5 Clear Signs You Have An Anxious Attachment Style
#2 When your partner doesn’t reply right away, you assume the worst.
Attachment styles are ways of relating and interacting with people in relationships. They develop in childhood and continue into adulthood.
There are three insecure attachment styles: anxious, avoidant, and anxious-avoidant (also called fearful-avoidant or disorganized).
Anxious attachment can result from an inconsistent relationship with a parent or caregiver. When our caregivers are not attuned to our emotional state, we act “clingy” or “whiny” toward them to try to have our needs met — and we replicate these patterns in our intimate relationships.
If you’re anxiously attached, you’re probably sensitive and attuned to your partners’ needs, but insecure and anxious about your own worth.
Here are 5 clear signs you have an anxious attachment style.
1. You tend to suppress your needs and desires.
People with an anxious attachment style need their relationship to be “positive” all the time. Any disagreement makes them feel terrified that their partner’s going to leave — so they suppress their true emotions to “keep things positive”.
Since they see conflict as a threat to the relationship, they do whatever it takes to avoid it. The problem is, this behavior often leads to resentment and can be very damaging to the relationship in the long run.
2. When your partner doesn’t reply right away, you assume the worst.
If, when your partner is unavailable for some reason (work, dinner out with friends…), your mind immediately jumps to thoughts like…
“S/he’s not genuinely interested in me, s/he’s just pretending”.
“I knew this was too good to be true”.
“I knew s/he was with someone else”.
… you definitely have an anxious (or anxious-avoidant) attachment style.
3. You need constant reassurance from your partner.
Anxiously attached people are always scanning the environment looking for clues that their needs will not be met, which is why they need constant reassurance that everything’s okay.
They need a constant stream of love, affection, and validation from their attachment figure. Otherwise, their anxiety comes up to the surface.
Please keep in mind that it’s normal to expect reassurance and emotional closeness from your partner (healthy relationships involve mutual, spontaneous reassurance). What is not normal is getting bitter at the slightest disappointment or “sign of rejection” — especially when the rejection is not even real.
4. You’re always testing your partner.
You would think a person who is so anxious would want things to be straightforward when it comes to love, but that definitely isn’t the case.
People with an anxious attachment style are known to “play games” or unconsciously manipulate their partners. Since they’re constantly expecting rejection, they test their partners to make sure they’re genuine and trustworthy. Some examples of testing are:
- “If I don’t text or call her, will s/he text or call me?”
- “How can I make him/her jealous, so that s/he values our relationship?”
- “Will s/he still care for me if s/he knew a dark secret from my past?”
- “If s/he really loves me, shouldn’t s/he let me see his/her texts?”
- “Will she do some things that I like even if s/he doesn’t like them?”
5. You’re addicted to the emotional roller coaster
Paradoxically as it may sound, anxiously attached individuals tend to attract avoidant partners who reinforce their sense of unworthiness and trigger their fear of rejection.
Although anxious and avoidant attachment styles are typically considered opposites, they can complement each other in a (unhealthy) way: each reaffirms the other’s beliefs about themselves and relationships.
In 5 Important Things To Know If You’re Anxiously Attached, I explain this in detail:
“Anxiously attached individuals often let secure potential partners pass by. Why is that? If you want intimacy and security, why would you let go people who are capable of giving you what you want?
Here’s the thing. When you meet someone secure, there are no mixed signals. Your connection is honest, straightforward, and consistent. This means there’s no tension, suspense or playing hard to get. Everything flows.
As a result, your attachment system remains relatively calm. And that’s good, right? Of course, it’s amazing! But because you’re used to equating an activated attachment system (anxiety, emotional roller coaster) with love, you think that this can’t be the one since there’s no anxiety whatsoever”.
Highly recommend reading this article if you’d like to dive deep into the anxious attachment style!
Anxiously attached people have an extreme fear of abandonment.
Luckily, attachment styles can change. You cannot change your past, but you can change the present.
There are two keys to healing an insecure attachment style: a) allow yourself to revisit the past and make sense of your patterns and b) allow yourself to be in a secure relationship with a securely attached partner.
The healing journey is not necessarily easy or fast but it is possible and worth it.
