According to attachment theory, people’s early emotional bonds with their caregivers impact their future romantic and intimate relationships. With the risk of generalizing, anxiously attached people tend to feel insecure in relationships, seek validation, and fear abandonment. Those with an avoidant attachment style tend to be emotionally unavailable, although they have a deep need to feel loved. Of the three main attachment types, securely attached people find it easiest to get close to others, feel most comfortable giving and receiving love, and can trust others as well as be trusted.
Attachment styles are largely formed by the connection between the infant and their primary caregiver, and attachment builds on the emotional and nonverbal communication developed between the two. Infants communicate their emotions through cooing, pointing, smiling, crying, and other nonverbal signals. The caregiver perceives and interprets these cues, responding to fulfill the child’s need for comfort, food, affection, etc. Secure attachment develops when this nonverbal communication is successful.
Insecure attachment and dating
Imagine someone with an avoidant attachment style dating someone with an anxious one. The anxious partner draws closer, which pushes the avoidant one away. At one point, the anxious partner gives up. Then, the avoidant person comes back, craving intimacy, and their return results in a brief reconciliation. This eventually ends, and things come full circle. It’s analogical to spooning in relationships: one partner holds the other in their arms, snuggling up to them, but the other has their back turned, and then they switch positions.
Anxious and avoidant people recognize that they’re in a vicious cycle and are able to break it in some cases. Still, they tend to continue seeking each other out in relationships because they’re what the other has become familiar with. Avoidant people expect to feel smothered in relationships, and anxious ones expect their partners to be emotionally unavailable.
Attachment style and relationship prospects
A new meta-analysis, the results of which were reported in 2023, explored the global prevalence of attachment styles in children. Secure attachment was the most common, with more than half of children (51.6%) demonstrating it. 14.7% showed avoidant attachment, followed by 10.2% with anxious attachment. Almost a quarter (23.5%) were disorganized, a pattern that doesn’t fit any of the three main types.
Being securely attached doesn’t mean you never have relationship problems. However, these people tend to take responsibility for their failures and be willing to seek support and help when they need it. They can be themselves in an intimate relationship and express their hopes, feelings, and needs. Attachment style doesn’t have to be a given: children who form insecure attachments can grow and develop, and their life experiences can help them become securely attached adults. The latest statistics reveal this, with approximately 58% of the general adult population characterized by secure attachment.
However, children have the same attachment pattern as their parents in around 85% of all cases. If these people all pass on secure attachment to their offspring, that still means almost half of all people are coming from a place of insecurity in their relationships.
Anxiously attached individuals may be embarrassed about their constant need for affection and attention or feel exhausted by the fear that their partner might not love them. They crave closeness and want to be in a relationship but struggle with trust issues. They become overly fixated on their partner.
In comparison, those with an avoidant attachment style find tolerating emotional intimacy difficult. Their freedom and independence are so important that they feel very uncomfortable with closeness in a romantic relationship. Their partners often accuse them of being intolerant, rigid, distant, and closed off. At the same time, they deny these accusations by claiming the person they are dating or in a relationship with is too needy.
Final thoughts
Objective factors like education and wealth do not impact attachment, and neither do ethnicity and culture. An insecure attachment style also isn’t a valid reason to blame relationship problems on one’s caregivers in infancy. Recognizing insecure attachment is the first step in dating successfully and building a relationship.
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