If you’re someone who tends to be very insecure in your relationships or who tends to need a lot of validation from your partners, you may have an anxious attachment style. People with an anxious attachment style, also called preoccupied attachment disorder1, often feel nervous about being separated from their partner. Roughly 20% of people have an anxious attachment style, according to research. “When people have this attachment style, their inner world and the world with the people closest to them feel uncertain,” clinical psychologist. Bobbi Wegner, Psy.D., writes in her upcoming book Raising Feminist Boys, “so there is little room to be empathic and extend out in their circle of concern.” Anxious attachment is one of the four main attachment styles: secure attachment (characterized by the ability to form secure relationships with ease), avoidant attachment (characterized by emotional unavailability), anxious attachment, and fearful-avoidant attachment (a combination of anxious and avoidant attachment styles). One moment the parent will be loving and available. In the next moment, they’re not meeting basic needs for love, security, or attention, Wegner explains. “This leaves a child not knowing what to expect and hungry for attention and connection.” Because love was not always extended as a kid, people with anxious attachment have a hard time depending on others. “For some, childhood relationships may have taught them to deeply distrust closeness to others—that those you love and depend upon can be emotionally unpredictable, even abusive,” psychologist Debra Campbell, Ph.D., explains. However, these same childhood experiences have made them find it difficult to trust people close to them, including their partners, and creates overwhelming insecurity about their relationships. This insecurity may cause them to become possessive, overly dependent, and clingy toward their partner, holistic psychologist Nicole Lippman-Barile, Ph.D., says. In an attempt to hold onto their partner, they may end up pushing them away. “People who are anxiously attached often come off as emotionally needy,” Wegner says. Rather than communicating their needs, though, they tend to act on them. This often leads to a relational pattern of acting out, followed by requiring soothing. For example, the anxious partner has a panic attack when their significant other goes out with friends. To accommodate the anxious partner’s needs, they stay home next time around. “Unfortunately, this dynamic happens all the time, and the partner ends up resentful and frustrated,” Wegner says. To achieve a healthy relationship, the anxiously attached person should seek someone with a secure attachment style (or someone who works with them to have a secure attachment together). Unfortunately, their actions tend to attract avoidant styles—which confirms their fears of abandonment and rejection, Lippman-Barile says. RELATED: Take This Simple 5-Minute Quiz To Find Out Your Attachment Style RELATED: 7 Expert-Approved Books To Take A Deep Dive Into Attachment Styles But it’s definitely possible to heal attachment wounds. With self-awareness and work, these unhealthy behaviors can be overcome.
