Dating an Anxious Attachment Style

Dating an anxious attached person can be challenging. 

Knowing how and why an anxious person acts can make dating them more exciting and less stressful and help build a stronger relationship. 

Firstly, let’s take a look at attachment styles. 

Understanding Attachment Styles

Attachment styles provide insights into how individuals approach and navigate relationships. 

They are formed through childhood experiences, interactions, and beliefs with their parents, primary caregivers, or environments. 

There are four primary attachment styles -- one secure style; and three insecure attachment styles: 

Secure Attachment Individuals with a secure attachment style feel comfortable with intimacy and can easily trust and depend on their partners. They are confident in themselves, strive for open communication, and believe conflict is helpful in finding solutions.

Fearful Avoidant Attachment Part of the avoidant attachment style family. Those with fearful avoidant attachment (also known as disorganized attachment) experience a mix of anxiety and avoidance in relationships, often struggling with intimacy while also craving it. However, they become intense and committed when they’re in a relationship.

Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Individuals with dismissive avoidant attachment style tend to avoid emotional closeness and may prioritize independence over intimacy. They have overlapping tendencies with fearful avoidants, but their distinct behavior is withdrawing or shutting down when getting close to someone. 

Anxious Attachment The focus of today’s guide! Also known as anxious preoccupied, people with this style often worry about their relationships and seek constant reassurance and validation from their partners. They are known to become clingy, have abandonment issues, and might develop relationship anxiety. 

Scroll down to learn more about dating this attachment style.

Understanding the Anxious Attachment Style

People with an anxious attachment style overly identify with adult relationships and make them the most important thing in their lives. 

They crave emotional closeness and reassurance. They are sensitive to signs of withdrawal and tend to feel anxiety at the slightest sign of distance from their partner.

This can cause them to become clingy, latching onto their partner for security and reassurance. It is the biggest fear of an anxiously attached person.

These individuals often assume the worst, take things personally, and jump to conclusions if their partner isn’t responding how they expect them to, either with or without them.

It all comes from their core wounds of “No one wants to connect with me as deeply as I do” and “I’ll get abandoned sooner or later”, which triggers their fear of abandonment, which leads them to become clingy.

However, an anxiously attached partner can be supportive, loving, and committed. They will help grow the relationship, want to communicate their feelings openly, and will forgive matters. Ultimately, they can be a fantastic, openly loving, and encouraging partner. 

So, how do you know if you’re dating an anxiously attached person?

Am I Dating Someone With an Anxious Attachment Style?

Dating someone with an anxious attachment style can present some indicators that they have the attachment style:

Constant Need for Reassurance: They frequently seek validation and affirmation from you, expressing doubts about your feelings for them. You must always reassure them that the relationship is healthy and going places while showing them affection. 

Overanalyzing: Anxious preoccupied individuals tend to overthink situations and interpret innocent actions or statements as signs of rejection or disinterest. They think about the little things and can include anything from what you said, the tone in which you said it, or what you did.

Clinginess: They struggle to give you space and may become anxious or upset when you need time alone or with friends. Suppose they suspect their partner is leaving them or experiencing a moment of self-doubt about themselves or the relationship. In that case, they’ll cling to the person to ensure everything is okay.

Jealousy & Insecurity: Anxiously attached individuals may express jealousy over your interactions with others, fearing that they will be replaced or left behind. They tend to view outsiders as a threat to their relationship, whether it’s friends, family, or someone of the opposite sex. 

People-Pleasing: Anxious individuals tend to put other people first, focusing on their partner's behaviors and emotional needs while ignoring their own needs and desires as they base their lives on relationship outcomes. This can lead to issues or resentment in the future.

Difficulty Trusting: There are no surprises here that an anxiously attached person may have a hard time trusting you or believing in the stability of the relationship despite evidence to the contrary. They believe they’ll be abandoned or left alone. Therefore, they tend not to trust anyone to protect themselves.

High expectations: Anxious attached people tend to have high expectations of their partner. They want a secure relationship and expect certain things from their partner. If they don't meet them, it can cause doubts and friction.

Low-confidence: They are known for having low self-esteem, negative self-image, negative perceptions, and unwanted thoughts about themselves and relationships. You will notice this if they struggle to stand up for themselves or tell you about their trauma and issues (which is not a bad thing at all!).

12 Tips to Dating Someone With Anxious Attachment

Here are 12 tips for navigating a relationship with someone who struggles with attachment anxiety:

1. Be Patient & Understanding

Recognize that their anxiety is not a reflection of your actions or feelings. Anxious preoccupied individuals are merely acting on their own emotions, they just need to understand what they are doing and why. Be patient and empathetic as they work through their insecurities. It will show them that you’re really committed to helping them and the relationship.

