Working on our own Attachment Style

[Deg]

Hey Guys, I hope you are all having a great year so far! I had quick thing to ask. I have an anxious attachment style.
I didn't have a great relationship with my parents growing up, like they were both present but my dad was always at work and my mom had(still has) some of her own emotional issues that she placed on me which meant that my upbringing may not have been as stable from an attachment or needs met perspective. I still don't really get along with her, and I suffered from the nice guy stuff growing up. Luckily, I found this website and game early on though and put the information to good use. I have learned a lot from the articles on the website and I have gotten my lay count up decently well. I am at a stage in my life however where I want to get very serious with my career and a start a family.
The issue is that when I get into a long term relationship or a situation that requires a involved emotional connection, my anxiety comes out and makes the relationship difficult. I struggle to stop ruminating on every aspect of the relationship and will overanalyze all the moments with a gf. I feel like its distracting, destroys my trust in her, and distracts me from my mission/career. A lot of the relationship advice on the website is amazing and super helpful, but I feel like its very hard to apply to my life due to my past and my subconscious. I logically understand why certain concepts are super important like " walk away at any time," "need the relationship less," "don't be so attached" "the person who cares/needs less holds the control/power" etc. I understand why those concepts are important and helpful, but on an emotional or subconscious level I am having difficulty actually feeling it. I am not able to apply it practically especially because I can't feel it even though logically I understand it.
I tend to attach very easily and strongly in my relationships whether it be a girlfriend, or friends, or extended family. I am not able to separate from the relationships easily and I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve more. I try to fight this, but the subconscious usually wins out. I don't seem to have these problems with one night stands and picking up girls because there aren't any deeper emotions involved. Do you guys have any advice on how to overcome an anxious attachment style or how I can make that work with long term relationships. or what to screen for in a relationship or something? Anything would help. Thank you!

for the TLDR: I have an anxious attachment. I do fine with getting girls for ONS and short term. I have issues with long term relationships and close relationships with others, and I am trying to figure out how to be more of a secure attachment

 

[ulrich]

Hi, @Deg.

I went through a similar challenge last year but unlike you my attachment style was avoidant, instead of anxious.
I used to struggle a lot creating long term relationships (I was the king of FWBs and fast Tinder lays) but all girls I really liked seemed to run from me.

It took some time until I finally decided to ask some of my ex-gfs what the hell was going on and the universal feedback was that I was very cold.
It was a surprise for me!! I was going out of my way to be present and attentive!!
They all commented that, while I was a great guy, they felt I always had a foot at the door and that I was really not opening to them.
A total shocker, as I had come from a very long journey of making myself more available to women.

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that my values system was simply shifted… that whatever I considered “close” and “warm” for me was still landing as “distant” and “cold” for most people (which not coincidentally, are the two words I would use to describe my stepfather… you do learn some things at home) and I decided to stop trusting my instinct and try to be even warmer and closer than what my gust would suggest.

A couple of months later, I landed a super cool super sexy girl and now I am one year into the best relationship in my life.

I can’t really explain all the details as this is something I have only lived once but my advice to you is stop trusting your gut in whatever judgement it makes relating to “anxious” and “confident”.

Be less jealous than you feel it makes sense, trust your girl a little more than you have ever done it and be calmer than what your logic calls it for.
After a couple of months you will see that the results are much better.

Most likely you’re anxious because you lack the experience of landing on the opposite site so your brain is calibrating from a set of shifted limited experiences.
Time to feed your brain with a richer pool to take experiences from.

 

[TomInHo]

It's awesome that you're aware of your situation, but the best way to get through this is experience

You may have an anxious attachment now, but as you gain more experience in relationships your emotions will level out. Because when everything is new it's tough for you to think with a level head

Believe me I know, because I have an avoidant attachment style and whenever I tried to be more present in my relationships my anxiety went through the roof. My partners will try to get close, but my instincts would tell me to run the other way. So when I forced myself to stay and put in effort it felt very incongruent at first

And to be honest it still feels odd at times when I'm warmer with partners but it's a lot better now and feels surprisingly good to be vulnerable with someone else and not fear that they're gonna run away.

So I guess for you it would be the opposite... that you need to practice letting your partner come to you more and trusting that they won't leave you if you maintain your independence and identity outside the relationship

Also don't overlook importance of picking a long term partner you're emotionally compatible with. Because they're girls out there that for some reason won't flare up your attachment insecurities as often. But since emotional control in relationships is a sticking point for you, it actually makes sense for you to partner up with girls that make you feel insecure at first....

Meaning, if you meet a cool chick and after 3-4 lays you start getting anxious, do your best to keep the relationship going as long as possible. It would be a great learning tool, and help you later for when you meet girls you're more emotionally compatible with

 

[Will_V]

