Round and Round We Go!

Insecure relationships are “a recipe for a lot of pain,” according to Dr. Amir Levine so it is important relationships are secure. With around 50% of us having a secure attachment style, anxious-avoidant or insecure relationships are surprisingly common.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that partners in insecure relationships don’t love each other. They often love each other a lot. The problem is that in an anxious-avoidant relationship, there tends to be a sense of “stable instability.”

These relationships have a lot of conflict due to a reinforcement of each other’s insecurities. The avoidant partner may think, “Oh, my partner is needy,” but what they don’t understand is that it’s not their partner. It’s a pattern that is being created between two people that make it this way.

It’s a never-ending cycle. When the avoidant partner senses a threat, such as their partner getting too close, they deactivate their attachment system and create distance. The anxious partner senses this distance as a threat, which activates their attachment system. So they become needy. Back and forth they go.

The good news is we can learn to become more secure but first we need to discover what our attachment style is.