What Is My Relationship Attachment Style?

Relationship attachment styles can affect many different aspects of your life. In any part of your life where you need to maintain stable relationships with other people, it is essential to understand your attachment style. 

You might be trying to figure out how to manage a romantic relationship. You might be trying to understand a friendship or a working relationship. In either situation understanding your attachment style can be helpful.

When you identify your specific relationship attachment styles, you will understand more about yourself and your reactions. You can understand why you respond in certain situations the way you do. This can also provide the opportunity to see if your responses are helpful or detrimental to your goals in life.

Relationhip Attachment Styles

There are four main attachment styles identified when examining personal relationships:

#1 Secure Attachment

A secure attachment forms when a child’s needs and expression of distress are met with love from a caregiver. This builds a foundational belief that your needs will be met in a relationship. You will be confident that you will receive comfort if you feel distressed. Giving and accepting love freely will also be the foundation of your relationships.

#2 Avoidant Attachment

This attachment style develops when a caregiver responds to a child in negative ways. They might ignore the child or treat them as an annoyance. This can lead you to believe that your needs will not be met in a relationship and might lead to negative relationship patterns. 

As a result, you might hide distress in relationships, feeling that you need to handle problems on your own. Feeling the need to hide or minimize your feelings from others in relationships to maintain them is also common.

#3 Anxious Attachment

When a caregiver responds unpredictably to a child’s needs, it may cause the child to be unsure of the response they will get when in distress. In relationships, this can cause you to escalate situations to try to get the attention you feel you need. 

As a result, you may experience feelings of insecurity and high anxiety in relationships. This can cause you to act erratically. You may feel the need for reassurance but are unsure of the response you might get if you express that need.

#4 Fearful-Avoidant Attachment

This attachment style is the only attachment style labeled as a disorganized attachment style. It occurs when a child is exposed to atypical caregiver behaviors. Atypical behaviors are described as “[F]rightening, frightened, dissociated, sexualized or otherwise atypical.”  

These behaviors present consistently, not only when a child is in distress. This can lead you to avoid relationships, have difficulty trusting others, and have difficulty regulating your emotions. 

How Attachment Styles Affect Health

Attachment styles can affect every relationship in your life. You can even have different attachment styles and coping mechanisms in different kinds of relationships. For example, you may handle friendships differently than your romantic relationships. 

Social interactions are an essential key to human health. Having healthy social ties can significantly affect your physical health as well as your mental health. Many studies have shown the relationship between social connections and physical health. Our social connections influence our daily behavior, such as what we tend to eat and drink. It can also influence your physical activity level.

Healthy relationships can also affect how you respond to stress. If you have a good support system, you will be more resilient to the ups and downs of life. Unhealthy relationships can increase the amount of stress you experience. Having no social connections or unstable relationships will lower your ability to cope with stressful situations. 

How Attachment Styles Affect Relationships

When looking at your relationships, it is important to understand that you will be dealing with different relationship attachment styles. Sometimes the interaction between two individual relationship attachment styles can be volatile. At other times, attachment styles can work well together. 

Open communication between two people in a relationship is crucial to discovering if your individual relationship attachment styles are negatively impacting your ability to function within the relationship. If you can be aware and mindful of each other’s coping mechanisms, it will be easier to navigate difficulties. This is not always easy.  

Exploring Attachment Styles and Their Effects

Sometimes you may find that you need help and support from others to explore solutions. You may need to explore experiences from your past that led to your attachment style. Having open discussions with your partners, friends, or family can be helpful. Sometimes this is especially difficult because of conflicting attachment styles or past traumas. 

It may become necessary for you to seek extra support from a professional. At Alter Wellness Care, we have a compassionate team of experts ready with various options designed to fit your individual needs and help you achieve your goals. 

Relationships can be tricky to navigate. However, understanding your attachment style may help. If you, or someone close to you, is interested in exploring the different attachment styles and their effects, reach out to us at Alter Wellness Care. We are always ready to support you in reaching your personal goals. Our compassionate team will help you explore the factors that can lead to different attachment styles. We can help you understand how your attachment style may be affecting your responses in your relationships. We also provide various services that can help you improve your communication and problem-solving. Building a solid foundation of interpersonal and coping skills is key to having healthy relationships. We want you to have the skills and confidence to navigate any situation. Call Alter Wellness Care at (866) 311-3510 to see how we can help you understand your relationships better.