Am I doomed to repeat my parents’ mistakes? Part II - Attachment
In my last post, I wrote about the “blueprints and roadmaps” we carry from childhood into our adult relationships and how they impact love and connection. Today’s post will explore another layer of how our early relationships ultimately inform the way we love and receive love. Let’s talk about attachment.
In infancy and childhood, our growing brains are working hard to figure out what it means to trust, to feel safe, to love, and to be loved. These tasks are absolutely necessary for survival. Unfortunately there is no baby-friendly textbook we can order off Amazon to equip little minds with these tools. So the next best thing happens and we learn from our experience. Without intention, we observe our relationships with our caregivers—who are often our parents—and learn the answers to some really important questions:
Who can I count on?
When can I count on them?
When they walk away, can I trust that they will come back to me?
Am I able to take care of myself in the in-between?
Keep in mind, this learning process starts really early in life. In fact, you probably have no formal recollection of what it is that you learned and how you learned it. That does not make it any less important. This is why attention, affection, play, and responsiveness are so crucial to child development from day one. These gifts from our parents—or lack thereof, as the case may be—ultimately prime what we come to expect from friends, lovers, and partners down the road.
The research of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth has helped us to notice and label patterns in the ways our earliest lessons in attachment later manifest in our romatic relationships. If you’re curious about the lessons you might have unknowingly learned, try following the themes of any “relationship anxiety” you have experienced throughout your romantic partnerships. Perhaps you have had recurring arguments in which the words “clingy,” “cold,” “suffocating,” “distant,” “controlling,” “codependent,” or “independent” circulate. Below are four of the most common “attachment styles” we tend to adopt based on the quality, frequency, predictability, and consistency of our caregiving during infancy and childhood:
1) Secure attachment:
In adult relationships: I have a general sense of trust my partner will return to me when there is either physical or emotional distance. I miss them when they are distant, but I am able to tolerate this by soothing my own anxiety when needed. For the most part, coming back together after distance is a positive experience uncomplicated by feelings of anger or anxiety.
In childhood: I was able to count on warmth and consistency from my early caregivers. I was sad to see them go but ultimately trusted they would come back. Both my caregivers and I delighted in these reunions.
2)Anxious-ambivalent attachment:
In adult relationships: I have a general sense of anxiety as to whether physical and/or emotional distance is safe, and I actively protest it. It is difficult for me to calm myself down when I am unsure whether closeness will be re-established. I seek a lot of reassurance, and others might have labeled me “clingy” or “needy.”
In childhood: I felt a great sense of uncertainty due to my caregivers being inconsistent. Overall I struggled to reassure myself that love and closeness would come back to me, so I might have fought really hard against separation in the first place. Because I lacked those self-soothing skills, I might still not have been fully reassured even when my caregiver returned.
3) Anxious-avoidant attachment:
In adult relationships: Similar to anxious-ambivalent, I don’t quite know how to handle physical or emotional distance when it happens. However, I’m also a little confused as to how to handle closeness. So, in efforts to regulate and find a middle ground that feels safe, I engage a “push-pull” pattern wherein I meet distance with a desire for closeness and closeness with a desire for distance. This might feel like a roller coaster for others involved.
In childhood: Moments of connection with caregivers felt really good, but moments of disconnection felt really bad and/or scary to me. This inconsistency paired with extra high “highs” and extra low “lows” make me distrusting of both outcomes. I might come to protest both closeness and distance to protect myself.
4) Avoidant attachment:
In adult relationships: Intimacy and emotional closeness makes me uncomfortable, and I might take active or passive steps to avoid it. It feels foreign or even painful to rely on someone else to get my emotional needs met, so I appear very independent.
In childhood: My caregivers were as a rule unavailable or distant from me. I adapted to rely less on what was being withheld from me and as a result don’t quite know how to react to or accept intimacy and connection.
I want to be very clear about something—every single attachment style explored above is healthy in that it became your primary mode of emotional protection and safety for a very good reason. You are here today because of the attachment style that worked for you to help you get your needs met in infancy and childhood.
However, I do understand that in reviewing the attachment styles, it becomes rather clear rather quickly that a “secure” attachment feels safest and lays the easiest framework for a fulfilling adult relationship. But what about so many others who recognize themselves in the other camps? There is good news! Attachment styles are not permanent—in fact, they are highly moldable in the right adult circumstances. My tip? By simply bringing awareness to your attachment style, you gain some of the insight necessary to adjust your expectations, beliefs, and needs around intimacy and closeness.
For example, it can be helpful to remind yourself that even though your mother was inconsistent or cold toward you, your romantic partner is not. Thus “clinging” to protest distance or engaging a “push-pull” pattern to self-regulate is no longer necessary and might actually be harmful for the dynamic. Similarly, just because your father was absent and you learned not to depend on him for attention or affection does not mean that your partner can’t or doesn’t want to provide these things. So though it might feel unnatural, creating space for them to show up for you can help rewire what was an avoidant attachment style.
Give yourself the gift of self-awareness in your relationship. You might be surprised where it leads you.
