Dating can be fun and exciting, but it also comes with challenges, heartache, and anxiety. Many people report they hope to find a lifelong partner, but when it comes to dating, there is a sense of dread. This can be especially true when we have unhealthy attachment styles.
Attachment styles are developed out of our experiences in childhood with our caregivers. As we develop, they become the framework for the way we engage and show up in our relationships. In a perfect world we would all have secure attachment styles. Secure attachment meaning we can have healthy relationships founded on trust and safety. If you are reading this, this type of relationship may feel like a foreign concept to you. The reality is, no one came from a “perfect home” and people with secure attachment styles are kind of like unicorns. Good for you unicorns, but for most of us, this is not the case. We are dealing with attachment styles that are either anxious, avoidant, or a mix of both; and it’s no walk in the park when it comes to our relationships.
What are Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Style?
- Anxious Attachment: Someone with an anxious attachment has a fear of abandonment. This may even be subconscious. They desire to be close and may never feel it’s enough. They rarely feel safe and secure in their relationships. This style often fears their partner will leave them and find themselves often asking for reassurance.
- Avoidant Attachment: People with this type of attachment style crave freedom and typically are not fans of vulnerability. They fear being too close and feel their freedom is threatened if someone gets too close. They may often feel they date “smothering people” and have a sense of panic if someone gets too close. In relationships they often experience feeling trapped, controlled, and the need to escape.
Want to know the most ironic part? Often these attachment styles end up dating each other!
When Anxious and Avoidant People Date Each Other- The Perfect Storm
The reason people with anxious and avoidant attachments seek each other out, is our brains naturally seeks what is familiar. This mean we are attracted to partners that do the opposite of what we are wanting or needing in relationships. Often this is happening subconsciously. This leads to the anxious person craving the feeling of security and clinging which leads to the avoidant person feeling smothered and pulling away. It ends up being the perfect storm of push and pull and often results to a lot of emotional turbulence and distress for both people.
So You Have an Unhealthy Attachment Style, Is There Hope?
You may be reading this and thinking “Oh great, I am doomed!” But, there is good news. Even though we develop our attachment styles in early childhood, we can work towards having a more secure attachment style which allows up to create and engage in more secure relationships.
Counseling Therapy is a place to safely process out attachment styles, find healing, and learn coping skills to develop a more secure attachment style. This inevitably helps up navigate the dating world in a healthier way.
At Denver CAC we love supporting our clients in developing healthy attachment styles because most of us have done the work ourselves and we understand how life changing it can be. Through self-explorations, hard work, and support in counseling you CAN learn to feel secure in your relationships and have healthy relationships. Give us a call or email us today for a free phone consultation to see if therapy might be helpful for you!
Author: Mary Ellen Benz, CEO and founder of DenverCAC