Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

by Jessica Fern

I’ve seen that once people get clear with each other about whether or not they are pursuing an attachment-based relationship, each person can better orient to what the relationship is, what it isn’t, what’s available and what’s not available, enabling people to better accept and appreciate the relationship for what it is without having to let it go. If the relationship is not going to be attachment-based, this doesn’t mean that someone no longer needs to have their attachment needs met in general, but the acceptance that a specific relationship is not going to meet a person’s attachment needs can relieve everyone involved and be an important step in finding or creating relationships with others.

The antecedent to being polysecure with your partners is first getting clear about whether you want to be attachment figures for each other. Our attachment-based relationships take time and investment, and so when referring to attachment-based partners I am referring to a choice that we are making to intentionally cultivate and tend to the attachment-based needs within a particular relationship. Often, falling in love with someone or feeling attached to them does not feel like a choice we make, hence why we call it falling in love instead of stepping into love. Our attachment figures might be the people we feel levels of connection, compatibility or intensity with right from the start for reasons that we just can’t explain, or they may be the people with whom our romantic attachments have organically grown in potency and depth over time. However you come to be with the partners that you already feel attached to or want to cultivate being more polysecure with, what is important is that at some point you are all clear that being attachment-based partners is what you want for the relationship.

In monogamy, usually at some point people have the commitment conversation in hopes of better defining their relationship, but exactly what that means to each person and all of the assumptions and expectations that each person is carrying are often left minimally discussed, if they are articulated at all. In nonmonogamy, unspoken expectations and assumptions typically don’t bode very well, and intentional discussions about exactly what we’re doing and why we are together are important for everyone involved to feel safe and secure.

John Bowlby and his contemporaries believed that for a partner to become an attachment figure, the relationship would serve as both a safe haven and a secure base.68 The bedrock of being polysecure in our relationships is feeling that we have a safe haven to turn to. This happens when our partners care about our safety, seek to respond to our distress, help us to co-regulate and soothe and are a source of emotional and physical support and comfort. Similarly, when our partners are struggling or in need, we can be a safe haven by being there for them in warm, caring and receptive ways. When we can’t physically be there for our partners, we do as best we can to support them from a distance until we can be in physical proximity. In search of relationship safety, our attachment system is primed to seek the answers to certain questions regarding our partners. Both consciously and unconsciously we are looking to know: If I turn towards you, will you be there for me? Will you receive and accept me instead of attack, criticize, dismiss or judge me? Will you comfort me? Will you respond in a way that calms my nervous system? Do I matter to you? Do I make a difference in your life? Can we lean into and rely on each other? Interestingly, research consistently shows that people who have safe haven relationships in their life, whether through romantic partnership or through their family, are more resilient in the face of life stressors and trauma.

Examples of things that you and your partners can do to be safe havens for each other are: Give emotional support and comfort. Listen to each other with full attention. Inquire and share about feelings and needs. Track what is going on in each other’s lives and make sure to follow up and inquire about those things. Help in practical ways when a partner is tired or sick. Discuss or debrief events of the day or things that are important to each of you. Let your partners know how and why they matter to you.

This exploration facilitates our sense of personal competence and healthy autonomy. Similar to how children want to show their parents their latest drawings, tricks, accomplishments or discoveries, as adults we need to share the new things we’ve learned, the things we’ve achieved and the things we’re excited about. Being and having a secure base in our partnerships means supporting each other’s personal growth and exploration, independent activities and other relationships, even when these actions require time apart from each other. Secure base partners will not only support our explorations, but will also offer guidance when solicited and lovingly call us on our shit. They function as a compassionate mirror for our blind spots and all the ways we may be fooling ourselves, whether through self-aggrandizement or self-limitation.

In simple terms, I see being a safe haven as serving the role of accepting and being with me as I am, and a secure base as supporting me to grow beyond who I am.

When attachment ruptures and traumas occur, we can lose access to the parts of ourselves that are able to be a safe haven through self-soothing, self-nurturance, self-compassion and self-acceptance, and to the parts of us that are able to be a secure base through self-encouragement, healthy standards, appropriate boundaries and alignment with our values.

have a ripple effect for years to come. Attachment begins in the body, first in utero and then through skin-to-skin contact with our caregivers. Physical proximity is needed for the development of attachment, since it is through touch and face-to-face contact that we forge bonds with each other,

When we experience our partners as being here with us, it results in the positive beliefs that our partners care about us, we matter to them and we are worthy of their love and attention.

Conversely, when our partners are unavailable, unresponsive or mentally elsewhere, attachment insecurity can arise, feeding the fears and doubts that we are not valued, loved or worthy.

