Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Adult Attachment Styles and How It Relates to My Relationships


Attachment style is the way a person relates to others in an intimate relationship. But what exactly is attachment? Attachment is special emotional relationship that involves an exchange of comfort, care, and pleasure which is established in childhood (HDFS 115 Lecture 2). I have recently taken a quiz on my personal attachment style and I would like to share my results. My attachment anxiety score was 4.83 (on a scale of 1 low anxiety to 7 high), and my avoidance score was 1.78 (ranging from 1 low avoidance to 7 high avoidance). If someone scores high in attachment anxiety, they will often experience fear of rejection. If someone scores high in attachment avoidance, they are less comfortable opening up in their relationship. My taking this quiz (the linking is posted below), I learned that my attachment style is “(insecure) anxious/preoccupied.”

For those of you who don’t know, there are four different types of adult attachment theories within relationships. The first one is secure, which is being emotionally close and opening up to the partner. The next attachment theory is anxious/preoccupied, which I will explain in the next paragraph. The third theory is dismissive/avoidant, which could be someone who is comfortable without close relationships. And finally, the last attachment theory is called fearful/avoidant, which is having mixed feelings about close relationships.

Again, the attachment theory that best describes me (according to the quiz, which I agree with) is anxious/preoccupied. In this attachment I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, however I find others not as eager to get intimate. For example, I was seeing this guy for a long time and I wanted to have a committed “dating” relationship with him but he did not want a girlfriend. In this attachment, I can be overly dependent of others. My last boyfriend of 5 years would also be busy with playing sports, and I would just sit around waiting for him to have time for me to make me happy. I realize after we broke up that I had no idea how to make myself happy, I would always rely on him. And finally, I found myself as being “clingy,” as this attachment style explains.




No comments:

Post a Comment