Insecure attachment style: How it impacts your love life

You’ve probably heard ‘insecure attachment style’ and ‘secure attachment style’ being talked about, and their impact on relationships, but what exactly are attachment styles,? And why are they such a big deal?

Stemming from experiences we have in our infancy and childhood, our attachment styles can have a profound effect on the relationships we have as adults, whether that’s with family, friends, or romantic partners. Just about everyone has an attachment style, which is why it’s so important to figure out what yours is – knowing what yours is can help you deal with any relationship anxiety or emotional dependence you may have.

In this article, we’ll look at what an insecure attachment style is, the various types of insecure attachment styles there are, and how having an insecure attachment style can affect your dating life. We’ll also offer you some tips on how to overcome an insecure attachment and offer you some pointers on dating someone with an insecure attachment style.

Understanding the insecure attachment style

Attachment theory began with the work of British psychologist John Bowlby, who described attachment as a “lasting physical connectedness between human beings”. Previously, researchers had suggested that attachment was a learned process. Bowlby, on the other hand, proposed that children are born with an innate desire to form attachments with caretakers. These bonds would increase the odds that the child would survive to adulthood. According to Bowlby, having primary caregivers who are available and who pay attention to a child’s needs results in the child growing up with a sense of security. Knowing they have someone they can depend on allows the child to explore the world. Bowlby’s research was greatly expanded upon in the 1970s by psychologist Mary Ainsworth, whose work focused on the effects of attachment on behavior. Her “strange situation” study confirmed that relationships children have with their caregivers have a major impact on whether they develop a secure or an insecure attachment style.

An insecure attachment style comes from having a less than ideal relationship with your primary caregivers as you are growing up. Not being able to trust the adults around you when you are young and dependent on them can have serious knock-on effects on your ability to trust, even as an adult. This kind of attachment may lead to adults that are afraid of abandonment, very emotionally inconsistent, clingy, or avoidant.

On the other hand, adults with a secure emotional attachment style usually had a strong bond with their primary caretakers. As adults, they are aware of their own self-worth and are comfortable expressing their desires and needs. They can maintain their emotional balance and are generally pretty good at seeking out healthy ways to deal with conflict in their relationships. They are resilient and able to bounce back when relationships go south.

Types of insecure attachment styles

Dr Ainsworth and later researchers Main and Solomon identified three major types of insecure attachment styles: anxious, avoidant, and disorganized.

Anxious attachment style

This style is also called the “anxious-preoccupied”, or “anxious-ambivalent” style. People with an anxious attachment style tend to have a lot of anxiety about relationships. They crave intimacy but worry that their partner doesn’t want to be with them. People with an anxious attachment style likely had a caregiver who was inconsistent – sometimes attentive, sometimes unavailable or distracted. Some hallmarks of anxious attachment style include:

• You have difficulty observing boundaries and feel threatened when there is space between you
• You crave intimacy but at the same time are worried you’re not good enough
• You attach a lot of your sense of self-worth to your relationship
• You need constant reassurance and attention from your partner
• You tend to act clingy in your relationships

Avoidant attachment style

Unlike people with the anxious attachment style, who crave intimacy, people with an avoidant attachment style tend to, as the name suggests, avoid emotional connections, romantic and otherwise. This attachment style probably stems from a childhood with an absent caregiver or one who rejected you. Some hallmarks of anxious attachment style include:

• You tend to withdraw when people attempt to get close to you
• You are uncomfortable with emotions and may come across as closed off and distant to your partner
• You may prefer quick, casual flings to long-term serious relationships.
• You may have a tendency to minimize or disregard your partner’s feelings or keep secrets from them
• You may even cheat on your partner to preserve your sense of freedom.

Disorganized attachment style

This attachment style is also known as fearful-avoidant attachment style. Adults with a disorganized attachment style often feel like they don’t deserve love or care. As the name might suggest, this attachment style comes with intense fear, which can often be traced to trauma, neglect, or abuse during your childhood. Some hallmarks of disorganized attachment style include:

• You probably find intimate relationships intimidating or confusing, and swing between emotional extremes
• While you crave a loving relationship, you often feel unworthy of it
• You may act selfish or controlling towards your partner because you do not have healthy relationship models
• You may have trouble taking responsibility for your actions
• You may be a survivor of childhood abuse or neglect

The impact of an insecure attachment style on dating

While our attachment styles are determined by our childhood experiences, their effects on our behaviors and our relationships, especially our romantic ones, are life-long. If you have an insecure attachment style, it can be harder for you to find and sustain a stable, long-term relationship.

