Secure, Anxious, and Avoidant. Basically, secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving; anxious people crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back; avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.

Attachment principles teach us that most people are only as needy as their unmet needs. When their emotional needs are met, and the earlier the better, they usually turn their attention outward. This is sometimes referred to in attachment literature as the “dependency paradox”: The more effectively dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become.

The study demonstrates that when two people form an intimate relationship, they regulate each other’s psychological and emotional well-being.

When participants felt that their goals were supported by their partner, they reported an increase in self-esteem and an elevated mood after the discussion. They also rated higher the likelihood of achieving their goals after the discussion than before it. Participants who felt that their partner was more intrusive and/or less supportive, on the other hand, were less open to discussing their goals, did not confidently examine ways for achieving those goals, and tended to downgrade their goals during the course of the discussion.

When our partner is unable to meet our basic attachment needs, we experience a chronic sense of disquiet and tension that leaves us more exposed to various ailments. Not only is our emotional well-being sacrificed when we are in a romantic partnership with someone who doesn’t provide a secure base, but so is our physical health.

Research shows that avoidants hardly ever date one another. They simply lack the glue that keeps things together.

Expressing your needs and true feelings can be a useful litmus test of the other person’s capacity to meet your needs. The response, in real time, is usually much more telling than anything he or she could ever reveal of their own accord: If s/he’s secure—s/he’ll understand and do what’s best to accommodate your needs. If s/he’s anxious—you’ll serve as a useful role model. He or she will welcome the opportunity for greater intimacy and start to become more direct and open. If s/he’s avoidant—s/he will feel very uncomfortable with the increased intimacy that your emotional disclosure brings and will respond in one of the following ways: “You’re too sensitive/demanding/needy.” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Stop analyzing everything!” “What do you want from me? I didn’t do anything wrong.” He or she will consider your needs on a certain matter only to disregard them again very soon after. “Geez, I said I was sorry.”

The famous seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza said: “All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.”

This is an important lesson for someone with an anxious attachment style: If you just wait a little longer before reacting and jumping to conclusions, you will have an uncanny ability to decipher the world around you and use it to your advantage. But shoot from the hip, and you’re all over the place making misjudgments and hurting yourself.

Even if your rational mind knows you shouldn’t be with this person, your attachment system doesn’t always comply. The process of attachment follows its own course and its own schedule. This means you will continue to think about the other person and will be unable to push them out of your mind for a very long time.

Remember, an activated attachment system is not passionate love. Next time you date someone and find yourself feeling anxious, insecure, and obsessive—only to feel elated every once in a while—tell yourself this is most likely an activated attachment system and not love! True love, in the evolutionary sense, means peace of mind.

The trick is not to get hooked on the highs and lows and mistake an activated attachment system for passion or love. Don’t let emotional unavailability turn you on.

The key to finding a mate who can fulfill those needs is to first fully acknowledge your need for intimacy, availability, and security in a relationship—and to believe that they are legitimate. They aren’t good or bad, they are simply your needs. Don’t let people make you feel guilty for acting “needy” or “dependent.” Don’t be ashamed of feeling incomplete when you’re not in a relationship, or for wanting to be close to your partner and to depend on him.

If you have an anxious attachment style, you tend to get attached very quickly, even just on the basis of physical attraction.

Once your attachment system is activated, you begin to crave the other person’s closeness and will do anything in your power to make it work even before you really get to know him/her and decide whether you like that person or not! If you are seeing only him/her, the result is that at a very early stage you lose your ability to judge whether he or she is really right for you. By using the abundance philosophy, you maintain your ability to evaluate potential partners more objectively. What you are actually doing is desensitizing your attachment system and tricking it into being easier on you. Your system will no longer get so easily activated by one person because it will be busy evaluating the availability of a lot of different people, and you won’t be as likely to obsess about anyone in particular.

Once you’ve recognized someone you’ve met as secure, remember not to make impulsive decisions about whether s/he is right for you. Remind yourself that you might feel bored at first—after all, there is less drama when your attachment system isn’t activated. Give it some time. Chances are, if you are anxious, you will automatically interpret calmness in the relationship as a lack of attraction.

When it comes to attachment and gender, the most important fact to remember is that the majority of the population—both male and female—are secure.

Studies show that belief in self-reliance is very closely linked with a low degree of comfort with intimacy and closeness.

A strong belief in self-reliance can be more of a burden than an asset. In romantic relationships, it reduces your ability to be close, to share intimate information, and to be in tune with your partner. Many avoidants confuse self-reliance with independence.

Another problem with self-reliance is the “self” part. It forces you to ignore the needs of your partner and concentrate only on your own needs, shortchanging you of one of the most rewarding human experiences: It prevents you (and the person you love) from the joy of feeling part of something bigger than yourself.

Typical of people with an avoidant attachment style. They tend to see the glass half-empty instead of half-full when it comes to their partner.

The problem is that, along with your self-reliant attitude, you also train yourself not to care about how the person closest to you is feeling. You figure that this is not your task; that they need to take care of their own emotional well-being.

