People with anxious attachment styles in relationships often find themselves feeling like they need to impress their partners, continually struggle with jealousy, or have been told by their partners that they’re clingy. They may also have low self-esteem and not know how to prioritize their needs and desires.
Validation is very important to those with anxious attachment. If they don’t receive it, they feel unimportant in their partner’s eyes. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that anxious attachment can be a hindrance in relationships because there does not exist an equal balance of power, and the person struggling with anxiety may struggle to feel emotionally safe in the relationship.
The good news is, if you’re suffering from anxious attachment, there’s hope for overcoming it. But first, it’s necessary to understand what anxious attachment is.
What is anxious attachment?
Anxious attachment is one of the four attachment styles that describe how you relate to a partner in your adult relationships. According to attachment theory, your adult attachment style is rooted in how well you were able to rely on your parents to fulfill your needs.
If you were unable to rely on your parents as caregivers, you likely developed an insecure attachment (avoidant, anxious, and disorganized), whereas if you could consistently rely on your parents, you likely developed a secure attachment.
What are the traits of anxious attachment?
The feeling of unworthiness common in those with an anxious attachment style can result from a fear of being abandoned or rejected. If you have an anxious attachment style, it’s what causes you to feel rejected by your partner whenever they don’t reassure you. Low self-esteem can also stem from anxious attachment, as well as having the sense that your reason for existing is to please others, aka you’re a people pleaser.
Sometimes anxious attachment expresses itself in the need to become essential to your partner’s well-being so that they never leave you and that you truly feel depended on by them. However, if you are always jumping through hoops to make your partner happy but never feel completely secure in your relationship, then you probably have an anxious attachment style.
What causes anxious attachment?
It’s important to understand what causes your attachment style if you’re interested in finding ways of overcoming it. Anxious attachment often comes from the most prominent figures in your childhood. It’s also common for parents to pass down their own attachment styles to their children.
Your parent may have, for example, experienced treatment as a child that somehow caused them to become overbearing to you in an attempt not to behave like their parents. Or, as a young child, you felt your parent expressed love, only then to take it away. Such behavior can leave children feeling perpetually confused and unable to rely on the people around them, which can, in turn, carry over into their adult relationships.
How can you change your ways?
One of the first steps you can take to change how you feel in relationships is to heal your inner child. This can be an effective method for treating anxious attachment because it’s often not your rational adult self that’s reacting negatively in relationships but the perceptions you established as a child.
The way you can heal your inner child is to create consistency for yourself by connecting what you say and do, as well as exercising self-care. This will help you resist the urge to be a people-pleaser. Your self-esteem should steadily increase as you come to understand and appreciate your own value.
Each of these changes in behavior can benefit your relationships because putting your needs on an equal plane with your partner’s needs helps to create a healthy balance of power and respect. Constantly seeking validation from your partner gives them all the power. However, healing your inner child will help you see how important you and your needs are.
Another coping mechanism for anxious attachment is learning how to self-soothe. Having the ability to regulate your emotions will further help your self-esteem by demonstrating to yourself and others that you are capable of taking care of yourself. It can also create the clear-headedness you need to make rational decisions. This can be particularly useful when you’re feeling jealous, a pattern of behavior that most likely predates your current situation and is a symptom of your anxious attachment.
If you can self-soothe, then you can help yourself view a situation with a rational mind. Being able to step away from your initial reactions to situations and see why you’ve been triggered to act in certain ways will give you the ability to move past your anxious attachment and eventually into a secure relationship.
Final thoughts …
While it may feel like your anxious attachment is permanent, that need not be the case. Understanding your anxious attachment style can be beneficial to you and your current partner or one to come. If you understand your triggers and the way your anxious attachment manifests itself, you will be that much closer to healing your inner child and becoming capable of exhibiting a secure attachment style.
Overall, the most important ways to go from anxious attachment to secure attachment are through effort and consistency, both of which can be facilitated with the right kind of professional support. A mental health professional who specializes in attachment theory can help you create new behaviors rooted in self-esteem, thereby making you feel less jealous in your current relationship or a new one. And allow you to enjoy all the happiness a healthy relationship can bring.