How To Leverage Attachment Theory In Your Relationship

Attachment theory has come to be seen in “kids nowadays”’ TikTok circles as almost a sort of astrology, but that’s not what it was intended for, and there’s really nothing esoteric about it.

What it can be, is a (fairly simple, but) powerful tool to understand about our relationships with each other.

To demystify it, let’s start with a little history…

Attachment theory was conceived by developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth, and popularized as a theory bypsychiatrist John Bowlby. The two would later become research partners.

• Dr. Ainsworth’s initial work focused on children having different attachment styles when it came to their caregivers: secure, avoidant, or anxious.
• Later, she would add a fourth attachment style: disorganized, and then subdivisions, such as anxious-avoidant and dismissive-avoidant.
• Much later, the theory would be extended to attachments in (and between) adults.

What does it all mean?

To understand this, we must first talk about “The Strange Situation”.

“The Strange Situation” was an experiment conducted by Dr. Ainsworth, in which a child would be observed playing, while caregivers and strangers would periodically arrive and leave, recreating a natural environment of most children’s lives. Each child’s different reactions were recorded, especially noting:

• The child’s reaction (if any) to their caregiver’s departure
• The child’s reaction (if any) to the stranger’s presence
• The child’s reaction (if any) to their caregiver’s return
• The child’s behavior on play, specifically, how much or little the child explored and played with new toys

She observed different attachment styles, including:

1. Secure: a securely attached child would play freely, using the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore. Will engage with the stranger when the caregiver is also present. May become upset when the caregiver leaves, and happy when they return.
2. Avoidant: an avoidantly attached child will not explore much regardless of who is there; will not care much when the caregiver departs or returns.
3. Anxious: an anxiously attached child may be clingy before separation, helplessly passive when the caregiver is absent, and difficult to comfort upon the caregiver’s return.
4. Disorganized: a disorganizedly attached child may flit between the above types

These attachment styles were generally reflective of the parenting styles of the respective caregivers:

1. If a caregiver was reliably present (physically and emotionally), the child would learn to expect that and feel secure about it.
2. If a caregiver was absent a lot (physically and/or emotionally), the child would learn to give up on expecting a caregiver to give care.
3. If a caregiver was unpredictable a lot in presence (physical and/or emotional), the child would become anxious and/or confused about whether the caregiver would give care.

What does this mean for us as adults?

As we learn when we are children, tends to go for us in life. We can change, but we usually don’t. And while we (usually) no longer rely on caregivers per se as adults, we do rely (or not!) on our partners, friends, and so forth. Let’s look at it in terms of partners:

1. A securely attached adult will trust that their partner loves them and will be there for them if necessary. They may miss their partner when absent, but won’t be anxious about it and will look forward to their return.
2. An avoidantly attached adult will not assume their partner’s love, and will feel their partner might let them down at any time. To protect themself, they may try to manage their own expectations, and strive always to keep their independence, to make sure that if the worst happens, they’ll still be ok by themself.
3. An anxiously attached adult will tend towards clinginess, and try to keep their partner’s attention and commitment by any means necessary.

Which means…

• When both partners have secure attachment styles, most things go swimmingly, and indeed, securely attached partners most often end up with each other.
• A very common pairing, however, is one anxious partner dating one avoidant partner. This happens because the avoidant partner looks like a tower of strength, which the anxious partner needs. The anxious partner’s clinginess can also help the avoidant partner feel better about themself (bearing in mind, the avoidant partner almost certainly grew up feeling deeply unwanted).
• Anxious-anxious pairings happen less because anxiously attached people don’t tend to be attracted to people who are in the same boat.
• Avoidant-avoidant pairings happen least of all, because avoidantly attached people having nothing to bind them together. Iff they even get together in the first place, then later when trouble hits, one will propose breaking up, and the other will say “ok, bye”.

This is fascinating, but is there a practical use for this knowledge?

Yes! Understanding our own attachment styles, and those around us, helps us understand why we/they act a certain way, and realize what relational need is or isn’t being met, and react accordingly.

That sometimes, an anxiously attached person just needs some reassurance:

• “I love you”
• “I miss you”
• “I look forward to seeing you later”

That sometimes, an avoidantly attached person needs exactly the right amount of space:

• Give them too little space, and they will feel their independence slipping, and yearn to break free
• Give them too much space, and oops, they’re gone now

Maybe you’re reading that and thinking “won’t that make their anxious partner anxious?” and yes, yes it will. That’s why the avoidant partner needs to skip back up and remember to do the reassurance.

It helps also when either partner is going to be away (physically or emotionally! This counts the same for if a partner will just be preoccupied for a while), that they parameter that, for example:

• Not: “Don’t worry, I just need some space for now, that’s all” (à la “I am just going outside and may be some time“)
• But: “I need to be undisturbed for a bit, but let’s schedule some me-and-you-time for [specific scheduled time]”.

Want to learn more about addressing attachment issues?

