We all cringe a little thinking about one of our exes, wondering why the hell we were so attracted (aka obsessed) with them? Well ladies, I have answers for you. want to know how to deal with anxious attachment style in dating?
This article will help you to stop feeling anxious, attract a good partner for you and build a healthy relationship.
This post contains affiliate links which means I might earn a commission on any qualified purchase at no extra cost to you.
In this article:
What’s an anxious attachment style?
1. How to recognize your anxious patterns in dating
1.1 Thought patterns of anxiously attached women
1.2 Behaviors that indicate that your anxious attachment style is activated
1.3 Real-life example of a dating situation with an anxious attachment style
2. How to find the right partner
2.1 Who is the best partner for an anxiously attached woman?
2.2 Red flags to watch out for in potential partners
3. How to overcome your anxiety when dating
3.1 Tips for expressing your needs in a relationship
3.2 How to deal with avoidant partners
Most of the info in this post is taken from this book. Scroll to the end of this post for a sneak peak of my excitement about it!
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What’s an anxious attachment style?
Let’s first define what is an attachment system:
The attachment system is the mechanism in our brain responsible for tracking and monitoring the safety and availability of our attachment figures.
– from the book Attached
People with anxious attachment style have an hypersensitive attachment system in relationships, detecting any and every signal that your relationship is threatened.
The attachment style questionnaire
Want to confirm you have an anxious attachment style in dating? Fill out this fully validated adult attachment questionnaire to measure your attachment style.
The 3 fundamental principles that will revolutionize your dating experience as an anxiously attached woman
Here are the 3 fundamental principles to dating with an anxious attachment style if you want to finally build the relationships of your dreams:
1. Self-awareness to identifying your patterns
Learn to recognize your own and others patterns and behaviors. Know and own what you need in a relationship, and don’t settle for less.
2. Sharpening your radar to attract the right partner for you
Simply put, you need to date a secure partner. Train yourself to recognize other people’s behaviors from an attachment perspective, so you can recognize an avoidant vs a secure partner (and walk away from relationships that are bad for you early on).
To help you with this, you will find a questionnaire that will help you identify your date’s attachment style inside the book Attached (I didn’t find it online).
3. Managing your anxiety through effective communication
Once you know what you want and can recognize a good partner for you, learning to communicate your needs is fundamental to feel more secure and build the relationship you want, even if you’re dating a secure partner.
The reason is, most people are not like you and cannot read your mind or guess how you’re feeling. And the right partner will be available for you, listen to you and do his best to make you feel happy and safe.
Now let’s dive deeper into these 3 principles.
1. How to recognize your anxious patterns in dating
Self-awareness is the first step. If you’re here, you most likely already know that you get anxiously attached when dating.
But let’s dive deeper so you get better at recognizing your dating patterns (aka red flags).
1.1 Thought patterns of anxiously attached women
As an anxiously attached woman, your attachment system, aka your anxiety in relationship, is activated with the slightest hint that something may be wrong. You’ll pick very subtle details about a relationship and that will trigger your anxiety.
And you won’t be able to calm down until your partner proves to you that he’s really here for you, and that the relationship is safe.
When the attachment system is activated, anxiously attached women dating are consumed with thoughts about their partner or date.
Here’s some examples of thoughts and feelings of an anxious attachment style in dating:
Read more: Mindfulness Tips For Overthinkers
1.2 Behaviors that indicate that your anxious attachment style is activated
Here’s how your activated attachment system is most likely to manifest:
Anxiously attached women, when dating, are most likely to have some behaviorial patterns to calm down their anxiety when trigger.
They are called protest behaviors, and are meant to reestablish contact with your date.