Once the avoidant person has put time and distance between herself and the partner whom she’s lost interest in, something strange happens: The feelings of love and admiration return! Once at a safe distance, the threat of intimacy is gone and you no longer feel the need to suppress your true feelings. You can then recall all of your ex’s great qualities, convincing yourself that he or she was the best partner you ever had. Of course, you can’t articulate why this person wasn’t right for you, or remember clearly why you ended things in the first place (or perhaps behaved so miserably that he or she had no choice but to leave).

What is true is that people with an avoidant attachment style overwhelmingly assume that the reason they’re unable to find happiness in a relationship has little to do with themselves and a lot to do with external circumstances—meeting the wrong people, not finding “the one,” or only hooking up with prospects who want to tie them down. They rarely search inside themselves for the reason for their dissatisfaction, and even more rarely seek help or even agree to get help when their partner suggests they do so. Unfortunately, until they look inward or seek counseling, change is not likely to occur.

If you’re with someone secure, they nurture you into a more secure stance.

On average, about 70 to 75 percent of adults remain consistently in the same attachment category at different points in their lives, while the remaining 25 to 30 percent of the population report a change in their attachment style. Researchers attribute this change to romantic relationships in adulthood that are so powerful that they actually revise our most basic beliefs and attitudes toward connectedness. And yes, that change can happen in both directions—secure people can become less secure and people who were originally insecure can become increasingly secure.

Studies in the field of attachment have confirmed that subjects with a more secure attachment style are indeed less likely to play games.

The principles we advocate throughout this book for finding the right partner are employed intuitively by people with a secure attachment style. They include: Spotting “smoking guns” very early on and treating them as deal breakers. Effectively communicating your needs from day one. Subscribing to the belief that there are many (yes, many!) potential partners who could make you happy. Never taking blame for a date’s offensive behavior. When a partner acts inconsiderately or hurtfully, secures acknowledge that it says a lot about the other person rather than about themselves. Expecting to be treated with respect, dignity, and love.

If you’re secure, one of the reasons you’re able to maintain a satisfying relationship with someone who has an insecure attachment style is because he or she will gradually become more secure as a result of being with you. When you date someone anxious, this is most often what happens.

Sometimes secure people, despite their innate talent for warding off potentially unsuitable matches and making their partners more secure, can find themselves in bad relationships. This can happen not only when they’re inexperienced but also when they respond to their long-term partner’s unacceptable behavior, by continuing to give them the benefit of the doubt and tolerate their actions.

Secure attachment style have healthy instincts and usually catch on very early that someone is not cut out to be their partner. The bad news is that when secure people do, on occasion, enter into a negative relationship, they might not know when to call it quits—especially if it’s a long-term, committed relationship in which they feel responsible for their partner’s happiness.

Our connection with our pets is an excellent example of a secure presence in our lives. We can tap into our attitudes toward our pets as a secure resource within us—we don’t assume our pets are doing things purposely to hurt us, we don’t hold grudges even when they eat something they shouldn’t or make a mess, we still greet them warmly when we come home (even after a rough day at the office), and we stick by them no matter what.

Intruding.

Understanding that your continual arguments actually have a hidden subtext to them—that they genuinely are irresolvable—changes your perception of your own role dramatically. Once you understand that your partner will always find areas of contention as a way of maintaining distance and that s/he will always need to withdraw, no matter whom s/he is with—you will no longer blame yourself for the relationship problems.

Avoidants need to actively suppress their attachment needs, but they tend to report being less happy in relationships. Still, they often blame their unhappiness on their partner.

While people with an anxious attachment style prefer strong emotional involvement during sex and enjoy the intimate aspects of lovemaking like kissing and caressing, avoidants have very different preferences. They might choose to focus only on the sexual act itself, forgoing holding and cuddling, or to put rules into place like “no kissing” in order to make sex feel less intimate. Others might have sex only rarely—or never—with their partner, or fantasize about others while doing so. (Long-term couples may use fantasy to spice up their sex life, but they do so as a way to get closer. With avoidants, fantasy is not part of a mutual adventure but rather a deactivating strategy to keep them isolated.)

It’s been found that the anxious partner uses sex to achieve a sense of affirmation and as a barometer of attractiveness in the eyes of his/her mate.

As painful as it is to be mistreated by your partner, severing an attachment bond is even more excruciating. You may understand rationally that you should leave, but your emotional brain may not yet be ready to make that move. The emotional circuits that make up our attachment system evolved to discourage us from being alone.

Anxious people may take a very long time to get over a bad attachment, and they don’t get to decide how long it will take. Only when every single cell in their body is completely convinced that there is no chance that their partner will change or that they will ever reunite will they be able to deactivate and let go.

Effective communication is the quickest, most direct way to determine whether your prospective partner will be able to meet your needs. Your date’s response to effective communication can reveal more in five minutes than you could learn in months of dating without this kind of discourse.

Five Secure Principles for Resolving Conflict Show basic concern for the other person’s well-being. Maintain focus on the problem at hand. Refrain from generalizing the conflict. Be willing to engage. Effectively communicate feelings and needs.