What is attachment style, and why would you want to know yours? If you’ve got relationships with any other humans, it can be a helpful starting point to understand your own behaviours a bit better.
If you’re struggling to understand why your relationships seem to follow the same patterns, and you’ve noticed everything you scroll past online seems to have #attachment – maybe you’ve been questioning your relationships. This blog post should shed some light on what it’s all about and where you can find some further reading, or how to get in touch if you think you’d like to talk about it.
Attachment styles get spoken about a lot – because people all have relationships of some kind. When you think about attachment, it tends to refer to how you feel, think about and behave in those relationships to some degree or another! You might have heard about some of the different styles of attachment, like anxious, avoidant and secure. You may be curious which style you, or someone else, has. Maybe you’ve got questions about how it’s impacting your life and if it can be changed!
Attachment styles tend to be established in childhood, and there’s a lot to be said about how they impact romantic relationships in particular throughout life as an adult. Your attachment style isn’t set in stone, and you can work on things so that you’ve got happier, healthier relationships if you aren’t content with how you’re feeling.
What is attachment style?
Your attachment style is basically the pattern of relating to others that you learned worked for you as a child. The way you connect, pull away, worry, or feel safe with people; a lot of that was shaped long before you were old enough to question it.
If you grew up with parents who were loving, attentive and responsive – people who made you feel seen and safe; you probably learnt that the world is a pretty okay place, that people can be trusted, and that your needs are worth expressing. That tends to become a secure attachment style.
How does it develop?
If things at home were a bit more unpredictable – maybe a parent who was angry or self-centred, or one who struggled to show emotion and kept things tightly buttoned up, you learnt to adapt. You had to. Children are brilliant at working out what keeps them safe.
Maybe you learned not to ask for too much. Maybe you learned to read the room constantly, or to just get on with it yourself. Those strategies made complete sense then. The tricky part is that they tend to follow us into adulthood, long after we actually need them.
What is attachment style, and how does it show up?
There are a few different attachment styles, and most people will recognise something of themselves in at least one of them:
- Anxious: Often worried about commitment, can feel like they ‘need’ their partner and frequently seeks reassurance
- Avoidant: Emotionally distant or detached, can sometimes struggle with intimacy, vulnerability or intense emotional situations, and often likes plenty of alone time
- Anxious avoidant: Drifts between anxious and avoidant styles, wanting both intimacy and detachment while struggling to trust in commitment, often leading to inconsistent behaviour
If your attachment is more anxious, you might find yourself scanning constantly; re-reading a text message, wondering why someone’s tone was slightly off, replaying a conversation, looking for clues. Why were they late? Why didn’t they invite you? Have you done something wrong? It’s exhausting, and it’s not a character flaw. It’s a nervous system that has learned to stay on high alert.
If you’ve developed a more avoidant attachment style, you might find it genuinely uncomfortable to talk about how you’re feeling, not because you don’t feel things, but because vulnerability just doesn’t feel safe. Independence becomes armour. Feelings get numbed, and it gets harder to really recognise how you feel, or if you feel anything at all.
And for anxious-avoidant, it can feel like lurching between needing closeness and pushing it away, which can be equally confusing for you and the people around you.
How does it affect relationships?
When two people with different attachment styles come together, say, someone avoidant and someone anxious, it can create a really painful push-pull dynamic. One person is craving reassurance and connection, the other is finding that level of closeness overwhelming. Distance feels safe to one; abandonment feels imminent to the other. Neither is wrong, but without understanding what’s happening, communication gets affected; not expressing wants and needs, assuming someone is off with you, or feeling like a normal connection is just too much. It puts relationships under real strain.
It sometimes shows up in anxiousness about your relationships. You might notice that you question your partner’s commitment to you. You might find yourself scared that they’ll leave, or that you aren’t the right person for them. There could be a sense of comparison.
Conversely, you might find yourself feeling annoyed. Why is your partner constantly pushing you for more? You might feel pressured to be more or do more than you feel comfortable with. You may be questioning whether it’s you or if they’re asking for too much. All pretty confusing stuff, right?
Can it change?
Yes! And this is the part worth holding onto. Your attachment style isn’t a life sentence. The patterns were learned, which means they can be unlearned, or at least understood well enough that they stop running the show.
Therapy can illuminate the areas you struggle with the most, give you the tools to reflect, and help you accept the parts that were wounded as a child. You can make changes to feel more independent and secure. To be able to express yourself, communicate with your partner and build happier, healthier, stronger relationships. Imagine actually knowing what you need and feeling okay about saying it. Imagine relationships that don’t feel like something you have to constantly manage or second-guess.
What next?
If any of this has felt familiar, you’re not alone, and recognising the pattern is genuinely the first step. Whether you’re just getting curious or you’ve been sitting with this for a while, talking it through can help.
I offer a free 15-minute discovery call – no pressure, just a chance to have a conversation. You can book yours here:
Author bio: Hannah Campbell is a psychotherapist based in Southend-on-Sea, working online and in person. She specialises in trauma and childhood emotional neglect.