“The Love Quiz: Part 2” — Growing More Secure in Your Attachment Style
How can you create closeness in your most important relationships? How can you grow to feel more safe and confident with those you love and within yourself?
Attachment Theory brings us the answers to these crucial questions (1). It tells us that our style of building closeness in relationships was created through the type of bond that we had with our parents when we were little. This attachment style begins in childhood and continues throughout our lives.
As infants we had no way to care for ourselves, regulate our body temperatures, or soothe our big emotions. God provided attachment as the bonding process to meet these needs, while connecting us physically and emotionally to our caregivers.
If we had loving caregivers who provided us with face to face gazing, tender touch, and accurate emotional responses — then we developed the best kind of attachment, the Secure Attachment style. Securely attached people are able to be vulnerable because they trust that someone will be there for them in their moments of need. From this safe foundation they are able to boldly launch out to explore the physical and emotional world (2). Having internalized these experiences of constancy and safety, they are also generous and capable of providing empathy to others.
In contrast, some children experienced lack of closeness, inconsistent attention, or misguided attempts by their caregivers which led to the formation of Insecure Attachment. I describe the two most common Insecure Styles as a) Detached Avoiders and b) Ambivalent Protesters.
Detached Avoiders needed to become self reliant because there was no one else really to turn towards. Ambivalent Protesters had intermittent access to closeness, so they had to grab hold of it through protest or clinging behaviors so that they would not feel pangs of abandonment. There is a third Insecure Attachment style that develops under conditions of trauma, Traumatic Attachment. I plan to cover this in a separate blog.
If you’ve read my article, “The Love Quiz — A Quick Glimpse at Your Attachment Style”, you’ve had a chance to take the quiz and rate yourself as an adult among the three most common attachment styles (3):
Secure — I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.
Ambivalent Protesters — I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to get extremely close to another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.
Detached Avoiders — I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being.
Let’s take it a step deeper today, as we explore ways to grown more Secure in our close relationships. All of us are somewhere on the continuum of Security:
←Detached Avoiders — — Securely Attached —— Ambivalent Protesters →
Good news! Wherever you start on this continuum, you can grow to be more secure in your closest relationships! Even people with insecure childhoods can do important work as adults to create security in relationships and a new style of Earned-Secure Attachment (4). They can actually create Secure Attachment in marriage and with their own children (5, 6).
Growing towards Secure Attachment will require three key ingredients from you, the “Three C’s of Being Emotionally Present”. These are applied to your posture with those you love, and they must also be directed towards yourself as you embark on this journey towards security.
Courage: It takes courage to ask deeper questions about the way that you relate to others and the way that others experience you. It takes courage to begin to think about the ways that your Attachment Style may have protected you from pain as a child. If you want to grow, you will need to be brave in reaching out to trusted others in order to create new experiences. Attachment was created through relational interactions, and attachment wounds are healed in loving relationships.
Curiosity: The best mindset for this kind of work is one where we remain curious about ourselves, the way we impact others, and the possibilities of trying new things. Our protective strategies were adaptive at one point earlier in our lives, but they may not be giving us the connection that we desire now if we wall off from others or inadvertently push them away. We can even attempt to be curious about the conditions that were impacting our caregivers during our early years. This does not mean that we condone hurtful things that they may have done.
Compassion: You are going to need compassion for yourself as you consider your own wounds and the ways that you have inadvertently done things that keep you from connection. It’s bad enough that you’ve felt alone; we don’t want to put you down or shame you. This is a new chapter in your life, and you can grow to be more loving towards others just as you receive love. One of my favorite Scripture passages speaks to this hope:
The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness. — Lamentations 3:22,23 (NASB).
Finding an Ally.
On this journey of self discovery, it’s important to find people that you can trust as you explore your inner world and also take risks. Secure Attachment is built in those moments where we vulnerably reach out in a moment of distress, and we find another person comforting us and creating safety. Through this we learn that our needs are not shameful, nor do we have to be demanding in order to get them met.
Do you know someone who is patient and kind?
Do you have a friend or family member who is steady and able to listen without judging or quickly giving advice?
Do you know someone who has been through their own suffering and come out the other side with compassion for themselves and others?
If you have someone in your life like this who is willing to be present to you on this journey, then you have a treasure. Many folks don’t have this treasure in their lives, and they might benefit from seeking out a therapist. Therapists have special training to help their clients share questions of self discovery, along with recollections of pain, in the context of safety. In therapy you can also examine relational patterns that you may be perpetuating which keep you from connection.
“Dealing but Not Feeling”…. Growth Areas for Detached Avoiders
If you are more avoidant, then you’ll be learning more about the world of emotions. It’s too easy to just buckle down into tasks and forge through difficulties without slowing down to see how you feel. Avoiders can struggle to ask others for help, and they may be uncomfortable about asking people to keep them company when they are feeling lonely. In intimate relationships they may also avoid conflict, because it tends to dredge up painful feelings. With someone you trust, please practice saying these vulnerable phrases:
“I am having a hard time right now. Can I talk to you about it?”
“I could use some company. Would you like to hang out?”
“I didn’t like it when this happened. Could I go over it with you?”
and the BIG ONE….
“I need help. I need you.”
“Feeling but Not Dealing”… Growth areas for Ambivalent Protesters.
Ambivalent Protesters have had experiences of being tuned into, but they have also seen them slip away. This leaves them with an inner feeling that they could be abandoned at any moment. They may protest intensely when they sense others slipping away or not paying attention. Protesters can also be experienced as clingy or demanding when they get scared of loss. Their growth area is to give others the benefit of the doubt in such moments. It’s important to also anchor themselves with calming messages about the ways that they can still be okay if they go through short episodes of being alone. They may even want to work on “things I can do to cope when I am alone.” Finally, they will do best if they can be vulnerable with loved ones when they are triggered by fears of being alone. Key phrases include:
“You are so important to me, and that’s why I get upset if I feel like I am losing time with you.”
“I don’t like to admit it, but I can quickly feel rejected. Please be patient with me as I ride those waves of emotion.”
“I want to do a better job of managing my separation anxiety, and I want to treat you with kindness when I get triggered.”
and the BIG ONE…
“Being with you makes me feel good and worthwhile. I will work on being patient until we get to connect again.”
Taking these types of risks can be scary, whether you are putting your emotions out there for the first time or hoping that someone will draw close to you without you pursuing them so strongly. But you will only realize how lovable you are when you are embraced in these moments of need.
Please find ways that you can learn more about Attachment in marriage, parenting, and faith at www.facetofaceliving.com
References:
1. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss (Vol I). London: Hogarth.
2. Ainsworth, M.D., Blehar, M.C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: Assessed in the Strange Situation and at home. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Hazan, C. and Shaver, P. (1987). “Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process”; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 511–52
4. Pearson, J. L., Cohn, D. A., Cowan, P. A., & Cowan, C. P. (1994). “Earned- and continuous-security in adult attachment: Relation to depressive symptomatology and parenting style.” Development Psychopathology, 6, 359–373.
5. Gill, J. (2015). Face to face: Seven keys to a secure marriage. Bloomington, IN: Westbow Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan.
6. Phelps, J.L., Belsky, J., Crnic, K. (1998). “Earned security, daily stress, and parenting: a comparison of five alternative models” Developmental Psychopathology. Winter;10(1):21–38.