Attachment Issues in Relationships: How They Could Affect You

It’s been said that to understand where you are and where you are going, you need to look back to see where you’ve been. The person that you are today didn’t materialize out of thin air.

You’ve been shaped by various experiences – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and these have contributed to how you think, act, and are in daily life. While we aren’t determined by our past, it does play a role, whether big or small, in who we are today.

If you look at your current relationships with other people, a large part of how you relate to others today is shaped by past experiences that formed your expectations and posture toward relationships. A person’s ability to form emotional bonds and connections with others is referred to as “attachment.” Depending on certain formative experiences, a person may have a healthy or unhealthy attachment style.

Attachment and Attachment Styles

A person’s attachment style will often be shaped by the early childhood experiences they have with their parents or caregivers. These experiences, which include whether their various needs were met, consistently influence how one navigates and perceives relationships with others. What a person goes through shapes their expectations about whether it’s safe to share what you need, and if others can be trusted to understand and meet your needs.

There are a few different types of attachment or attachment styles. Some attachments are secure, which describes a posture of feeling safe, supported, and comfortable with intimacy and independence when in a relationship with others. There is also an anxious-preoccupied style, describing a posture of being fearful of abandonment, which often results in seeking constant reassurance and being overly dependent on others.

Then there is the dismissive-avoidant style, where one is emotionally distant and unavailable, often prioritizing their independence and fearing intimacy with other people. The fearful-avoidant attachment style is also marked by a fear of rejection and difficulty trusting others, leading one to be emotionally guarded and withdrawn. As a result, although one greatly desires to form close relationships, they often have difficulty forming them.

Lastly, there is the disorganized attachment style, which describes a situation where one struggles with emotional regulation, trust, and intimacy due to past experiences of severe trauma or neglect.

Various factors or combinations of factors go into shaping a person’s attachment style. For instance, the parenting style a person was exposed to, as well as the interactions one has with parental figures and caregivers greatly influence their attachment style. It matters whether there was consistency, responsiveness, and emotional support from one’s caregivers.

Other factors that affect one’s attachment style include a person’s individual temperament or personality; one’s history of relationships and experiences, which can influence current attachment patterns as well as shape one’s brain structure and function; life experiences such as trauma, loss, neglect, or abuse; and lastly, cultural norms and societal expectations.

Over time, these diverse factors interact with and influence one another, shaping an individual’s attachment style and relationship patterns.

The Value of Understanding Attachment

There is incredible value in understanding attachment in relationships, which can help you become better at recognizing patterns and behaviors in your relationships. You might find that you keep getting stuck in the same ways in your relationship, and understanding your attachment style can greatly inform the way you understand why these same patterns keep happening.

Knowing how attachment works also helps you in your relationships by improving your ability to communicate effectively and build intimacy, which leads to a stronger, more secure connection with your partner or loved ones. If you know where there are areas of concern, you’ve got a place to start to work through any attachment issues you may have and begin developing a more secure attachment style.

How Attachment Issues Affect Relationships

When a person has a secure form of attachment in their relationships, they are trusting and open toward others, they can communicate effectively and resolve conflict well, and they can feel supported and secure in the relationship. A secure attachment style enables one to build a relationship that has trust, emotional support, effective communication, intimacy, healthy independence, and good emotional regulation at its core.

Take a moment to look through the other previously described attachment styles. Understanding your personal attachment style can help you identify patterns in your relationships as well as how those patterns significantly impact you and the person you’re in the relationship with.

Issues with forming healthy and secure attachments can result in the following attachment issues in relationships:

Difficulty with intimacy

Attachment issues can result in being emotionally unavailable. When a person fears becoming close to others, that fear can lead to withdrawal from the relationship or even deliberately sabotaging it. A partner can be frustrated by the unwillingness to be open or share feelings.

Insecurity and anxiety

Having a fear of abandonment or rejection can cause clinginess or jealousy. If you have a fear of abandonment, that could also lead to constantly seeking reassurance from your partner or loved ones, and it can also lead to being overly dependent on your partner. A person with this attachment style will, unfortunately, often struggle to leave a relationship, even if it is abusive.

Trust issues

Past experiences such as being betrayed, or attachment wounds that have come from past relationships can make it challenging to trust one’s partner. Trust issues along with avoidance of vulnerability lead to disconnection because it’s hard to open up and share one’s feelings and thoughts.

Communication problems

When a person has attachment issues, they might relate to others from a posture of distrust, and be limited in their ability to articulate their emotions confidently and without blaming or shaming. This can lead to unhealthy expressions of anger such as passive-aggressive behavior, defensiveness, or avoidance instead of communicating plainly.

Conflict and power struggles

Attachment issues can lead to unhealthy relationship dynamics such as control issues, possessiveness, or power imbalances.

Emotional dysregulation

If a person’s attachment style has been formed as a result of issues such as trauma, neglect, or abuse, unresolved attachment wounds can cause emotional dysregulation in the form of intense emotional reactions, mood swings, or emotional numbing. This can make for a space that feels emotionally unsafe and unpredictable.

Reenacting past patterns

Without adequate attention and effort to change things, a person may unconsciously repeat or reenact unhealthy attachment patterns from past relationships. If there are children in the relationship, they may relate to them in the same way their parents relate to them. If they lack emotional support, they may similarly struggle to provide emotional support or validation to their partner.

Overcoming Attachment Issues in Relationships

Attachment issues in relationships aren’t a permanent feature – they can be overcome. By recognizing attachment issues and working through them with your partner, a therapist, or a support group, you can build a more secure and fulfilling relationship. You can modify your attachment style toward a healthier and more secure style. Finding healing and generating new relationship patterns takes time, self-reflection, and effort.

Some of the steps you can take to move toward healthier relationship dynamics include developing better self-awareness. Knowing what your attachment style is as well as understanding how it affects you and your relationships helps you to come to grips with the issues and the work that needs to happen to change things.

You can also seek help from a therapist, psychologist, or counselor to address underlying issues and build up the necessary skills to have a healthy relationship. Your counselor can guide you as you identify past events and relationships that have shaped your attachment style.

With support, you can face and overcome your fears and anxieties, release past hurts and negative emotions, and enhance your ability to express your needs, feelings, and boundaries.

Your counselor can also help you nurture a positive self-image and self-worth, as well as grow in your ability to treat yourself with kindness, understanding, and patience. You can also learn to regulate your emotions better, keeping a growth mindset that allows you to embrace challenges and view failures as opportunities for growth. With help, you can form a more secure attachment style, leading to healthy, fulfilling relationships with others.

If you are ready to schedule an appointment for counseling, contact our office today to start your healing journey.