Hey Guys, I hope you are all having a great year so far! I had quick thing to ask. I have an anxious attachment style.
I didn't have a great relationship with my parents growing up, like they were both present but my dad was always at work and my mom had(still has) some of her own emotional issues that she placed on me which meant that my upbringing may not have been as stable from an attachment or needs met perspective. I still don't really get along with her, and I suffered from the nice guy stuff growing up. Luckily, I found this website and game early on though and put the information to good use. I have learned a lot from the articles on the website and I have gotten my lay count up decently well. I am at a stage in my life however where I want to get very serious with my career and a start a family.
The issue is that when I get into a long term relationship or a situation that requires a involved emotional connection, my anxiety comes out and makes the relationship difficult. I struggle to stop ruminating on every aspect of the relationship and will overanalyze all the moments with a gf. I feel like its distracting, destroys my trust in her, and distracts me from my mission/career. A lot of the relationship advice on the website is amazing and super helpful, but I feel like its very hard to apply to my life due to my past and my subconscious. I logically understand why certain concepts are super important like " walk away at any time," "need the relationship less," "don't be so attached" "the person who cares/needs less holds the control/power" etc. I understand why those concepts are important and helpful, but on an emotional or subconscious level I am having difficulty actually feeling it. I am not able to apply it practically especially because I can't feel it even though logically I understand it.
I tend to attach very easily and strongly in my relationships whether it be a girlfriend, or friends, or extended family. I am not able to separate from the relationships easily and I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve more. I try to fight this, but the subconscious usually wins out. I don't seem to have these problems with one night stands and picking up girls because there aren't any deeper emotions involved. Do you guys have any advice on how to overcome an anxious attachment style or how I can make that work with long term relationships. or what to screen for in a relationship or something? Anything would help. Thank you!

for the TLDR: I have an anxious attachment. I do fine with getting girls for ONS and short term. I have issues with long term relationships and close relationships with others, and I am trying to figure out how to be more of a secure attachment

With things that are difficult to deal with, facing them in a controlled way usually helps a lot.

Most emotional problems we have come from a place of lacking self esteem, of thinking we are not enough. It certainly sounds like this might have been an issue for you - with your parents being absent or difficult to manage a relationship with. This kind of thing feeds into nice guy syndrome as well.

So perhaps you are afraid that you aren't doing enough to get what you need, or be worthy of it, making you dwell on your relationships in fear of losing them.

There's a lot to unravel in what goes into this kind of thing, it's a complicated issue with many layers. For myself, I used to have 'nice guy syndrome' with other people, but I was somehow able to be very hard and unforgiving in pushing myself toward the goals I set for myself. Bringing those two together is what I have had to learn how to do. I believe everyone who is imbalanced (whether toward being a nice guy or being cold/avoidant) is burying something out of fear, and the main task of each individual is to manage all of their different sides so that together they are able to express themselves in the form of an integrated and capable character.

There are many books and talks out there on this subject, but I believe that everything starts with insight into oneself. I can only say that every improvement I brought about in myself started off with exploring my emotions, my impulses and my thoughts without judgement. Meditation helps a lot here (in fact for me it was essential) in creating that kind of bubble. The idea is to observe yourself and understand how the emotions play out, where they come from, how they express physically and mentally, and to simply establish clearly what is going on, without latching onto any kind of judgement as to what it all means about you, or allowing them to sneak unnoticed into the stream of conscious and intentional expression.

As you unravel the problem, two things tend to happen: because the issue has your clear attention, it loses some of its emotional turmoil and becomes more of a logical problem, and secondly, opposing emotions start to come out - for example if you've had 'nice guy syndrome' anger and rage, cold clear-mindedness, satisfying self-centeredness etc can appear spontaneously, or if you have been hiding behind a cold exterior, the desire to be close to other people, and to be truthfully seen and understood by them, comes out. These also have to be treated the same way - observed calmly, explored, understood, but never either opposed or allowed to run rampant. They will run their emotional course to bring everything back toward a balance.

In my experience there is not a whole lot of theoretical or procedural stuff that goes into curing oneself of emotional problems, mostly what is required is to create a psychological environment where everything that is buried can slowly make its way back out and reassert itself without triggering the uncontrolled emotions that buried it in the first place. It is really a journey into oneself, of self-knowledge, one that many people never do, but for some people it's not just a good idea but absolutely necessary. It takes a lot of time, and often involves a couple of steps forward and one back, but I don't think there's anything better that someone can experience than moving away from emotional confusion and turmoil and toward clear and honest self-expression.

 

[Winston]

Call me crazy but I think TRE can help a lot with that, even solve the problem.

I used to be avoidant but I wasn't aware of that. When she dumped me, my ex girlfriend told me things about me that were consistent with an avoidant style. So I looked into this theory and it explains a lot regarding the history of my relationships with other people. And it was consistent with my childhood without a father and with a mother that was chronically ill. I had to learn to not count too much on others and I perceived the world as an hostile place.

But even after being award of that, it sounded complicated to do anything about it because those are behavior and emotional patterns that are deeply ingrained within oneself.

But I have done very regurlarly TRE for 9 months now. And I believe it had influence many things in a positive direction with regards to the way I deal with others and the way I react to them. I get offended way less easily, I have more realistical expectations regarding others, and overall I seem to make friends more easily. All in all, from the perspective of someone else, I am probably easier to deal with than I was before. I cannot judge regarding a relationship with a girlfriend since I have not had one since, but I am hopeful it will help regarding that too.

And to give a seemingly unrelated example, I was very afraid of taking planes, I had to drink alcohol and to take an anxiolitic before being able to take a plane. But now I am not afraid anymore of taking a plane, at all. The only way I can explain this change is through my TRE practice, because I had this problem for 15 years and it has suddenly disappeared. And I reckon it shows the kind of positive effects TRE can have on deeply ingrained emotional patterns.

 

[nolimits]

Also don't overlook importance of picking a long term partner you're emotionally compatible with. Because they're girls out there that for some reason won't flare up your attachment insecurities as often. But since emotional control in relationships is a sticking point for you, it actually makes sense for you to partner up with girls that make you feel insecure at first....

Funny how that’s what I’ve decided to work on in the next few months. I have a bit of an anxious style (a bit for i m mostly secure ) and I want to turn it into a full secure, so I work on having relationships with somewhat avoidant girls to balance it out