Depending on which of the three insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, or disorganized) you have, you might suffer from anxiety over whether you deserve to be in a relationship at all. You might show clingy behavior in relationships, get jealous easily, be withdrawn or distant emotionally because you’re worried about getting too close to a loved one. Similarly, having an insecure attachment style might mean you have a fear of commitment, or that you may not know what a healthy relationship looks like – after all, many people who have a disorganized attachment style come from homes where they were neglected or even abused. Understably, that can have a major impact on your relationships as an adult, and especially on your dating life.

When you or your partner have an insecure dating style – or if both of you do – building a healthy, stable relationship becomes a lot more difficult. The person with a secure dating style may become frustrated with the person who doesn’t, since they may not understand why their loved one is showing signs of an insecure partner. While people with insecure attachment styles rarely intend to hurt their partners – after all, most of us don’t want to hurt people we care about – the patterns that we learned in childhood can be very hard to break.

Luckily, breaking those patterns – or at least reducing the effect an insecure attachment style can have on your relationships – is possible. A good first step is working on your self-awareness – after all, you can only solve a problem once you know the size and shape of it. Another way to lessen the impact of an insecure attachment style is to practice mindfulness. Being in the moment with your partner can help you enjoy the time with them rather than worry about whether you’re good enough. Finally, just like in any relationship, communication is key. Make it a point to be open and honest with each other, and talk about any problems or insecurities you may have; this can go a long way towards making your relationship healthier and more successful.

How to manage insecure attachment styles in relationships

So now you know that people have different attachment styles… how do you manage a healthy relationship when one or both of you has an insecure attachment style? Some things to consider:

Work on your communication techniques

Communication is one of the keys to a successful relationship, and that’s especially true when one or both of you has an insecure attachment style. Being open and honest with each other can help you avoid fights, jealousy, and other issues that could derail your relationship. Additionally, setting expectations right from the start is a great way to avoid being disappointed later. Reading about Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages, for example, is a great resource.

Try and self-regulate your emotional responses

One of the reasons that people with an insecure attachment style have trouble maintaining relationships is difficulty regulating their emotions – in other words, there’s less of an ability to think before they speak or act. One way to better regulate your emotions is to try and reframe your thoughts; if your partner hasn’t responded to your text, rather than immediately thinking they’re cheating or hate you, you might reframe it as them just being busy. Research shows that this kind of cognitive reappraisal is tied to better mental health¹.

Work on building a secure attachment style

The good news for anyone with an insecure attachment style? You can change. It will take time and effort, but it is possible. Professional help, if you have access, is one way to do so. Even if that’s not an option, you can move closer towards a secure attachment style by practicing mindfulness, having compassion for yourself, working to build trust with your partner, and by making an effort to seek out partners who are secure.

Given that about 40% of people have an insecure attachment style², the odds are you’ll be dating someone with either an avoidant, insecure, or disorganized attachment style at least once in your life. While there are differences in how to best handle each of the various styles, here are a few tips:

Show patience and understanding

A lot of the time, your partner isn’t behaving the way they are on purpose – it’s possible that this is what they think relationships look like. Showing them compassion and understanding, and taking the time to explain and help them improve, is very important.

Do your research

One of the best weapons in any conflict? Information. After all, you can’t solve a problem if you don’t understand it. Of late, there have been several excellent books published on the topic of attachment theory. Reading them with your partner can help you both with understanding why they are the way they are, as well as what you can both do about it.  

Set, and maintain, boundaries

People with insecure attachment styles can have issues with limits, especially when it comes to the anxious subtype. Establishing clear boundaries right from the very beginning, and being committed to maintaining them, is one of the best ways you can ensure your relationship is a healthy one.

Be supportive, but don’t enable them

While it’s key to accept and understand your partner, sometimes it can cross the line into encouraging or enabling their behavior. When you love someone, it can be tempting to take the easy way out, but standing up to them when necessary is key to the long-term health and survival of the relationship. If you’re not sure where the line between support and enabling is, it can be helpful to talk with a trusted friend or mental health professional.

An insecure relationship style can still lead to love

Having an insecure attachment style can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker. With the increased understanding of attachment theory in recent years, it’s easier than it’s ever been to figure out the best way to handle relationships when one or both of you has an insecure attachment style – all it takes is the willingness to put in the work. Even if you’re not currently in a relationship, it’s worth it to take the time to figure out what your attachment style is – and  if you’re one of the 40% of people who have an insecure attachment style, you can take the time to work on this.

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