I found this great website about adult attachment. Here is the link: http://www.
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Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
for Adults and Couples
ATTACHMENT AND COUPLES
- Adult intimate relationships are often defined by emotional responsiveness - when needs for closeness, support and security are either met or not met. Attachment security occurs when partners can provide comfort and support to one another during emotionally difficult times.
- Attachment injuries can occur when needs for comfort, closeness and security are not met. These injuries or traumas create barriers to the ongoing security of the relationship, and result in negative emotions and a cycle of distressing interactions.
- Partners commonly have differences in their attachment styles and internal working models (belief systems). These working models, based on past relationships, guide their current perceptions and construction of reality.
- Attachment styles and working models, learned in our early years, can be changed. Such change can redefine the couple relationship in significant ways.
- Adults with a history of trauma (e.g., abuse, neglect, severe loss) typically have a greater need for safe and secure relationships. However, they also have difficulty trusting their partners. Learning to create a healthy relationship provides an arena to heal old wounds and establish a meaningful bond for the future.
We are biologically organized to seek and maintain attachments with others through which we learn the lessons of love, inter-dependence and trust. The quality of our core relationships has a profound effect on our health and well-being. Studies show that the level of marital happiness is the strongest predictor of overall life satisfaction.
When we enter into relationships, both partners bring along all their unresolved conflicts, fears, hurts and expectations. There is a strong tendency to recreate abusive, neglectful, or in other ways hurtful relationships from childhood with our adult partners. These old dysfunctional patterns become indistinguishable from current emotional triggers. A stacking of emotions can occur whereby an event in a current relationship triggers the unleashing of old feelings and reactions, creating a confusion of powerful old hurts and new ones. If our emotions in a situation are disproportionate to the provocation, we are probably bringing up an old hurt.
The tendency to unconsciously attract relationships that reenact past conflicts and beliefs is called "repetition compulsion." This drive to repeat familiar patterns, no matter how painful or self-defeating, is very powerful. For example, adult children of alcoholics frequently marry alcoholics, and an abused child with a high tolerance for maltreatment may grow up and attract high levels of stress and conflict in his/her marriage. We unconsciously are attracted to people who allow us to revisit our childhood issues in an attempt to get it right.
To be successful in relationships, we must also learn how to blend our differences. When couples fall in love, differences are easily tolerated, and both work hard to please each other. However, as we become more familiar and the stresses of life take their toll, our best behavior is quickly eroded. Soon our little differences become annoyances and our predominant attachment style emerges. Partners commonly have different styles, which guides their attitudes and behaviors in relationships. We often attempt to change the other person to fit more comfortably with our own beliefs. This rarely works. The following is how the various adult attachment styles look in relationships.
Attachment Styles and Relationships
Attachment styles learned in our early years can be changed. We provide appropriate corrective emotional experiences whereby more "secure" attachment styles can be learned. These modifications can redefine the couple's relationship in many significant ways. Learning to create a healthier relationship provides an arena to heal old wounds and to establish a meaningful bond for the future.
Secure Adults
Securely attached adults have the ability to connect and feel close, and also to honor their own and their partner's need for separateness. They are responsive and empathic to their partner's feelings and can easily forgive. They have appropriate boundaries and are confident, trusting and loving mates.
Avoidant Adults
Avoidant adults become physically and emotionally distant in relationships. They prefer detachment rather than connection, because of a very strong unconscious fear of dependency, which they believe will lead to rejection. They are unresponsive and intolerant to the needs and feelings of their mates. They are rigid and lack spontaneity. They are often angry, controlling and critical. They need considerable reassurance and praise, but do not ask for it. Thye do not do well disclosing feelings or being intimate. They can be a responsible partner if you do not make many emotional demands of them.
Ambivalent Adults
Ambivalent adults are up and down in relationships. One moment they might be available and the next rejecting. They love arguments and rarely get resolution on issues. They are over-close in relationships. Their needs are always changing, yet they expect their partners to know what their needs are and to meet them. They tend to want to control in a critical, demanding and volatile manner, yet rely on their partners to keep the family going. They are quick to blame others and can tantrum when they do not get their way. They might hit below the belt in a fight. They fight hard and play hard and are never dull, keeping their mates off guard with an unpredictable and charming nature. They need a grounded partner to keep them in check.
Disorganized Adults
Disorganized adults have chaotic relationships. They do not give love and affection easily and are unresponsive and insensitive to their partner's needs. Abuse and neglect is common in their families. They have explosive rages and lack empathy and compassion for their mates. Because of their damaging early experiences, they have a great need for safe and secure relationships, yet lack the trust in their partners to help create it.
The absence of secure attachment creates considerable distress, resulting in vulnerability to a variety of physical, emotional, social and moral problems. Attachment experiences and patterns extend into adult life, and influence: 1. feelings of security, 2. personal meaning given to experiences and relationships, 3. the ability to develop and maintain close affectional bonds, and 4. conflict and feelings of isolation commonly experienced by couples.
Here is the link to find out what your attachment style is: http://www.web-research-de
