5 Headline Traits of Anxious Attachment
Do you spend an excessive amount of time and energy on your relationship?
We can all appreciate how straightforward Attachment Theory is: you’re either secure or insecure in your relationships. And, if you’re a member of the latter group, you most likely fall into one of three insecure subcategories: anxious, avoidant, or a mixture of the two, known as fearful-avoidant.
While this theory is rooted in childhood bonds with caregivers, it can easily transition into adult life. The strongest traits emerge with an individual’s primary partner. Therefore, for context, this article will speak mainly to romantic relationships between adults.
If you’ve ever wondered why your relationship needs appear higher than others’, you’ll want to continue reading. There’s a very good chance you’re anxiously attached, and there’s no reason you have to stay that way.
You have high intimacy needs
Someone who is anxiously attached loves being in a relationship. They desire closeness through both physical and emotional connection. They like to spend a lot of time with their partner, and often, their relationship can progress quickly. Physical displays of affection feel safe and reassuring.
There is an intense fear of abandonment
Behaviors exhibited by an anxious attachment style are rooted in fear of being left. This innate fear can have its origins in actual abandonment by a parent during childhood or by a caregiver who was not emotionally available. Other adult relationships where a partner abandoned the person through betrayal or in an alternatively traumatic fashion could have contributed to this fear. Either way, the anxiously attached individual struggles with voicing needs, setting boundaries, and expressing upset in any capacity. There is an overwhelming concern that their partner will decide they are ‘too much’ and not worth the effort.
Struggles with uncertainty and inconsistency
Any person would struggle with uncertainty and inconsistency in a relationship, but for someone with an anxious attachment, this is the breeding ground for anxious behaviors to emerge. Uncertainty can cause an anxiously attached person to feel excessive anxiety over simple things that someone in a secure relationship would be able to tolerate. For example, an unreturned call or text message creates a void where the anxious individual allows doubt to creep in. The short time between outreach and response can quickly spiral into a sense of urgency and panic due to their need for reassurance and confirmation that everything is okay.
Inconsistency is always challenging, but in the anxiously attached, it repeatedly triggers their fear of abandonment. The anxious individual already has a hypervigilant feel for changes in the temperature of their relationship due to past traumas, so any time their partner’s mood shifts, they will notice and automatically assume there is a problem with the relationship or with them. Over time, these assumptions can take their toll on both the partner and the anxiously attached person. Unfortunately, due to their past, anxious individuals are more likely to tolerate inconsistency in a relationship for longer because they are hyperfocused on trying to figure out how they can get their partner to show up.
Prone to overthinking
Have you ever met someone who launches into a story with excessive detail after being asked a simple question? The anxiously attached person spends a LOT of time mapping out the meaning attached to situations in their life, especially those connected to their relationship. Much emotional and mental energy goes into spending time ‘figuring out’ what everything means, and it can be stressful for both partners. The important thing to realize is that they do it automatically in an attempt to make sense of each situation where they feel unsafe to help them regain that sense of certainty they crave.
Anxious partners easily fall into unhealthy patterns of overextending themselves and overgiving, and this massive investment of thought contributes to their exhaustion in a significant way. Ruminating about every little thing in the relationship may seem like an attractive strategy to the anxious person, but they eventually see themselves as putting in more effort than their partner, which can plant the seeds for resentment.
Often jealous and prone to comparison
Everyone experiences these feelings. After all, we are human, and these are adaptive traits subconsciously accessed and utilized to protect a partnership. It’s already hard enough for them not to picture their partner choosing someone else, so feelings of jealousy and comparison can be crippling for the anxiously attached person. They are hypersensitive, and their radar is on high alert (like, always); therefore, perceived competitors can feel deeply threatening to them.
Sometimes this can lead to the anxiously attached individual feeling like they must ‘manage’ the situation to feel safe. Unattractive anxiety-driven behaviors emerge, such as playing detective on social media or asking an overbearing amount of questions to obtain information that will reassure them everything is okay. Partners tend to see this as controlling behavior and find it very challenging to connect with their anxiously attached person due to the feelings of distrust that appear unchanging and neverending.
These are five of the most commonly seen traits in an anxiously attached person, but it is important to note that there are other behaviors and symptoms as well, as we are all different. If you are anxiously attached and can identify with this list of traits — chin up! Know that awareness is the first step and moving from insecure attachment to secure attachment in relationships is very possible with the right tools.
