Attached

Attached delivers a scientific explanation why some relationships thrive and steer a clear path over a lifetime, while others crash and burn, based on the human need for attachment and the three different styles of it.

Remember the first time you stayed at home alone and your parents went out for dinner? You were super excited. Until the door fell shut behind them and you were scared half to death.

That’s because you feel attached to your parents. Attachment is a strong bond that develops over time and makes us feel the need to stay in touch with one another.

It’s the sort of relationship between parents and their child or the romantic relationship between two adults. The desire to be attached to someone is a genetic disposition we all carry in us, and it comes with many benefits.

Being in a relationship gives us a stronger emotional ground to stand on and thus makes us more resilient to stress. For example, when women hold their partner’s hand in a stressful situation, they’re more calm and relaxed, because they know someone goes through their trouble alongside them.

Similarly, being in a bad relationship can make you physically ill, for example because your blood pressure shoots through the roof every time your annoying partner enters the room.

But how do you know who to get attached to? Isn’t dating the most complicated thing in the world?

Yes. Yes it is. But this will make it easier.

Rachel Heller and Amir Levine have identified 3 different types of attachment styles, some of which go together better than others. They are: Anxious Avoidant Secure Let’s look at them a bit more closely. If you have an anxious attachment style, you’ll spend a lot of time worrying about whether your partner loves you, if they’re spending enough time with you and what’s going on when they don’t call you back within a few minutes. You feel a constant need to be with your partner, need them to be accessible all the time and take what they do and say very personally. An avoidant attachment style, on the other hand, means you value your independency more than the relationship. You struggle with sharing feelings and recognizing them in others and tend to quickly assign blame to others (including your partner) when things go wrong. You keep holding out for “the right one” and that makes it easy for you to find little ways in which your partner irritates you. Lastly, there’s the secure attachment style. It strikes the ideal balance between caring enough and not worrying too much. A secure person just feels comfortable with intimacy and sharing feelings, without constantly stressing about it. You…