If these insecurities are a common theme in your dating life, you may be struggling with an anxious preoccupied attachment style. The attachment theory outlines four attachment styles we all fall into: secure, avoidant, anxious, or fearful-avoidant. While these attachment styles are initially built in childhood, the behaviors are elastic and can shift over time depending on life experiences, relationship patterns, and personal growth. Here’s an overview of each style: “This leads the anxiously attached person to often feel uneasy about relationships despite a strong desire to feel intimately connected,” licensed mental health counselor Jor-El Caraballo, LMHC, tells mbg. These feelings motivate sometimes unhealthy behaviors that attempt to maintain the relationship, he adds. This can look like being hypervigilant for any factors that may threaten the relationship, being uncertain about someone’s feelings toward them, and needing constant reassurance. People with an anxious preoccupied attachment style rely on their external relationships to fulfill their inner self-worth, leading to an unmoored sense of self that constantly shifts based on their partner’s transient behaviors. As licensed psychotherapist Ling Lam, Ph.D., MFT, explains to mbg, the anxious-preoccupied individual is filled with anxiety about the possibility of rejection and abandonment, so they become preoccupied with seeking out and maintaining relationships to feel safe. Evolutionarily speaking, human brains are born premature, and many areas of the brain are not fully wired just yet. “Early attachment experiences between the young child and the caregivers, therefore, have a significant impact on the ‘relational software’ in the brain,” Lam explains. “There is a certain threshold for the brain to internalize a secure attachment template, [which develops through] about 30% attunement and the rest [through] natural rupture and repair.” Without proper attunement, the child internalizes an insecure attachment template. In the case of the anxious preoccupied attachment style, a child who grew up with inconsistent caregiving feels confused about their caregiver’s ability to be there for them. Sometimes they were there, and sometimes they were not. Because they never experienced the complete safety and security they needed to establish a strong self-worth, this manifests into an attachment style full of doubt about their caregiver’s behaviors and love. Without that security, they grow up fearful of someone’s ability to truly be there for them and love them back the way they want. This causes the anxious-preoccupied person to feel deeply insecure, yet dependent, in their romantic relationships. Later on, they may repeat the same drama of uncertainty as an adult because it secretly reaffirms their negative beliefs about themselves and love. Here’s what to do next: “Therapists can prove to be powerful allies and sounding boards to work through past relationship hurt and work through problematic ways of coping with relationship anxiety,” he advises. “Working through this in couples, or individual, therapy can be tremendously helpful in learning new skills and strategies for the partnership.”
