This month we will be taking one of our Ask Me Anything questions and Kimberly will weigh in with her thoughts. At Kimberly Keiser & Associates, we provide the opportunity for anyone to ask an anonymous question about their sexual health concerns.

Question:

I have an anxious attachment style and my girlfriend has an avoidant attachment style. It’s kind of a push-pull effect. I really like her and we seem to fit pretty well together. Any advice you can give me to help our relationship out?

Response From Kimberly:

You’ve got what I call a “broken picker.” All joking aside, this dynamic can be incredibly painful for couples experiencing it in their relations. In other words, they’ve experienced a history of negative or even abusive interactions with their primary attachment figures (parents and caregivers) and are unconsciously motivated to pick another person with similar attachment dynamics.

The concept of attachment styles is recognized throughout popular culture, originally described by John Bowlby’s work in 1970. A pioneer in developing our current understanding of how attachment works, Bowlby focused on attachment development in child-parent relationships. This relationship was found to inform how children develop internal working models or thoughts and expectancies about relationships and what to expect out of relationships in the future. Attachment orientations from childhood are also consistent with adult romantic attachments. A perhaps less known finding is that the way that adult romantic partners attach has also been linked to sexual satisfaction in sexual functioning.

Securely attached adults, experience high self-esteem, trust in their relationships, and a willingness to seek out others for support. They also report high satisfaction with their relationships and feel more positive thoughts about sex. Conversely, adults who are insecurely attached experience feelings of anxiety or avoidance. Individuals who have anxious attachment tend exhibit obsessive desires for being close and intimate, while fearing rejection. This is a direct correlation to early childhood experiences in which their caregivers or parents didn't consistently respond to their needs.

Adults with anxious attachment may be jealous or clingy in their romantic relationships. Avoidant attachment is the experience of being uncomfortable with intimacy and the belief that other people are unreliable. This is the result of childhood caregivers who were unavailable or not responsive to the child's needs. Adults with avoidant attachment tend to seem distant, or perhaps independent in romantic relationships. The function of these behaviors is a way to cope with the cost or perceived cost of getting too close to someone who just won't be there.As you may tell, there is significant research on attachment. There’s plenty of research out there that gives insight into both early childhood and adult experiences.

Attachment security is generally related to how well someone can regulate their emotions, while attachment insecurities are found to interfere with emotional regulation. Individuals with attachment insecurities tend to have anxiety through more rumination, negative emotional expression, and in general avoidance by suppressing emotions and not disclosing feelings to a partner. Attachment anxiety, as conceptualized early on by Bowlby, was a strategic hyperactivation of the attachment system that included vigilance about how much your attachment partner loves you, is committed to you, and needs to be close to you. In contrast, attachment related avoidance was seen as a strategic deactivation of the attachment system that allows one to wall off vulnerability to perceive threats of rejection and not rely on others for feelings of safety or security. If we look at attachment through the lens of an emotional regulation strategy, we can see how it impacts someone’s experience of being in an intimate relationship.

Research has shown couples where both individuals have secure attachment report greater satisfaction in their relationships. Alternatively, anxious and avoidant attachment can be harmful to the quality of the relationship. Research shows that avoidant attachment was associated with less satisfaction, connectedness, and general support in relationships, while anxious attachment is associated with more conflict in relationships.

From what I've seen in practice, it's pretty common for people with insecure attachment styles—whether anxious or avoidant—to end up in relationships together, just like the dynamic described in this Ask Me Anything question.

One of the reasons this pairing is more likely to occur is that the more intense need for affirmation and reassurance in the anxiously attached partner can provide a bridge to the more avoidantly attached partner —a compensating factor. What these individuals have in common is that neither are able to fully feel safe enough to be open and vulnerable. This push-pull dynamic can masquerade as the relationship itself when, in reality, it’s just two people with defensive attachment patterns keeping them from fully experiencing the kind of deep connection that comes with secure attachment.

If you’d like a more detailed look at your attachment style, I’d encourage you and your partner to take this free online attachment assessment: Your Attachment Structures.

Take some time to reflect on what your attachment style is and talk with each other about what you find out.

You don’t have to continue to choose partners that lead to relationships that are unfulfilling or have significant conflict. If you're already in a relationship with these dynamics, couples counseling can help both partners repair their attachment styles through a combination of different approaches and techniques.