When you finally find that person you have been looking for all these years, your heart is filled with joy! You simply can’t imagine living without your true love. In the beginning of a romantic relationship, there is always that honeymoon phase. You adore your partner’s personality traits, funny mannerisms, and other qualities you absolutely adore! Your funny valentine!
The Attachments we Develop from the Start Models for us How to Relate to our Romantic Partner
As the relationship evolves, the honeymoon phase begins to die down. As a result, arguments may begin to ensue. You both feel misunderstood, disappointed by the other for the lack of compassion, empathy or understanding. Let’s say for instance there is a certain topic that just can’t get resolved. As the argument and disagreement between the two of you continues, you both begin to recognize the cycle of communication that takes place. It might be something like, one partner yells, the other responds by isolating and closing the door. Then the partner who yells initially begins to cry and demands attention. Meanwhile, the other partner remains behind closed doors, isolating and emotionally shutting down. As a couple, you are grid locked and can’t get out. What is happening and why can’t you two get out of it? Why do both of you insist that your way of seeing the situation is the right one and that your partner is simply wrong?
It is human nature for your perception and interpretation of your partner’s behavior to be affected by your emotional state. Furthermore, this emotional reaction you have to your partner’s behavior is directly related to how you learned to express and manage your emotions during your formative years. Taking this one step further, how you manage your emotions and express them to your romantic partner is related to the bonding experience you have from the time you are born throughout your growing years. Furthermore, the quality of your bonding experience with your parent shapes how you form attachments in your close and intimate relationships as an adult.
Attachments Styles
In essence, bonding with our parents is essential for building emotional well-being overall. This all hinges on the quality of our parents’ emotional engagement with us throughout the time we are being raised. Furthermore, this emotional engagement sets the tone for how we relate to and form attachments to our romantic partner. While our attachment style is unique to each person, there are four general types of attachment styles people can fall into.
Secure
Secure attachment develops when a child has a healthy upbringing, and their needs are attended to. They often grow up feeling safe, loved and supported. Because of this, they have a strong sense of self-worth and have learned how to trust others. These are people who go on to form healthy relationships as adults.
Anxious
Anxious attachments occur when a child did not have consistent caregiving habits. Their caregivers may have been unpredictable. Needs weren’t always met. They need reassurance and often have a fear of being abandoned, further driving the vicious circle to seek reassurance. In adulthood, this can manifest as feelings of insecurity and the need to be validated by another.
Avoidant
Avoidant attachment develops when a child receives frequent rejection or negative criticism. They don’t feel supported or loved. They often feel misunderstood and down about themselves. As an adult, they may maintain a distance from others as a means of self-preservation. They also do things to avoid feeling vulnerable to rejection and criticism again.
Disorganized
This one is a bit more complex. It often results after trauma or a significant negative experience. When emotions and memories are not processed effectively, it can lead to inconsistent behaviors and confusion. One day there may be validation seeking behaviors, the next there are avoidant actions.
How our Attachment Style Impacts our Romantic Relationship
There is a direct link between our childhood relational experiences with our primary caregivers and how we relate intimately to our romantic partner.
If we develop a secure attachment style, we generally tend to trust, love, feel safe and support our loved one without hesitation. It comes naturally. When there is a misunderstanding or potential conflict, the person can listen, talk through, show empathy and express compassion to their partner. If their partner tells the securely attached person that they felt hurt or misunderstood, the securely attached person can listen and work it out.
If we develop an anxious attachment style, we fear abandonment and have relationships that can be characterized by jealousy, control, and possessiveness.
An avoidant attachment style often leads to surface level relationships that don’t hold any emotional connection. While the disorganized attachment can be complex and confusing. One day the person may isolate and shut down, and the next day the individual might yell, scream, cry and blame the other partner for doing a terrible job in providing emotional support.
Two People in Relationship with Two Different Attachment Styles
It is important to keep in mind that the attachment style one mostly operates by directly impacts the way the person perceives and interprets their partner’s words and actions. For example, the anxiously attached individual feels emotionally abandoned when their avoidant partner closes the door for many hours. An anxiously attached individual may not understand that their partner needs to be alone for a while in order to calm down as opposed to abandoning the relationship. In another case, the avoidantly attached individual will interpret their disorganized partner’s shift in behavior as rejection. One minute the partner with disorganized attachment may be emotionally available and then later may become emotionally distant. Or finally, the securely attached partner who is ready to talk out the issues may find themselves frequently trying to reassure their anxiously attached partner that they are not going to leave the relationship. In essence, these perceptions and ways of interpreting our partner’s behavior are well established based on our emotional experiences during our formative years. When our parents cannot be consistent, reliable, trustworthy, loving, or kind, we expect our partner to not be those ways either because it is all we know. Yet painstakingly we desperately want something different.
Breaking the Pattern
To get out of these painful communication patterns, the first step is to recognize what attachment style each partner has. Keep in mind, just because you may operate within one attachment style, this does not mean that you or your partner can’t shift to a more secure type of attachment style.
Working with a marital therapist can help both partners identify each person’s attachment style and how it developed in the first place. What are your typical emotional responses in the face of a challenge with your partner? How do you perceive and interpret your partner’s actions when caught up in a certain pattern of communication? How well do you think you communicate your feelings to your partner?
When a couple comes to therapy, together we can establish an understanding of each partner’s way of communicating and connecting or not to their partner during times of great emotional distress and turmoil. Miscommunication in the relationship can get worked through and the emotional pain each person finds themselves in does not have to continue.
Are you and your partner struggling with relationship issues? Do you find it difficult to communicate and connect with one another? Schedule an appointment so we can chat further.