Attachment theory provides an explanation for romantic compatibility or lack thereof. It helps answer relationship questions, such as why someone you thought likes you, suddenly ignores you. Or why do some people stay in relationships that make them miserable.
He’s Just Not Into You
The person you’re dating stopped responding to your texts? The 2009 movie, He’s Just Not that Into You, will probably conclude just that: he’s just not that into you. The movie explores this concept and concludes that women stay with men who flake on them because they can’t seem to grasp that a guy just ins’t that interested. Basically, girls, from a young age are told that when boys are mean to them, boys like them. Women carry this thought throughout their lives, so when they come across someone who shows disinterest, they make excuses as to why.
Sex and the City has 2 episodes on this concept as well. When you stop making up stories for behavior that shows lack of interest, you move on efficiently to the next possible romantic partner without baggage. If a guy ghosts you, there’s nothing wrong with you. Nor is there a deeper explanation about his past or some childhood trauma—he’s just not that into you–truly a simple explanation. However, if the “he’s just not that into you” explanation doesn’t quite satisfy, attachment theory, offers an alternative explanation. When someone sends mixed-signals or you feel incompatibility when it comes to intimacy, attachment style explains why.
Attachment Theory
Attachment theory originated from studies explaining child-parent attachment styles. Researchers, however, figured out that these theories also apply to romantic relationships. The three types include: Secure, Anxious, and Avoidant.
Basically, secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving; anxious people crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back; avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It can Help you Find—and Keep Love
In the end, the style that we take on allows us to feel secure in a relationship.
Attachment principles teach us that most people are only as needy as their unmet needs. When their emotional needs are meant…they usually turn their attention outward.
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It can Help you Find—and Keep Love
So if a relationship meets our needs, it is less likely to be the source of our headache and heartbreak. In turn, we get to expend our energies in other parts of our life. Problem happens when people who have different needs fail to understand each other.
The Ideal
The good news is that these styles are not set in stone and can change overtime. Life events or a partner can affect our attachment style. Ideally, however, we want to strive for security. Although it’s important to note that the theory doesn’t consider the other attachment styles as pathological or some psychological disorder that needs to be cured. What’s important is for people to do a self-reflection and figure out your own attachment style. When you know where you fit in the attachment theory buckets, you can best understand your behavior and others.
Second, couples need to communicate how they feel. This means expressing to your partner what you want, what you expect, and your attachment style. This is better than exhibiting “protest behavior”. This is when someone basically throws a tantrum when their needs are not met, such as ignoring, nagging, acting vengeful, or being hurtful towards their partner.
Third, when you are able to effectively communicate your needs, the end goal is to find common ground. Secure style people are the most skillful when it comes to communicating this with their partner.
What’s important is for people to do a self-reflection and figure out your own attachment style. When you know where you fit in the attachment theory buckets, you can best understand your behavior and others.
Attachment Theory Success Story
Here’s an example of a success story. An Anxious-style woman gets upset when her husband, busy at work, doesn’t answer her text or calls. She feels threatened when he ignores her. Moreover, he ridicules her dependency and need to keep in touch while at work. When they realize their different attachment style, they get to see the other’s point of view. To find common ground, the husband asks if he can send her a prewritten text, “thinking of you” whenever he thought about her. This way, he can keep up with his busy schedule and still let her know that he’s there. The solution worked. Talking and problem solving worked better than nagging and mocking. In this case, the husband addressed the woman’s Anxious attachment style.
Attachment Theory Limitation
In contrast to the success story, we learn about the woman who marries her partner even though her partner has, from the start, acted in ways that made her feel uncomfortable. For example, he refused to introduce her to his friends and wanted to keep their relationship a secret. She claims that he constantly puts her down. The first time he saw her naked, he said that she looked “like a midget with boobs.” When she asks why he wants to have sex with someone he finds disgusting, he said that “you’re what there is right now.” He professes his love and stays but his actions clearly convey something else. The woman pressures him to marry her and they eventually do, but it ended in divorce.
The authors refer to this type of intimacy dynamic as the Anxious-Avoidant Trap. Using the attachment style grouping, she has an Anxious style and her partner is the Avoidant type. This story didn’t quite convince me that attachment theory explains the guy’s behavior. Neither the “he’s just not that into you” concept. Sometimes, people are just awful. I told the same story to a friend and one analysis was a difference in sense of humor. One thing to take into account about some of the case studies is that we only get to hear one side sometimes. But what’s important is that the woman felt dissatisfied throughout the relationship. But somehow, she still pressured him to marry her and wanted to be with him. Anxious-style folks have the tendency to stay in relationships even though they feel insecure.
Knowing attachment styles can be helpful as a gauge for compatibility. But like anything in a relationship, being honest about your feelings and listening to what the other person has to say matters most. At the end of the day, it’s simple really:
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) | Bad Lunrmann
Title: Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It can Help you Find—and Keep Love | Authors: Amir Levin and Rachel Heller | 2010
