Learn about Anxious attachment –
There are common experiences among people who form anxious attachment styles growing up. As you read this description, consider how closely it resembles your experiences in relationships. If an aspect doesn’t match exactly, don’t worry about it. In the places you do recognize yourself, you feel comforted to know that you are not alone. The patterns I’m describing here are very common.
If you have an anxious attachment style, you like the idea of attaching to people. Romantic attachment in particular is very attractive to you. Something just feels right about having someone special to confide in, support, and be supported by. Your fantasy of an ideal relationship is one where your partner just “gets” you, down to your core. When you start a new relationship, it’s important to you that there is the promise or possibility of feeling truly understood. If you feel understood, then you can attach and be long-term friends or partners. You’re unlikely to want to pursue the relationship if you don’t feel attended to. It’s like some internal drive gets switched on. Or if the other person doesn’t “get” you, there is a feeling of desperation to be understood.
Trouble can start once you settle into commitment. The person who seemed so promising at first, attentive and understanding, eventually skips a beat or gets distracted. That’s when you remember that people aren’t always what they seem. You’ve had a scrip running from childhood about what to expect when you depend on someone. It sounds something like, “I need them…. but they will disappoint me”. You’re driven by your desire to connect. Which often means you over-focus on the other person. Always putting them first, while feeling unhappy about your own needs not being met. You want to give and receive, with maximum connection.
When you begin to feel anxious in the relationship, you feel the hurt deeply. even for minor incidents, as though the betrayal you fear has already happened. In those moments, you truly need and want support. You can imagine getting that support, but your stomach churns with drought. You worry that the person you love will not be there for you. The connection you crave always seems just out of reach, even when you’re trying hard to get it. And you try hard most of the time. This adds to your distress. You’ve probably said to yourself, more than once, “I just don’t know what to do anymore”.
When your anxious style appears in you, you threaten the relationship. You make ultimatums, and say and do things you later regret. Things like “I want a divorce,” or “you don’t give a dam about me”. You’re not proud of this behavior, but when you’re in the moment’ you don’t feel like you have a choice. You need to show how much pain you’re in. You are hoping the person you love will notice and finally give you the feeling of security you crave. Instead, your behavior pushes the person you need away.
Eventually the crisis passes, and you iron things out. But the incident has reinforced a familiar hurt and assumption. The wound grows just that little bit more. The people you love can’t be depended on. You still want that connection, but you wonder if you’re too needy for anyone to want to deal with you. This can often bring feelings of shame around getting your need for safety met. You know you ask for extra, but you also give extra. and you feel unappreciated for it.
Attachment theory teaches us that you learned this model of giving and receiving at a young age. Perhaps, as a child, you were put in an unfair position to help a parent feel better, when they were having a hard time. Of course, you complied at the time. Because that’s what we do when our survival is dependent on the well-being of someone else-we pitch in. Developmentally, when you’re asked to do this before you have the resources to take care of yourself. You’re doing it out of a sense of survival anxiety. It then gets built into your blueprint of what’s needed to get love from someone. Hence, it’s familiar to you to play rescuer or over-perform – as well as over-demand – in your closest relationships.
You might have memories from childhood of being unhappy with the amount of attention and care you received. This could have been from one or both of your parents. You had at least one caregiver, even if it was a grandmother or nanny, who was there in a significant way. Your experience, was you couldn’t rely on love being there when you needed it. It’s the same inconsistency that drives your distress now, when relationships deepen and your dependence on another person increases.
The cycle of your relationships goes like this – Your anxiety breads cycles of giving, resentment, complaint, demanding, temporary satisfaction, and giving again. When you try to get your needs met, though blaming, anger, guilt, or nagging, you often don’t realize in the moment how much this burns through the relationship capital. In therapy we call it “the protest poker” demanding satisfaction for your needs. For your relationships to thrive it’s important to work through these behaviors.
When you consider some of your most important experiences in close relationships can you relate to these behaviors? If so, it is possible to work on changing your attachment and to become securely attached. With some assistance and good therapy, your anxious attachment can change to a secure attachment and your relationships will improve. If you are interested in changing your attachment style contact Sharron to make your appointment.
Sharron Brandon – Couples’ therapist.