2. Communicate Openly & Reassure Them

Be transparent about your feelings and intentions in the relationship. You can ease their fears and worries about themselves or the relationship by offering them regular reassurance and validation. While it might be overkill, having open communication and dialogue is the best way to strengthen the relationship.

3. Set Boundaries

Boundaries are notoriously hard for anxiously attached people. That’s because they latch on when they’re fearful. That’s why you have to communicate and establish clear boundaries in the relationship to help alleviate their anxiety. Be open about your needs for personal space and independence while also reaffirming your commitment to the relationship.

4. Encourage Independence

By setting boundaries above, you also empower them to pursue their interests and hobbies outside the relationship. Not only will this support their individual growth and self-discovery as an individual, but it will also strengthen the relationship's trust, transparency, and honesty.

5. Validate Their Feelings

There will always be moments when an anxiously attached partner experiences some concerns. The best action to take is to validate their emotions and concerns, even if you don't fully understand them. Let them know that it's okay to feel anxious and that you're there to support them with self-soothing.

6. Practice Active Listening

Listen attentively to their worries and fears without judgment. If you are not paying attention to them, they'll think that you're not interested in what they have to say, they'll start overthinking it. Validate their experiences and offer empathy and understanding. It makes a world of difference in terms of their attachment issues.

7. Avoid Triggers

Be mindful of their triggers and avoid behaviors or situations that exacerbate their anxiety. Understanding what triggers them can help you navigate around them, avoiding potential conflicts or issues in the relationship.

8. Be Consistent and Reliable

Be consistent in your actions and words to build trust and security in the relationship. If you follow through on your promises and commitments, you’ll develop the trust in the relationship, putting them at ease.

9. Stop Them from Over-Pleasing You

If you notice that your anxiously attached partner is going above and beyond for you to do anything you ask and want, it means they’re heading into people-pleasing territory. Make them aware that they’re going too far, so they can focus on themselves.

10. Know Your Attachment Style

Many partners clash because of their attachment styles. Understanding yours is the first step to determining what you need to work on yourself and how your attachment style impacts someone with an anxious attachment style.

11. Take Care of Yourself

As much as we love to focus on our partner, remember to prioritize your own well-being and mental health. Set boundaries to protect yourself, practice self-care, embrace platonic relationships, and do things that make you happy — without your partner. This will save you from emotional exhaustion and burnout.

12. Promote Becoming Securely Attached

Becoming securely attached is one of the best ways to empower any relationship. Being securely attached means you have the confidence in yourself and the relationship to work out in the long-term, managing any problems with clear communication. It might be a tough journey, but you can do it with your partner.

3 Tips for Dating with an Anxious Attachment Style

Now, let’s flip this around:

Dating can feel particularly challenging for people with an anxious attachment style.

This phase of a relationship, where there is more insecurity, potentially less communication, and commitment, has yet to be made. This can put the anxious preoccupied person in chasing mode, where they double text, call until they get an answer, or just demand reassurance.

So, as an anxious attached person, how do you manage dating?

Here are some tips for you:

Get Clearn on Your Value & Needs

Awareness is the first step to change. To know what makes you anxious in a relationship, journal or contemplate your values and needs. When you feel triggered, you can tie the feeling to what value is not being met and communicate it to your partner.

Communicate Instead of Jumping to Conclusions

Anxious preoccupied people tend to take even the slightest emotional distance personally. Because of their fear of abandonment, they tend to have poor boundaries and avoid sharing their worries. Remember that you matter, and it is better that you are open and honest from the start and it's all about how you communicate your concerns.

For example, everything is going well with a new love interest when suddenly, you don't hear from them for a few days. You feel that anxiety and intense fear build up. Have they lost interest? Did you say something wrong?

When this happens, the trick is to catch yourself in the moment, take a deep breath, and feel how you can communicate your feelings from a place of love. It will help keep you grounded.

Avoid Playing Relationships Out in Your Head

Of all the attachment styles, anxious preoccupied people may be the most prone to falling in love with potential, thinking about future relationships. This can look like idealizing your partner before they have proven themselves, going into neediness, and becoming attached to them. While it's important not to assume the worst, the opposite is also true, as the evolution of the relationship needs to be assessed based on facts rather than fantasies.

If your partner shows no effort in compromising and meeting your needs despite you communicating them clearly, and you are in a constant state of anxiety, it's probably best to move on.

Whether as an anxious attached person or not, you can improve your dating life by searching and signing up for our Conscious Dating: Thrive in Your Love Life program.

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