Difficult Love.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
We were runnin' wild
Diamonds shinin' in our eyes
Not a hardship in sight
Maybe when I stop dreamin' I'll see— Dallas Green (City and Colour), Difficult Love
Falling in love is an incredible experience.
Everything feels exciting and new. Both of you feel charged and euphoric. You can’t wait to see each other again. You make time for each other. You make sacrifices for each other. You make plans for the future. And the sexual chemistry is amazing.
Getting attached to someone is easy. Staying attached is hard. Someone starts to feel trapped, or someone becomes needy and clingy. Arguments become more common. Fights become the norm. Things go from bad to worse, and the relationship ends … sometimes as suddenly as it began.
Statistics show that more adults in Canada are now living alone than living with someone else. This is a deliberate choice for some, but for many, it’s because their long-term relationships (LTRs) keep failing … or failing even to launch. The reality is that the majority of us are struggling to make and keep a deep, lasting romantic/sexual connection with another human being.
Attachment theory says we struggle with LTRs because we have insecure attachment styles that sabotage our relationships. The two most common kinds of insecure attachment styles are avoidance (running from the relationship) and ambivalence (doubting the relationship), also called anxiety by some writers. Most people deal with one or the other. Some people deal with both factors (me).
I want you. Get away from me.
If your insecure attachment style is characterized by avoidance, you probably don’t appear to be insecure at all. You probably seem pretty happy about who you are. You’re easy-going and fun to be around, and you don’t rely on others for reassurance or emotional support.
That’s the upside. The downside is that you have a deactivated attachment system. You’re wary of intimacy. If you let people in, you close yourself off when things get serious. You find yourself easily annoyed by your partner’s behaviour, habits, or even physical appearance. Frustrated, you start sabotaging the relationship, end it, and cut off contact with your partner.
Attachment theory says your avoidance behaviour is a pattern you learned from childhood. You might have been left alone too much. Maybe you didn’t get much face-to-face time with your parents/caregivers. Perhaps your parents weren’t sensitive to your emotional needs. They might have been physically present but mentally and emotionally distant. Maybe they were present only when they wanted to tell/teach you something (“I’m here for you, but only if you’re listening to me and doing what I say”). These and other parental behaviours taught you that you can’t count on people to meet any of your needs. You learned to be self-reliant. You meet your needs on your own. You don’t trust attachment. You avoid attachment at all costs. If you find yourself getting attached, an internal alarm starts going off: “detach, detach, detach.”
According to Diane Poole Heller, people with an avoidant insecure attachment style display some of the following behaviours:
You don’t say a lot about what you’re thinking and feeling. You may be secretive and withholding.
You can’t express your affection. You don’t easily say “I love you” and only imply you have feelings for the other person.
You drop off the radar. You don’t respond to your texts or calls in any consistent way.
You are put off when your partner expresses their needs. You feel their needs are a problem. You don’t have the energy for their problems.
You’re surprised and taken aback by normal ups and downs in a relationship and don’t handle conflict in a helpful way.
You’re negative, critical, or dismissive. You engage in fault-finding behaviour, especially directed at your partner.
You idealize ex-partners (the “phantom ex”) or future partners. After gaining some distance from former relationships, you can access the love and connection you had in that relationship because the pressure is off your attachment system. Likewise, when imagining the perfect future mate, there is no real relationship triggering your need for distance.
Other avoidant behaviours include saying (or thinking) “I’m not ready to commit”—but staying together nonetheless (sometimes for years); flirting with others—a hurtful way to introduce insecurity into the relationship; and keeping secrets and leaving things foggy—to maintain your feeling of independence.
Unsurprisingly, avoidance has a profound effect on the way one approaches sex. You avoid long-term relationships and feel more comfortable with short-term or even casual sex encounters. Sex is not about romantic connection. Sex is about stress release or fulfilment of basic sexual needs/urges. Susan Johnson calls this Sealed-Off Sex:
In Sealed-Off Sex, the goal is to reduce sexual tension, achieve orgasm, and feel good about our sexual prowess. It happens with those who have never learned to trust and don’t want to open up, or who are feeling unsafe with their partners. The focus is on sensation and performance. The bond with the other person is secondary.
Sealed-Off Sex turns out to be unsatisfying for both people in the relationship. Your partner feels used and objectified rather than valued as a person. But you are unsatisfied too. Sealed-Off Sex is shallow, empty, and one-dimensional. So, you need new partners or new techniques for the turn-on to continue, which means you make a clean break by dumping your partner quickly … or you cheat. While this might make you seem cruel, inhuman, and unfeeling to others, the opposite is true. Crashing and burning relationships so quickly is extremely distressing for you, so much so that you often steer clear of new relationships and/or use alcohol or drugs to suppress the distress.