Being in the same physical space does not necessarily mean that you are here and present with the people you are near. When you are with your partners, are you really focusing on them and giving your full attention, or are you distracted by your phone, by the stresses from the day, by your worries about the future or by your other partners? Are you really listening to your partners when they talk, or are you thinking about other things, only partially listening or mentally preparing for what you want to say next? Physical proximity is extremely important and necessary for attachment, but it is not sufficient if the quality of presence is poor.

As an adult who wants to function from a secure place in your relationships, you can’t affirm, attune, repair or even play if you are not here with yourself or with your partners. Being present is not just putting your phone down for a few minutes. It is a way of being, from interaction to interaction, where you consciously inhabit your own body and show up with the best of your attention, offering your presence as a gift.

Our attachment bonds are emotional bonds, and being able to emotionally tune into and connect with our partners is at the core of feeling safe and secure together. Attunement is a state of resonance with our partners and the act of turning towards them in an attempt to understand the fullness of their perspective and experience. Attuning to a partner does not mean that you have to agree with them and take on their experience as your own, but it does mean that you are willing to join them in their internal emotional world and their inner state of mind in order to empathize with what they are going through.

Things to Try and to Experiment With Listen with your heart. When listening to your partner, put your solution-orientated brain aside for a few minutes. Soften your eyes, bring warmth to your face, open up your heart and listen. Ask questions from genuine curiosity and the desire to truly understand, rather than from preconceived notions about what your partner has already done or what you think they should do. Be careful about asking questions that are really just searching for evidence to either make yourself feel better, to prove them wrong or to expose them as lying in some way. Also, be careful not to interrogate or manipulate through your questions. Make an effort to track something that your partner is going through. For example, if you know they went to an event or have an aunt in the hospital, follow up by asking them how the event was or how their aunt is doing. Genuinely ask your partner about how they are doing, whether in general or about something specific. Use open-ended questions that encourage them to share any feelings or needs they have surrounding the situation, what their experience has been, what it means to them and how they have been impacted by it. Bring your bodies into attunement. Sex can be a great way to do this, especially if you take turns just focusing on what one partner likes and wants. You can also explore techniques and exercises such as sitting or spooning and breathing together, bringing your bodies and breath into harmony in nonsexual...

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The mundane rituals of everyday life can put many of our worries to rest and remind us that we are an integral part of our partners’ lives, and the profound rituals of commitment ceremonies and rites of passage can significantly deepen and strengthen our bonds.

Even if we wanted to be, we can’t be perfectly present and attentive to our partners all the time, every time. What matters is not that we have ruptures, but how we repair them. When there is conflict and disagreement or when attunement and connection have been lost, it is how we repair and find our way back to our partners that builds secure attachment and relational resilience. Conflicts left unrepaired can leave lasting effects on our sense of trust, safety and security. In terms of attachment styles, people functioning from a secure style are more likely to use constructive and mutually beneficial problem-solving strategies than people who are more anxiously attached.

often tell couples and multiple-partner relationships that you can have all the communication techniques and conflict resolution skills in the world, but they do nothing if you still have an attitude of wanting to either be right or prove your partner wrong. I still recommend acquiring more communication and conflict resolution skills, but even without these, the right attitude—one of repair responsibility, humility and openness—goes far.

Keep your desire to be right in check. Remember your desire to be in the relationship and as best as you can, try to stay rooted in being respectful to yourself and your partners, not just one or the other.

While I will not diminish the power that secure relationships with others have to heal our past and to bring alive our own secure ways, the establishment of a secure relationship with our self is needed to fully embody healthy attachment with others, so much so that it requires its own chapter.

Our partners can be the inspiration for these things, as well as the objects or focus of our love, but they should not be the source of it. You are the source of your happiness, love, courage, emotional regulation and purpose, and the sooner that you can release your partner from being the source of these experiences the better for everyone involved (metamours included). Knowing how to stand securely on your own two feet and how to be your own safe haven and secure base is fundamental to building your internal secure attachment.

Secure attachment with yourself means being aware of your feelings and desires, as well as being able to tend to your own needs and knowing how to advocate for them in relationships. In the absence of this, your relationships can be built upon a false premise, or, at the very least, will struggle to be sustainable.

According to Daniel Siegel, we can make sense of our attachment history by creating a coherent narrative of our past experiences.72 We do this by putting together the story of what we went through as a child and examining how our attachment history impacts our present sense of self and our relationships today. By telling the stories that have been previously unspoken, we allow ourselves to feel what has been unfelt and bring love to what has seemed unlovable. When we are able to describe our painful past experiences and craft them into a narrative that makes sense to us, healing occurs and our brains can literally be rewired for more secure functioning.

