How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Adult Relationships
You've probably heard about attachment styles before. But have you ever stopped to think about how yours might be influencing your relationships as an adult?
Maybe you've noticed feelings of insecurity creeping into your friendships or romantic connections. Well, it turns out that your early emotional connections play a significant role in shaping how you relate to others later in life.
What is attachment?
The connections we form in our early years lay the groundwork for how we interact with others as adults. In the early stages of childhood, these attachment styles center around the interactions between us and our parents or caregivers. As adults, these attachment styles come to define how we interact or address conflict in our relationships.
The care and attention we receive, or lack thereof, shape our views on trust, communication, and our willingness to be vulnerable. And the quality of these early emotional connections greatly impact our ability to form healthy and secure relationships later on.
By recognizing your attachment style, you can work on overcoming your challenges to build more meaningful and secure relationships with others. Although attachment styles begin in our early years, they can change.
What are the different attachment styles?
Attachment styles are essentially patterns of how we think, feel, and act in close relationships.
These styles are developed based on our early interactions with caregivers and continue to influence our relationships in adulthood, whether they be romantic, platonic, or even work-related.
There are four main types of attachment styles:
Secure Attachment Style: Individuals with a secure attachment style are comfortable with both intimacy and independence. People that identify with this attachment style are typically comfortable expressing their thoughts, needs, and feelings with others. If you have a secure attachment style, you're likely comfortable with managing relationship conflicts in a constructive way.
Anxious Attachment Style: This style is often characterized by a fear of abandonment and codependency. If you identify with this type, it is likely that you really want to be close to someone, but you may struggle to feel secure or stable in relationships. In a romantic relationship, you might start doubting your partner's trustworthiness, or you might be overly attuned to your partner’s needs in an effort to keep them as close as possible.
Avoidant Attachment Style: Individuals that have an avoidant attachment style often have difficulties in being vulnerable with others and may be apprehensive to making close connections. This can show up as hyper-independence or commitment issues in romantic relationships when things start to feel “too serious.”
Anxious-Avoidant Attachment Style: This attachment style, also known as disorganized attachment, is typically characterized by inconsistent and unpredictable behavior in relationships. If you find yourself leaning towards an anxious-avoidant attachment style, you may highly value your independence, sometimes at the expense of forming deeper connections with others. Often people that have this attachment style find it very difficult to express their emotions or be vulnerable.
Understanding your attachment style gives you more clarity on your reactions, thoughts, and behaviors in your current interpersonal relationships. Through self-reflecting you gain a greater awareness of how you express yourself and manage conflicts in your relationships.
Remember, attachment styles can change over time. Even after childhood they can evolve as they are influenced by a combination of factors from both the past and present.
What causes attachment issues?
The experiences we have in our early years as children have a big influence on how we form connections with others. Experiencing traumatic events, neglect, or abuse during this time often shapes our behavior in relationships as adults.
Trauma, such as the loss of a loved one or exposure to distressing events, deeply impacts our sense of safety and trust.
Neglect, in any form, can leave emotional wounds that may lead us to question our worthiness of love and care. Any experiencing emotional or physical abuse at any stage of life could lead to feelings of shame and fear, which affects our relationships later on.
Even if you experienced trauma or neglect a long time ago, it can be impacting how you react and behave today in your interpersonal relationships. Fortunately, there are ways to overcome these challenges and create more healthy connections in your life again.
A professional perspective can help you get closer to a secure attachment style. Talking to someone, like a therapist, can give you a safe space to unpack these inner child wounds, challenge negative beliefs, and learn healthier ways of relating to ourselves and others.
It is important to remember that attachment styles are not permanent. Even in adulthood it is possible for you to develop a more secure attachment style that makes you feel more fulfilled and happy in your relationships.
Getting help for attachment issues
You can work towards more secure attachment patterns in your relationships, be it at work, with friends, or in love.
The more you self-reflect, the better equipped you'll be to identify and address behaviors that may be negatively impacting your relationships.
With the help of a licensed therapist, you can learn coping skills and strategies to address your past and have better relationships overall.
You may be feeling worried about your attachment style or concerned about how you compare with others. It is important to know that many people with a secure attachment style had to work to get there. And whichever attachment style you relate to, exploring it is a first brave step to understanding yourself better. I know first-hand that self-reflection can be difficult. So give yourself grace as you did the best you could with the tools you had available.
As we learn more about ourselves it is important to practice self-compassion while we are unlearning habits and behaviors that no longer serve us. This may include recognizing unhelpful patterns in your behavior, many of which could be linked to your attachment style.
If you're currently dealing with conflict in your relationships or feeling concerned about if your past is impacting how you connect with others, book a consultation with me. I support millennials who are motivated to work through their challenges to build healthier, stronger relationships. I’m here when you’re ready!
