Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep – love

by Amir Levine

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.

If you are with an avoidant partner, you are constantly being rejected and rebuffed. After experiencing these distancing strategies for a while, you start to blame yourself. You may believe that if your partner was with someone else, s/he’d act differently; that with another s/he’d surely want to be closer than with you. You begin to feel unattractive and inadequate.