You should recognize in yourself the following protest behaviors that indicate that you are acting out of an activated anxious attachment system:
- Excessive attempts to reestablish contacts (aka over texting, calling or emailing and impatiently waiting for an answer, and even stalking the most common places your dates hang out at, hoping you’ll run into them)
- Withdrawing (aka turning your back on your partner, not speaking, sulking or ignoring him)
- Keeping score (aka paying attention to how long it takes to return the calls and waiting as long to returns theirs, acting distant and waiting for them to make the first move – kinda like “if he’s not doing this, than I won’t do that”)
- Threatening to leave (aka saying it won’t work out, secretly hoping they’ll stop you from leaving)
- Acting hostile (aka rolling your eyes when they speak or looking away)
- Manipulation (aka acting busy or unapproachable or saying you have plans when you don’t)
- Making him feel jealous (aka making pan with an ex ouch or going out with friends at a bar)
P.S. Don’t cringe, we’ve all done it.
1.3 Real-life example of a dating situation with anxious attachment style
Here’s a real life example of an activated attachment system when dating and how you might react:
Does it sound familiar? Let me know in the comments at the end of the post!
2. How to find the right partner
As an anxiously attached woman, you crave intimacy and thrive on supporting relationships that are stable and long-lasting.
The choice of partner obviously plays a crucial role in developing this kind of relationship. Unfortunately not every man you meet, even if you feel an intense connection in the beginning, will be able to provide you with the security and support you are longing for.
So let’s explore what you need to look for in a partner to make sure your needs are met.
2.1 Who is the best partner for an anxiously attached woman?
When we look for a partner, we tend to analyze them and how they act. But to choose the right partner, you need to look into how they make you feel.
Simply put, the partner you choose dictates if your relationship will intensify your worries and make you feel more anxious, or on the opposite calm you down and make you feel secure.
What you need is is someone stable, present and supportive. What you want to avoid is emotional unavailability and uncertainty.
So girl, whenever you realize you’re constantly second guessing where you stand with someone… thank you, but next.
Here are the non-negotiable traits your potential partner should have – aka green flags – and YES, he should check them all:
- he’s comfortable with closeness
- he’s not trying to push you away
- he’s consistent and reliable
- he knows how to reassure you when you feel distressed or anxious
- he sees your well-being as a top priority
- he does his best to try and read your verbal and nonverbal cues
- he feels comfortable telling you how he feels
- he is stable
- he feels comfortable wit commitment (in every aspects in his life)
2.2 Red flags to watch out for in potential partners
I know you might be looking for ways to navigate dating partners with an avoidant attachment style. I’ll be very straight froward here: don’t.
You want to develop a long-lasting, supportive, loving and secure relationship?
Than avoid avoidant partners.
There are plenty of fish in the see… you just haven’t been fishing in the right spots.
So if you tend to repeat the same patterns when dating partners where you:
- are confused about where you stand
- feel rejected
- feel abnormally anxious
- get obsessed with him
It’s time to change to turn the tables.
Learning to recognize a bad partner for you early on will save you a lot of sleepless nights and anxiety.
Here’s some red flags you need to look for in a potential partner, signaling he might be avoidant:
- he’s maintaining some distance with you (physical or emotional)
- he sends mixed signals (often making you feel rejected)
- he’s bad at reading your verbal and nonverbal cues
- he doesn’t think it’s his responsibility to read your nonverbal cues
- he tends to put you down
- he creates distance between you
- he keep things fuzzy, even if your relationship is very serious
- he’s not clear on where you two stand in the relationship
Leave a comment with your specific situation if you’re not certain he has one!
3. How to overcome your anxious attachment style in dating
Now I hate to break it to you, but if you want your relationship patterns to change, you’re going to have to change how you do dating.
What you can change now is learning to communicate your needs effectively (without acting out), but also recognize when your needs cannot be met by your potential partner or date… and move on.
I’m not saying it’s easy, but the work will pay off. The good news is that it involves being yourself and communicating your needs.
3.1 Tips for expressing your needs in a relationship
So the first step to transform your dating life is to acknowledge your true relationship needs. Given your anxious attachment style in dating, you have certain clear needs in a relationship such as intimacy, availability and security.
When you’re aware of that – which you probably are at this point – the hard part is communicating them effectively.
It’s hard. Especially when you’re afraid that they won’t be met, or if you expect your partner to always read your mind. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works.
