Are you Secure in your romantic relationships?

What is your attachment style? Secure, Preoccupied, Dismissive or Fearful.

Often people come to therapy because they keep having the same issues coming up in their romantic relationships. They might find that partners tell them that they are emotionally distant, or that they find themselves seeking repeated reassurance from their significant other that their relationship is ok.  

What can be an important first step to change is becoming aware of your attachment style. This is how you relate to romantic partners, and is shaped by how you interacted with your primary caregivers, which is for many people their parents, when you were a child.  

There are four types of adult attachment styles. One of them is called a Secure attachment. The other three are types of Insecure attachment. They are called: Preoccupied, Dismissive and Fearful.  

Having a Secure attachment means you usually feel safe and confident in your romantic relationship, you feel able to share your feelings with your partner but also manage them on your own, you feel comfortable connecting with them but also spending time alone. 

If you have a Preoccupied attachment, you share how you feel with your partner, but you feel anxious about your romantic relationship, need reassurance and tend to have low self-esteem. 

If you have a Dismissive attachment, you value your independence and avoid intimacy. You tend to have a positive view of yourself, but you have difficulty trusting others and feel uneasy when they try to get close. 

When you have a Fearful attachment, you desire the closeness and intimacy of a romantic relationship but also fear it. You tend to have a negative view of yourself and find it hard to trust others. This can lead to a push-pull dynamic in how you relate to your partner. 

If you have an Insecure attachment style that is causing you difficulties in your romantic relationships, in therapy you can gradually develop an Earned Secure attachment style. When you have this, you will find that you have happier and more stable relationships. 

Please get in touch with me if you would like to learn more about your attachment style and start working on changing it.