Find yourself a secure partner!
At the same time, you can work to become more secure yourself. Attachment styles are relatively stable over your lifetime, although about a quarter of people change their attachment style over a four-year period. It takes effort, but you can shift your attachment style.
Vivian was determined to make a change, which for her meant learning to self-regulate—managing disruptive impulses and emotions. She trained herself not to panic when she didn’t immediately hear back from someone. In those moments, she practiced quieting her anxieties by either taking a walk or calling a friend. (Both healthier options than sending fourteen texts to the guy she’d met in the elevator at work the day before.)
And for those of you who are avoidantly attached, pay attention to your feelings when you sense yourself withdrawing. Learn to ask for space instead of disappearing into space. Or when you sense yourself focusing on your partner’s shortcomings and wanting to leave because of them, try a different technique: Practice looking for the positive qualities instead. Remember that no one is perfect, and if you leave, the next person you meet won’t be perfect, either.
Changing your attachment style on your own can be challenging. There are so many unconscious reasons we are the way we are, and mining the past may bring up unexpected and difficult questions. How does our relationship with our mom relate to our attachment style? If we find a healthier attachment now, does that mean we’re betraying or abandoning her? You may have to face that you didn’t get what you needed from the person you most needed it from. Many people find it helpful to talk through these issues with a therapist.
Vivian and I continued to discuss her love life after each class. Soon she stopped calling guys “boring” when they began to express interest in her. She proudly texted me when she told a clearly avoidant suitor to buzz off. And guess what? After about six months, she met a great-looking guy who had just relocated to San Francisco from Houston. After their first date, on a Friday night, he called her and said, “I really like you, and I want to see you again tomorrow.” Instead of deeming that “pathetic,” she found herself at breakfast with him the very next day, just as he’d asked. Breakfast turned into a walk. The walk turned into meeting up with her friends at a brewery. The brewery turned into a drunken cab ride back to his house, followed by a long nap. Two years later, they’re still napping together.