Anxious attachment can pose many challenges to close relationships. It can make you overly concerned and worried that your partner might leave or lose interest in you. You may become suspicious and look for signs of possible rejection or disinterest. Every small detail can make you sensitive. You might misjudge actual reality and presume things that aren’t real.
Your mental state can also be affected by anxious attachment. You might feel hopeless and react too emotionally when you cannot fulfill your needs or your partner refuses your requests. When you’re alone, you can experience feelings of unhappiness, emptiness. You may also lose interest in activities you once enjoyed and become preoccupied, worried about the possible “failure” of your relationship.
These challenges can cause pain in your relationship experience. Individuals with anxious attachment often feel significant distress during relationships. Here are signs that you might have anxious attachment.
You may have anxious attachment if you..
- Worry about your relationships and can’t stop thinking about your partner;
- Fear that your partner will stop loving you and leave you;
- Have a hard time separating and being on your own;
- Constantly seek physical intimacy and closeness with your partner;
- Feel jealous and fear that others might steal your significant other;
- Try to avoid arguments and hold back your thoughts to prevent upsetting your partner;
- Struggle to trust your partner and feel suspicious of his/her behaviour.
Anxious attachment can be resolved. Healing often takes time and patience but slowly you can work your way out of painful experiences. Most commonly used method for healing anxious attachment is long term counseling, psychotherapy.
Another thing that is as important is being in a close, romantic relationship. Attachment issues often present themselves only when you are in the most vulnerable state. Often we achieve vulnerability when we share physical intimacy, trust, deepest desires and fears with someone we love.
Worst part of it is that our insecurities, attachment traumas become only alive when we are in the most vulnerable state – in a close, romantic relationship. So, being in a romantic relationship is necessary to heal anxious attachment.
How to heal anxious attachment
1. Learn to give space
Every relationship goes through periods where we interact and spend more time together. Then there are quieter periods where we focus on our interests, spend time with other people. Every now and then we need a breath of fresh air.
When quieter periods roll around, Anxious attachment can make you feel like there is something wrong with a relationship. You may feel the urge to break quieter periods and text, call your partner: ,,Is everything okay, do you not like me anymore?” Try to recognize emotions that drive your uncertainty, fear of being abandoned and learn to sit with them. Your mind might try to drive you crazy and you may experience painful fantasies of why your partner isn’t interested as he used to be. But, you have to get through these difficult periods.
Breaking quieter periods too soon are actually harmful to a relationships. You are crossing healthy boundaries and not letting other people recharge the excitement that is needed in order for them to spend time with you. Learning to give a space can be scary but it’s needed for healthy functioning of relationships.
2. Love in a way that other person feels free
Anxious attachment can make you have a hard time separating your needs from your partner’s needs. Often people with anxious attachment are clingy and have a hard time letting go. You may feel the need to have constant reassurance, time spent together and physical contact in order to feel safe about your relationship. You may get upset, feel hopeless when things don’t go your way and your partner chooses something different from what you expect.
Learn that every person has a choice. They are free to choose whatever they want. Problem with anxious attachment is that you may take your partner’s choices personally and look for possible meaning behind them. You may ask yourself: ,,Does my partner not like me anymore? Am I not good enough? Did I do something wrong?” Insecurity can make you have an urge to control or force your partner to do certain things they don’t approve of. You may suffocate your partner of having a free choice.
Correct mindset should be: ,, If my partner chooses something else other than spending time with me, I am fine.” It doesn’t mean that your partner doesn’t like you anymore or will reject you. They just don’t feel a certain way and need their time, space to feel like themselves again. You have to learn to let other people be free and choose whatever suits them the best. There is nothing personal.
3. Become aware of your insecurities and work on them
Most of our insecurities operate on a subconscious level. We can have hard time seeing them with a clear eye. It takes skill and practice to find spots of insecurity. For example, if you have urge to text your partner every single hour and you can’t stop thinking about him, you might ask yourself: ,,Why?”
Do you feel this urge because you want to have fun? Do you feel lonely or fear that your friend has lost interest in you? It’s important to understand what you really feel on emotional level. Your insecurities can be disguised in worries, thoughts and behavior. You can set yourself free by understanding what is happening inside of you on deep emotional level. Once you become aware and start to understand your insecurities you will have less urge to engage in self-defeating behaviors.
4. Learn to be assertive
Assertiveness is a skill which is related to a person’s ability to freely express his feelings, thoughts and needs in relationships. Anxious attachment can make it difficult to express yourself because insecurities get in the way. You may feel selfish for asking what you want. Choosing what is best for you can cause you to feel shame and guilt. You may fear rejection, judgment, even punishment if you express how you truly feel.
In some ways having an anxious attachment is like living in a cage. It’s really hard to be yourself when your mind is focused on how others might react, perceive you. Learning to work through insecurities and breaking barriers that get in the way of expressing yourself is the way you achieve security within yourself. When you are able to stand up and take care of yourself, you achieve peace within yourself.
5. Find support
Be patient with yourself. Healing anxious attachment often takes time. Sometimes lows can be discouraging but anxious attachment doesn’t define who you are. As of right now, your relationship experiences might be painful. You might feel shame or see yourself “failing” but remember it will get better every time you stand up to your worst fears.
One thing that is important is finding good support within your social circle. You can talk about your attachment difficulties with a close friend, family member or even your partner. Talking helps you to destress and healing can take place.
Talking creates a safe space between your actual self and the anxious part that needs to be healed. You are enlightened to certain degree and no longer stuck, overwhelmed by your experience.