If you feel anxious in relationship but don’t clearly express your needs, you’ll never know if you’re dating someone who can meet them but simply has no clue you’re feeling that way, or if you are with someone who simply cannot meet them. Makes sense?
Te secret to effective communication is to say exactly what you’re looking for early on in dating, and find out by asking clearly and directly, if that’s what they want as well. That’s it.
A secure potential partner will answer directly and honestly without being scared away. They understand that the fact you’re asking the question doesn’t mean you’re asking them to commit after just one date.
An avoidant partner might give you a fuzzy answer, or straight up tell you that’s he’s not looking for something serious or that’s he not ready to commit. In that case, thank you, next.
Friendly reminder here: stop believing they will change for you. They won’t.
So here’s a magic communication formula I’ve learned and use every time I want to communicate something that makes me uncomfortable:
I feel (how you feel) about (situation). (What you need) is what I want for the future. Add your boundaries.
Here’s 2 examples:
- I am feeling confused about our situationship. I like you a lot, but I want more. If you’re not on the same page, I think we should stop seeing each other.
- I am feeling anxious about our relationship when we don’t talk for hours at time. I need to be in contact with you more often. Would you send me text messages more often throughout the day?
I know it’s scary, but you got this.
Read more: 10 Affirmations to Help You Set Boundaries
3.2 How to deal with avoidant partners
So the simple truth is that you should rule out avoidant prospects early on.
Just… don’t get involved.
In other words, when you recognize avoidant patterns, both through how you feel and their actions…
RUN.
Stop trying to change them, or worst, chase them. Oh and girl, stop hoping that they will change for YOU. Just take them for who they are.
You’re going to save yourself a lot of energy and avoid a lot of anxiety in the process.
When you’re expressing your needs effectively, that’s usually when you’ll be able to recognize if your date does his best to acknowledge and meet them… or avoids the situation.
If you’re an anxious, you’re most likely to date someone avoidant (sorry).
But you want to date someone secure.
In both cases, they have different needs and thought patterns than yours. So they have absolutely NO CLUE how you’re really feeling, unless you tell them.
And that’s how you’ll know.
So you need to work on sharpening your radar.
Refer to the list of red flags above, + here’s some additional signs to recognize avoidant partners:
- he disregards your emotional well-being
- he suggests that you are too needy, sensitive”or overreacting – or at least that’s ow he makes you feel (that’s right girl, this is not normal and secure guys don’t do this)
- he sends mixed signals about your feelings or commitment to you
- he desperately wants to meet the one but always finds a fault in other people that makes commitment impossible
- he ignores things you say that inconvenience him
- he addresses your concerns with facts without taking your feelings into consideration
- your messages don’t get across despite your best efforts to communicate your needs
Here’s a friendly reminder:
There’s plenty of fish in the sea. They are not easy to find, I know. But there truly are out there, many good guys with whom you could develop your dream relationship with.
The less time you waste with men that are not good for you, the faster you’ll find your one.
P.S. If you’re wondering, I’m still single as I’m writing these lines. And I’m not dating. I’m a bit scared and not sure of exactly what I want, to be honest. But I do believe every word I’m telling you, and am confident enough in my ability to recognize a good and bad partner for me. I just need to get out there. Also… my high standards are probably one of the reasons I’m still single (and happy!), and it’s a good thing.
3.2 The one thing you shouldn’t overlook
As I was about to leave my therapist’s office, she got up of her chair, walked up to her bookcase and pulled out a book.
She handed it to me and suggested I read it.
Next thing I knew, I was finishing this book that totally changed my life. It opened my eyes on my relationship patterns and I could finally start to heal.
You’ve guessed it; that book was Attached.
In short, you and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my therapist.
Moral of the story: find a good therapist.
I assume that if you’re here, you already know that.
If you don’t have a therapist yet, here’s a website where you can find one online, that I really recommend (actually relatively cheap compared to regular appointments!).
Ask me anything
Your feedback is really important and helpful for me. Please leave a comment below if you have any question, feedback or suggestion for more content I should write about!
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