At some time or another, most of us have heard of the “Five Love Languages." If you haven’t, let me give you a quick overview. Love Languages are the 5 categories that outline how we express and experience love. Knowing your Love Language and your significant other’s Love Language could help improve your relationship and understand one another. However, if the foundation of your relationship is not solid, will knowing and understanding one another’s love language save the relationship? There’s a good chance that it won’t.
Often, I hear sentiments such as these…
“I don’t know why they ignore my calls or texts for days.”
“Every time I try to address a problem, they ignore me.”
“I just can’t seem to connect with my partner. It seems strange to me.”
“I can’t hang out with friends without them getting upset.”
Perhaps understanding attachment styles will give you more insight into your behaviors in your relationships and your current or past partners’ behaviors. I often utilize attachment styles as the guidelines to a healthy relationship as it gives you things or flags to look for when dating others as well as bringing insight to your own stuff.
Well, you may be wondering…"What are attachment styles?" As a child, our caregivers are our first teachers and their attachment style often rubs off on us. It's also possible to sustain changes to your attachment style after having traumatic experience in dating. Attachment styles are strongly related to how you attached to others as a child. Then as we grow older attachment styles are telling as to how we respond within intimate relationships. It is how we perceive emotional intimacy, handle conflict, communicate or needs, and expectations of our relationships and our partners. Many of these become the foundation in which our relationships are built on…but if the foundation is broken, how far will your love language take you?
There are four attachment styles: secure, dismissive, anxious, and disorganized.
Secure attachment style:
Can handle conflicts well
Have healthy interdependent relationships with their partner
More trusting and forgiving
Communicates their needs well and listens to their partner’s needs
More empathetic and attuned to their partners and responds appropriately
Example: Both partners can hang out with friends separately without it being a problem.
Dismissive attachment style:
Often prioritizes their autonomy over their relationship
Often pulls away and do not depend on their partner
They are not comfortable expressing their emotions but they do well with communicating intellectually
They are often good in crisis situations, avoids conflicts, and prefers to be alone
They are often disengaged, detached, and not attuned to their partner or children
Example: A dismissive partner may spend so much time alone that they negate their relationship.
Anxious attachment style:
Often preoccupied with their partners and fear rejection and abandonment
They express needy behaviors and desire reassurance
High conflict and take their partner’s actions personally.
They often become codependent, have poor boundaries
Unwilling to take accountability for their actions, moody, unpredictable, and not attuned to their partner’s or children’s needs
Example: An anxious partner may constantly ask their significant other if they love them for reassurance.
Disorganized attachment style:
Individuals often come from a place of unresolved trauma
Exhibit substance abuse behaviors, anger, aggression, criminality, abusive behaviors and may be narcissistic
They may script past trauma into their current relationships and how they parent
Does not handle conflict well.
Example: Disorganized partners may gaslight their partner where the partner questions their reality/feelings.
Do you identify with any of these attachment styles? Can you identify your mother, father or caregivers, or your current or past partners? Is there a pattern? Understanding your attachment style can help you understand what changes you need to make in moving towards a more secure attachment style. It can also help you in navigating the dating field to identify individuals with healthy attachment styles.
Understand that not everyone has or will migrate towards a secure attachment style naturally and that’s okay. However, are you, your current or future partner willing to acknowledge and be aware of their attachment styles to move into healthier behaviors? Just because you are not secure now doesn’t mean you can’t work towards it. Having awareness of your attachment styles can help you hold yourself accountable. For example, if you catch yourself avoiding conflict what can you do to talk to your partner to resolve the problem? Or if you constantly prefer alone time and prefer autonomy, how can you move towards spending more time with your significant other?
It may take time to relearn healthy ways to maneuver towards a secure attachment style, especially if you have lived most of your life without understanding why you or your partner do what you do in relationships. Bringing this into awareness will help you to determine whether you are dating someone who is willing to do the work. Moving into a secure attachment style for a stronger relationship takes work, but it is possible. Once the foundation is healthy, bringing love languages into the relationship will be a bonus in cultivating a stronger relationship.
Explore more about attachment styles here
Authored by: Shae Ivie-Williams, LPC