What's Your Attachment Style?

[Heather]

This came up with a community member earlier today, and I think it's a really helpful thing for everyone to consider, think about, and take into account in our intimate relationships and other interpersonal interactions.

If you're not familiar with this whole framework, you can get some good background on it here (by the same person who created the tool below, as it turns out): https://internal.psychology.illinois.ed ... chment.htm

If you're not sure where you are on this spectrum, this is a good self-evaluation tool to do that with: http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl

So, what's your style? How has it created challenges for you, and how have you dealt with, or are you dealing with, them? How have the styles of others created challenges for you? And where do you feel like you're strong and secure when it comes to attachment?

If it's helpful to have someone else to get started, I tend to fall in the secure segment of this, with a lean towards being avoidant. However, I'm pretty clear that at other, earlier times in my life, I've leaned much more to the avoidant end, and sometimes combined with an anxious style.

[Sunshine]

That's an interesting article... I took the quick test and came out "secure", which kind of surprised me. I thought of myself as more anxious... Then when I was answering the questions, I realized I really don't worry as much about whether I am loved or whether our relationship will last or whatnot as I used to and I actually have become quite secure (for me...) in this particular area of my life. Huh!

My partner and I used to have this little game where when we had to say goodbye, he'd give me a piece of hard candy that he bought at a special store. I'd keep it until we met the next time and then I'd eat it. When we parted, I got another piece, and so on. The joke was that if we never saw each other again, at least I'd still have the candy. Now we have rings and we don't do that any more but I still have the last piece in a cupboard somewhere.

In spite of being rather anxious, I think I do best in relationships (romantic, friendly or family) with people who are pretty independent and need space. People whom I perceive as clingy scare me, even though I'm not at all afraid of commitment. I guess I just find it easier to adapt to those who need space than to those who need constant attention, because I'm pretty good at being alone and I need a lot of alone-time myself. Besides, most of my family and the close friends I grew up with fall in the space-needing category, so that's what I'm used to. At the same time, I can only enter into any kind of a relationship if I feel it's going to be stable and reliable, if I can trust the other person and it seems likely that their feelings for me won't change fast. "Loyal and self-reliant" is my type it seems.

[Jacob]

Oh my, I'm a fearful-avoider according to this which doesn't sound good, but it's useful to see it reflects some issues I've had.

As I read the questions, it does seem like something which I'd answer differently only a couple of years ago, which is interesting. My answers would probably be quite different if I was considering specific relationships too. Usually personality tests are quite consistent for me so it's interesting to see how variable this one seems to be.

[Heather]

Also, nothing is forever! While some of this is going to have a lot to do with very early relationships and probably always be part of us, shifts through life, especially as we grow and work on our own stuff, are pretty much a given.

But I also don't think there's really bad/good here: I see it as more of a tool for figuring out our trouble spots, getting more aware of them, and learning how to work with them.

[Redskies]

I'm all over the map with attachment style - I'm basically a combination of different extremes, applicable in different contexts (and no, that doesn't sound very healthy!). Although happily, one of those extremes is security, so I do have some positive baselines to work with. Very roughly, my head swings to the preoccupied zone of things, but I'm super-concerned about possibly being a trouble to anyone (including myself) because of that, so I end up actually behaving sometimes in extremely avoidant ways. Argh, tangled self!

I've come across a few people now - at Scarleteen and elsewhere - sounding concerned, upset or hopeless about their attachment style. So, really really big seconding from me on what Heather says about this not being static or unchangeable or something anyone is stuck with. My tender points are much what they always were (and there are some good reasons for those, which are clear to me in my personal history), but how I think about things, and how I'm able to go about things, has already changed a lot and is still undergoing big changes. I have those tender points, but I'm able to make small, incremental, deliberate changes to how I engage with and relate to people around me which make my relationships and my relating style much healthier. I can also figure out how *I*, specifically, can relate healthily, in ways that slowly tackle or take care of or work around - whichever is most relevant - those personal tender spots of mine. Thinking about attachment styles is definitely a tool to enable that rather than anything to try to measure oneself up against.

I ran the questions twice: once about people in general, and once specifically thinking about my primary partner. The general one came back pretty middling, as you might expect for a combination of extremes; the partner-specific one came back very secure, with close to zero avoidance and pretty low anxiety. I would've guessed that, but it's still really encouraging for me, that I have a healthy attachment in an important relationship in my life. It's also definitely not a happy accident: this is someone who's taken care to try to always relate to and with me in healthy ways, and that's made it easier to respond similarly, and we've both put effort into relating in ways that meet both our needs. Really explicit need-sharing, want-sharing and negotiation, and explicit and open feelings-sharing without any expectation or pressure, have really helped me feel safe and be myself. I do best with very regular, obvious and genuine expressions of affection, both ways, coupled with plenty of independence. Happily, my partner also has those needs, so we function well together.

Sunshine, the thing you and your partner did with the candy is so lovely!