Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

by Amir Levine

People with a secure attachment style know how to communicate their own expectations and respond to their partner’s needs effectively without having to resort to protest behavior.

Getting attached means that our brain becomes wired to seek the support of our partner by ensuring the partner’s psychological and physical proximity.

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.

Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood. We are no longer separate entities. The emphasis on differentiation that is held by most of today’s popular psychology approaches to adult relationships does not hold water from a biological perspective. Dependency is a fact; it is not a choice or a preference.

New patterns of behavior kick in regardless of how independent we are and despite our conscious wills. Once we choose a partner, there is no question about whether dependency exists or not. It always does.

when our partners are thoroughly dependable and make us feel safe, and especially if they know how to reassure us during the hard times, we can turn our attention to all the other aspects of life that make our existence meaningful.

This is an important lesson for someone with an anxious attachment style: If you just wait a little longer before reacting and jumping to conclusions, you will have an uncanny ability to decipher the world around you and use it to your advantage. But shoot from the hip, and you’re all over the place making misjudgments and hurting yourself.

Activating strategies are any thoughts or feelings that compel you to get close, physically or emotionally, to your partner. Once they respond to you in a way that reestablishes security, you can revert back to your calm, normal self.

Protest behavior is any action that tries to reestablish contact with your partner and get their attention.

A deactivating strategy is any behavior or thought that is used to squelch intimacy. These strategies suppress our attachment system, the biological mechanism in our brains responsible for our desire to seek closeness with a preferred partner.

a strong belief in self-reliance can be more of a burden than an asset. In romantic relationships, it reduces your ability to be close, to share intimate information, and to be in tune with your partner. Many avoidants confuse self-reliance with independence.

Anxious people may take a very long time to get over a bad attachment, and they don’t get to decide how long it will take. Only when every single cell in their body is completely convinced that there is no chance that their partner will change or that they will ever reunite will they be able to deactivate and let go.

Deactivating is a necessary process that must occur in order to get someone out of your (attachment) system.

The beauty of effective communication is that it allows you to turn a supposed weakness into an asset.

Men who dated anxious partners reported self-disclosing less often and rated their general level of communication as lower than others. The result is that after expressing your needs in a way that pushes your partner away (instead of using effective communication), you then resort to protest behavior—expressing your need for closeness and reassurance by acting out.

protest behavior never gives you the opportunity to unequivocally address your concerns. Your partner may respond negatively, but you’re never sure if they are responding to your need or to your protest behavior.

Usually, if you address things that are bothering you from the get-go and receive a positive response, your whole demeanor will change. Worries and fears surface more when you are not communicating your concerns and are letting things build up.

If you are anxious—turn to effective communication when you feel you are starting to resort to protest behavior. When something your partner has said or done (or refrained from saying or doing) has activated your attachment system to the point where you feel you’re on the verge of acting out—by not answering their calls, threatening to leave, or engaging in any other form of protest behavior—stop yourself. Then figure out what your real needs are and use effective communication instead.