Welcome back to my series of blog posts on dating! Catch the first post here. This time, we’re delving into attachment theory.
As an attachment-based therapist, you basically aren’t getting out of a session or a conversation with me without at least one reference to attachment theory. Attachment theory is a model for understanding the role that close relationships play in our survival, and for understanding the patterns of behavior we use to establish a sense of safety in these relationships. Often, your attachment patterns will stem from early relationships with caregivers, although attachment patterns can shift over the lifespan through other relational experiences (which is good news for the insecurely attached who are hoping to heal). For more of the basics on attachment, please see this post on attachment healing and this post on Safe Haven and Secure Base needs. Below, I’m going to explore how attachment styles intersect with our dating and relationship behaviors. I’ll also give you some practical tools to assess if you and your partner are securely attached, and how to move toward more security if you don’t have it already.
Dating with an Anxious Attachment Style
Imagine this scenario: You’ve gone on three dates. The first was fun. The second was magical. The third was intoxicating. You’ve been texting frequently, exchanges full of flirtation, self-disclosures, and shivery little bursts of affection. And then all of a sudden, there is silence. No response to your last kissy-face emoji. One hour turns into several, and then a full day. Where did they go?
If you tend toward an anxious attachment style, your urge will be to blow up their phone, in an effort to provoke a response of some kind. Your fear will be that you said something wrong and now they hate you. You may feel slightly panicky at the thought of rejection and abandonment; you already put so much of yourself out there! Your tendency will be to catastrophize, to imagine all the ways you must have screwed up, and to try to figure out if you can fix it enough to draw your date back in.
Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that perhaps they have gone to the mountains and are out of cell service for a day, or are engrossed in work, or are busy with family. Remind yourself that even if you are being ghosted, it has nothing to do with your value or desirability as a person. Don’t blow up their phone. Just wait, and use all your coping skills to self-regulate. No one is ever going to be the flawlessly attuned and consistent partner you’ve always longed for, but that doesn’t mean you’ll forever be alone, adrift with no reliable emotional connection. An imperfect partner can still be there for you. You’re going to be okay.
Later on in dating, anxious attachment can look like instant self-blame at the presence of conflict, profuse apologizing and fawning to appease a partner, and intense fear of abandonment; it can look like habitually sacrificing your needs and desires to prioritize your partner’s, because you fear that your needs will drive your partner away; it can look like obsessive monitoring for any signs of distance or rejection, and engaging in toxic behaviors designed to elicit reassurances or intensify commitment and merging.
Secure attachment, on the other hand, creates space: space for communication without jumping to conclusions, space for each person’s needs and desires to be important even when they conflict, space for self-regulation rather than reactivity, and ultimately, space for remembering that you will survive even if your partner leaves you.
Dating with an Avoidant Attachment Style
Let’s go back to that scenario in the previous section: You’ve been seeing someone, and it’s going well, and then suddenly, they disappear. While the anxiously attached will reach out and cling and try to pull someone back in, the avoidantly attached will do the opposite. They will pull away and pretend they never cared in the first place. That’s it, I’m blocking their number. I didn’t like her anyway. I’m better off without him. It was too good to be true. They led me on. I’m over this whole dating thing; I’m just going to delete the app and quit trying.
The heart of avoidant attachment is actually the same as the heart of anxious attachment: a deep fear of rejection. But the avoidantly attached are more inclined to numb their painful feelings and reject first, rather than risk being rejected.
If you tend toward avoidant attachment, just pause. Don’t close yourself off just yet; give someone the benefit of the doubt. Remind yourself that if you want the benefits of a relationship, you have to take a risk and stay open. It’s safe to feel whatever it is you’re trying to suppress; you might even consider some self-compassion. It will feel uncomfortable—maybe excruciatingly vulnerable—to hang in there and see what happens next, but that’s the only way to grow. If you always retreat, you’ll never learn what a full embrace can feel like.
Later on in dating, avoidant attachment can look like shutting down and withdrawing in conflict, or resorting to blame, self-protective anger, or even abruptly ending the relationship; it can look like isolating parts of yourself or your life from your partner and not allowing them access because it feels too suffocating; it can look like difficulties with communication, inability to talk about feelings, or hyper-independence.
