How to Overcome “Anxious Attachment”

Insecure or “anxious” ADDITIONAL It often occurs as follows: romantic relationships In expressions like “stickiness” jealousyemotional dependence, enmeshment, or generalized anxiety about status or trust in the relationship. Many people who experience anxious attachment report that they do not receive enough or the “right kind” of love and affection from their partners and often need frequent reassurance from their partners.

This anxiety often originates from an early age. childhood and inconsistent or inadequate attachment connection with primary caregivers such as mother or father. A child who does not receive consistent or constant affection or attention Children from one parent often have difficulty finding safe and reliable adult attachments. One of the hallmarks of a secure attachment is the ability to “internalize” a caring other and experience the consistency of their love even when they are distant or involved in other social arenas.

How Can There Be Problems in Our Relationships?

Anxiety can affect relationships in many negative ways and can often cause someone to “realize” their worst situation. fear pushing a loved one to the point of separation. This is often the result of long-term jealousy or attachment that feels like a suffocating loss of self and independence to the partner. But for those who are anxiously attached, this negative impact only confirms their worst fears and reinforces their false belief that no one can be trusted for consistent love or that they are actually unlovable.

Ways to Manage and Overcome Relationship Anxiety

1. Radical Self-Adjustment and Differentiation from Your Partner

One of the steps to achieving secure attachment is to become self-attuned and understand internal desires, needs, fears, etc. is to start getting in touch with. Many anxiously attached people are generally very good at reading others and responding to their emotional cues. . This can often lead to being overly cautious about micro-changes in others’ behavior, attitudes, and emotions, and mistaking these changes for actions they themselves take.

As a result of being other-oriented, insecurely attached people are often less attuned to their own wants and needs and tend to be more accommodating and people-pleasing. They “go with the flow” more easily and want to keep the peace more often rather than risk antagonizing another person, upsetting them, or breaking commitment.

Such behavior may be socially rewarded; This ultimately reinforces habits that separate the anxiously attached person from their true wants and needs. A big risk for someone here might be learning to say “no” to a social or romantic request when the person doesn’t feel true consent. Learning how to say no and how to set up borders But it is crucial for long-term emotional mental and relational health.

The paradox of proximity and especially sexual The hallmark of romantic desire is that it often requires friction, some distance, and most importantly, differentiation between partners in order to thrive. An emotionally engaged couple rarely boasts about their sex life. In contrast, couples who are healthy differentiated (having independent worlds, interests, and desires beyond the relationship) are often the ones who have better romantic and sexual lives.

2. Internalizing Parental Care Figures

An image or metaphor I often use with my clients is to try to imagine what an ideal father or mother would do for you when you are experiencing pain, sadness, or emotional distress. This probably needs to be imagined and created by the client because this often did not exist in real life. For example, would they put you to bed, bring you a bowl of soup, and tell you to take the night off and watch Netflix? Or would they tell you to take a long walk in the woods, have a coffee, and call a friend?

Finding the right image and imaginative advice is the key to tuning in to your own needs and recreating the consistent commitment and attention you didn’t receive as a child. It can be a difficult process to start imagining what it is that will make you feel better in times of distress and how you can allow yourself to act that out in real life.

But over time, this process can help you better define and advocate for yourself and make your partner less responsible for these neglected parental roles. It then allows you and your partner to engage in more symmetrical adult forms of attachment and caregiving that do not recreate patterns neglected from childhood. When a person is better able to calm himself and defend himself, he becomes less reliant on his partner and feels less resentful when he cannot fulfill this role well.