When crafting the stories of your insecurely attached past, it is important not only to be able to describe and allow the feelings associated with what you’ve gone through, but to also develop an appreciation for the attachment survival adaptations that you took on. Our attachment styles are a result of our response to how available connection was to us. When connection is unavailable, inconsistent, intrusive, dangerous or out of reach, the attachment system will either start to hyperactivate or deactivate as a survival strategy. Your attachment adaptations are what worked best in the environment that you were embedded in, and it is important to recognize the power and wisdom in the different styles that you constructed. As we give voice to our past, accept and allow our pain and even appreciate the ways we were shaped from this, we are better able to take responsibility for the ways that we still need to grow and show up differently for ourselves and in our relationships. We no longer have to be victims of our past, but can be victorious in the face of it.

am talking about the importance of positive self-talk and being kind and loving to yourself in ways that you would probably treat a friend, but so frequently forget when it comes to your relationship with yourself. When we have experienced trauma and attachment ruptures, we can forget what it means to be kind to ourselves.

When we delight in our children or our partners, we don’t necessarily see them as perfect. In fact, we usually see them with all their amazing, difficult and quirky qualities and choose to take delight in their fullness, contradictions and all. Can you do this for yourself?

Shame researcher Brené Brown makes the important distinction between guilt and shame, with guilt being the perspective that I’ve done something wrong, which can be helpful and motivating, and shame the perspective that I am wrong, which can be debilitating and paralyzing.73 When we have critical or perfectionistic parts of ourselves that spew inner negativity and then shameful parts that absorb these thoughts as gospel, finding love and happiness in ourselves can feel nearly impossible. I’ve come to see our inner critic as a form of emotional autoimmunity. When someone has an autoimmune condition, the immune system goes into overdrive and the body starts attacking itself instead of protecting itself from outside invasion. When we inquire into the motivation of the inner critic, it is usually a part of us that wants to protect us, keep us safe or have us be successful, but its methods are actually self-harming and counterproductive to its protective intention. Shame is like a weakened immune system that will catch an emotional cold through even the smallest of insults, neutral feedback or questioning from another. Even though the part of us experiencing shame often feels powerless, it is quite powerful in its capacity to eclipse our ability to connect with our self and with others. Shame can function like a form of deflated narcissism where any and all phenomena in the world are taken as evidence for how you are not worthy or how you are fundamentally failing, flawed or bro...

Attunement is at the heart of secure attachment. In its absence, attachment security ceases to be possible. When there are early childhood attachment ruptures, requisite developments in a person’s ability to tune into themself and regulate their inner states can become hindered. When our childhood needs are not met from the outside and our attachment figures are unable to help us learn how to identify and label our inner experiences in order to make sense of them and soothe ourselves, as adults we can then struggle with knowing how to feel our own feelings, identify our own needs, and calm down our own body, mind and heart in the way a nurturing caretaker would have. We can also run into considerable relational difficulty when we continue to have an “outside-in” approach to getting our needs met, expecting that our partners act as a substitute for our own inner nurturer. When we are able to tune in and tend to our needs from the inside first, we may still seek outward support, comfort and guidance from our partners, but our fundamental well-being and sense of being OK are not dependent on it.

Regardless of a person’s specific attachment style, people with attachment insecurity will all struggle to some degree with emotional regulation and self-soothing. People with more attachment anxiety tend to seek outward regulation from others—they want to be taken care of, try to overprocess with partners, look for someone fix or take away what they’re going through, or can even seek someone else to just tell them what to do. People with an anxious attachment style can struggle with being able to hold and sit with their own feelings and so, like a game of emotional hot potato, they try to pass off their emotions to their partners in order to diffuse their own discomfort. Seeking this external regulation from others is often at the exclusion of their own self-regulation and their own sense of self.

People functioning from a dismissive attachment style steer clear of trying to emotionally regulate with others because, in many ways, they don’t even see it as a possibility. The co-regulation that a child needs and would experience with an attachment figure was not available to them, so they learned to take care of themselves by disengaging from others and taking space to regulate. From the outside, it may look like people with avoidant attachment are able to self-regulate well since they are comfortable on their own, but usually they are not actually self-attuning and self-soothing as much as they are autoregulating—that is, partaking in activities that are more about zoning out or tuning out in order to dissociate from their internal states than tuning into and intentionally working with their internal states.

Even when we haven’t experienced nurturing from others, we still have an innate caregiving behavioral system that we can access and animate through practice. With self-compassion we can learn how to re-parent ourselves in ways we may have never received.

There can be a healing effect of being with discomfort, of contacting pain or pleasure without collapsing or disconnecting, that can allow people to access their own inner safe haven and secure base. Each

Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries! The anxious style tends to have more porous boundaries regarding input where other people are defining you, as well as on the output where you are inserting yourself too far into another person’s emotional, physical or mental space. Creating more distinct, but not rigid, boundaries is important for learning how to stay in your own skin while being connected to others, rather than leaving yourself behind to be with others. Also, be aware of not letting other people occupy more of your internal space than you are.