Psychology Today: Ten Ways to Heal Your Attachment Issues

You also might enjoy such articles such as:

• Nurturing secure attachment: building healthy relationships
• Why anxious and avoidant often attracted each other
• How to help an insecurely attached partner feel loved
• How to cope with a dismissive-avoidant partner

Lastly, to end on a light note…

Practise Self-Compassion In Your Relationship (But Watch Out!)

Let’s make clear up-front: this is not about “…but not too much”.

With that in mind…

Now let’s set the scene: you, a happily-partnered person, have inadvertently erred and upset your partner. They may or may not have already forgiven you, but you are still angry at yourself.

Likely next steps include all or any of:

• continuing to apologise and try to explain
• self-deprecatory diatribes
• self-flagellation, probably not literally but in the sense of “I don’t deserve…” and acting on that feeling
• self-removal, because you don’t want to further inflict your bad self on your partner

As you might guess, these are quite varied in their degree of healthiness:

• apologising is good, as even is explaining, but once it’s done, it’s done; let it go
• self-deprecation is pretty much never useful, let alone healthy
• self-flagellation likewise; it is not only inherently self-destructive, but will likely create an additional problem for your partner too
• self-removal can be good or bad depending on the manner of that removal: there’s a difference between just going cold and distant on your partner, and saying “I’m sorry; this is my fault not yours, I don’t want to take it out on you, so please give me half an hour by myself to regain my composure, and I will come back with love then if that’s ok with you”

About that last: mentioning the specific timeframe e.g. “half an hour” is critical, by the way—don’t leave your partner hanging! And then do also follow through on that; come back with love after the half-hour elapses. We suggest mindfulness meditation in the interim (here’s our guide to how), if you’re not sure what to do to get you there.

To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy (Here’s How To Do It) ← this goes for when the forgiveness in question is for yourself, too—and we do write about that there (and how)!

This is important, by the way; not forgiving yourself can cause more serious issues down the line:

Self-blame-selective hyper-connectivity between anterior temporal and subgenual cortices predicts prognosis in major depressive disorder

If, by the way, you’re hand-wringing over “but was my apology good enough really, or should I…” then here is how to do it. Basically, do this, and then draw a line under it and consider it done:

The Apology Checklist ← you’ll want to keep a copy of this, perhaps in the notes app on your phone, or a screenshot if you prefer

(the checklist is at the bottom of that page)

The catch

It’s you, you’re the catch 👈👈😎

Ok, that being said, there is actually a catch in the less cheery sense of the word, and it is:

“It is important to be compassionate about one’s occasional failings in a relationship” does not mean “It is healthy to be neglectful of one’s partner’s emotional needs; that’s self-care, looking after #1; let them take care of themself too”

…because that’s simply not being a couple at all.

Think about it this way: the famous airline advice,

“Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs”

…does not mean “Put on your own oxygen mask and then watch those kids suffocate; it’s everyone for themself”

So, the same goes in relationships too. And, as ever, we have science for this. There was a recent (2024) study, involving hundreds of heterosexual couples aged 18–73, which looked at two things, each measured with a scaled questionnaire:

• Subjective levels of self-compassion
• Subjective levels of relationship satisfaction

For example, questions included asking participants to rate, from 1–5 depending on how much they felt the statements described them, e.g:

In my relationship with my partner, I:

• treat myself kindly when I experience sorrow and suffering.
• accept my faults and weaknesses.
• try to see my mistakes as part of human nature.
• see difficulties as part of every relationship that everyone goes through once.
• try to get a balanced view of the situation when something unpleasant happens.
• try to keep my feelings in balance when something upsets me.

Note: that’s not multiple choice! It’s asking participants to rate each response as applicable or not to them, on a scale of 1–5.

And…

❝Women’s self-compassion was also positively linked with men’s total relationship satisfaction. Thus, men seem to experience overall satisfaction with the relationship when their female partner is self-kind and self-caring in difficult situations.

Unexpectedly, however, we found that men’s relationship-specific self-compassion was negatively associated with women’s fulfillment.

Baker and McNulty (2011) reported that, only for men, a Self-Compassion x Conscientiousness interaction explained whether the positive effects of self-compassion on the relationship emerged, but such an interaction was not found for women.

Highly self-compassionate men who were low in conscientiousness were less motivated than others to remedy interpersonal mistakes in their romantic relationships, and this tendency was in turn related to lower relationship satisfaction❞

~ Dr. Astrid Schütz et al. (2024)

Read in full: Is caring for oneself relevant to happy relationship functioning? Exploring associations between self-compassion and romantic relationship satisfaction in actors and partners

And if you’d like to read the cited older paper from 2011, here it is:

Read in full: Self-compassion and relationship maintenance: the moderating roles of conscientiousness and gender

The take-away here is not: “men should not practice self-compassion”

(rather, they absolutely should)

The take-away is: we must each take responsibility for managing our own mood as best we are able; practice self-forgiveness where applicable and forgive our partner where applicable (and communicate that!)…. And then go consciously back to the mutual care on which the relationship is hopefully founded.

Which doesn’t just mean love-bombing, by the way, it also means listening:

The Problem With Active Listening (And How To Do Better)

To close… We say this often, but we mean it every time: take care!