Secure attachment, on the other hand, will allow you to soften. You become a gentle landing place for emotions, both your own and your partner’s; you are willing to risk vulnerability and offer connection; you can make and receive emotional repairs, trusting that relationships can grow the more you both show up with your full selves.
Becoming a Securely Attached Partner
Secure attachment is not something you start out with in a new relationship; it’s something you build together. Even two partners who are both basically securely attached will still need to put in time and effort to build a secure relationship with each other. But what exactly are we striving for? How do we know what secure attachment is supposed to look like? There are three basic building blocks of secure attachment: emotional attunement, co-regulation, and most importantly of all, rupture-and-repair.
Emotional attunement means tracking with and responding to the emotions of your partner. This can be a verbal process—using words to ask about their feelings, reflect back what they share, and offer empathy. But often, it’s a non-verbal process that takes place between two bodies, a dance of facial expressions, gestures, physical contact, mirroring, and the practical meeting of needs. It means conscious awareness of your partner as a being who is wholly separate from you, but also intrinsically connected to you; their feelings may be different than yours, and it’s your job to track those and respond to them with words, gestures, and actions. Get to know your partner’s body language. Get comfortable asking how they’re feeling or what they need. Get used to expressing your own needs and feelings, on your face, in your words, and with your body. Over time, emotional attunement can become an intimate dance that feels exciting and profoundly safe at the same time.
Co-regulation, a facet of secure attachment most easily glimpsed between parents and children, is the act of using one another’s nervous systems to soothe each other, and of helping each other regulate by meeting attachment needs. Attachment needs include Secure Base, the need for freedom and autonomy, and Safe Haven, the need for closeness and comfort. Co-regulation means showing up for your distressed partner with a calm body and a regulated nervous system, rather than joining them in their spiral of fight-or-flight. We are wired from birth to borrow the nervous systems of our attachment figures in order to find comfort; when you lean into your partner for support, you are activating the same mechanism as a crying baby soothing on its parent’s chest. It’s primal, our need for one another when we’re dysregulated. One of the greatest gifts you can give your partner is an ability to self-soothe, so that they can borrow your calm when they’re struggling to access their own.
Rupture-and-repair, however, is the primary way we build relational safety with someone. A rupture is any missed opportunity to meet an attachment need (Secure Base and Safe Haven), which can show up a hundred different ways: snapping at your partner in anger; forgetting to ask how their day went; rejecting a bid for sex without explanation; criticizing a partner’s decision. Issues like infidelity, lying, physical abuse, or financial betrayal are severe ruptures that can destroy a relationship—but most ruptures are everyday occurrences that only become a problem if you don’t know how to engage in repair.
A repair is the process of a.) acknowledging the rupture, b.) taking accountability for how you hurt your partner, and .c.) offering connection and, sometimes, reparation. Here are some examples of repairs:
• “I’m sorry I snapped at you. That must have hurt your feelings. Let’s try this conversation again, and I’ll focus on listening this time.”
• “I just realized I was so preoccupied that I never checked in with you today. Maybe you felt like I didn’t care about you. But I do care. Can we snuggle on the couch for a few minutes and talk about your day?”
• “I was a little abrupt when I turned you down for sex last night. I’m sorry if you felt rejected. I was dealing with a lot of work stress, and I should have explained that so you knew it wasn’t about you. I’m still not feeling up for sex, but I’d love to find another way to be physical with each other today.”
• “I know that was a really important decision that was hard for you to make. I’m sorry I was so critical. Can you help me understand how that made you feel, and what would have felt like a more supportive response? I want you to feel like I’m in your corner as you navigate decisions.”
A repair communicates, You are safe with me; I see you; I’m here for you. A repair soothes a dysregulated nervous system and enfolds two people in a secure relationship that can withstand the ups and downs of a life lived in intimate connection. It is your most important tool in any relationship. If you have a hard time making repairs, it may be because no one in your family-of-origin modeled it or taught you how, but it’s not too late to learn. Memorize the formula above, and practice writing out repairs in your phone if you’re afraid of messing it up with your partner. Trust me, this one is too important to ignore.
Stay tuned for part three of this series, where I’ll discuss how trauma impacts our dating lives.
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