I need you. I don’t trust you.
If your insecure attachment style is characterized by ambivalence, you give the impression that you value your partner very highly and are incredibly sensitive to your partner’s needs. That’s the upside. The downside is that you have a hidden agenda (perhaps even hidden from yourself). You’re insecure about your own value and anxious about your own needs, so you put other people first in the secret hope that they will do the same for you. This typically means you’re setting them up to fail because they don’t know what you expect and haven’t had a chance to agree to it. Meanwhile, you become desperate, clingy, and preoccupied with your partner. You make your partner the remedy for your unmet emotional needs, which leaves them feeling overwhelmed, unattracted to you, and not interested in continuing the relationship. Then, you make them the bad guy/girl for dumping you.
Attachment theory says we develop an ambivalent, insecure attachment style when we experience inconsistent or unreliable caregiving. If mom or dad struggles to be there for us in predictable, consistent ways, it thwarts our ability to establish object permanence and object constancy in a relationship context. The on-and-off behaviour of our caregivers makes us feel insecure about relationships. We don’t know who’s going to show up and whether our needs are going to be met. We become profoundly ambivalent about whether we’re happy or sad, calm or stressed, secure or anxious.
According to Diane Poole Heller, people with an ambivalent, insecure attachment style display some of the following behaviours:
You’re insecure or clingy.
Because you lack relational “object constancy,” you regularly need reassurance in one form or another that your partner is there for you.
You have a tendency toward jealousy.
You listen in on their conversations, go through their texts, or read their emails looking for proof that you’re more interested in someone else.
You’re looking for evidence of abandonment, and you may suspect your partner of infidelity when it is not true.
Ambivalent adults see sex as a way to make up for the missing love and security they need. Susan Johnson calls this Solace Sex—sex that assures you (temporarily) that you are valued and desired. The sex itself is mostly a tagalong. The real goal is to alleviate your attachment fears, and the sex suffers as a result: you get caught up in trying to please your partner and being demanding of your partner, and it kills the sexual chemistry. Even worse, your ambivalence makes YOU prone to being unfaithful to your lovers. Your fear of being let down means you pre-emptively let the other person down. You cheat on them before they can cheat on you or leave you.
Having an ambivalent, insecure attachment style is exhausting. Ambivalents are on an emotional roller-coaster … all the time. Their neediness and insecurity drive people away, which only makes them increasingly more needy and insecure.
Opposites attract?
In a perfect world, two people with secure attachment styles find each other and live happily ever after. In the real world, there seems to be a magnetic attraction between avoidant and ambivalent adults. Once they become attached, it’s very hard for them to let go … though it might be even harder for them to stay together.
Amir Levine & Rachel Heller provide two vivid examples of couples dealing with an avoidant/ambivalent combination of insecure attachment styles:
Janet and Mark have been living together for almost eight years. For the past two years they’ve been having an ongoing dispute about whether to buy a washing machine. Mark is strongly in favor—it will save them a lot of time and hassle. Janet is adamantly opposed—their Manhattan apartment is tiny, and fitting in another appliance will mean cramping their style even more. When Janet does the laundry, it’s on weekends and she goes to her sister’s place around the block. This is the sensible thing to do—her sister has a washing machine, it’s free and less trouble. She then idles away the entire day there. Janet has an avoidant attachment style and is always finding opportunities to do things without Mark. For Mark, who has an anxious [ambivalent] attachment style, the desire for a washing machine is really a wish for something else altogether—to be close to Janet.
Naomi and Kevin have been seeing each other exclusively for six months and have a couple of disagreements they can’t resolve. Naomi is upset that Kevin hasn’t “unfriended” a couple of ex-girlfriends from his list on Facebook. She is convinced he is flirting with other women. Kevin, on the other hand, doesn’t like the fact that Naomi makes a habit of calling him whenever he’s out having drinks with his pals, so he screens her calls. Kevin believes that Naomi has serious abandonment issues and is overly jealous—and he frequently tells her so. Naomi tries to control her gnawing doubts and worries, but they just won’t go away.
When you’re in an avoidant/ambivalent relationship, both of you find yourselves in an ongoing cycle of exacerbating each other’s insecurities. This is called the avoidant/ambivalent trap. If you have an ambivalent attachment style, you want to resolve the conflict to restore emotional closeness. If you have an avoidant attachment style, you don’t want resolution because that means more (too much) emotional closeness. If things calm down, ambivalent partners are flooded with positive memories and reach out to their avoidant partners in an attempt to reconcile. This triggers hostility from avoidants—they’re working overtime, turning off positive memories that might encourage re-attachment. Once avoidants and ambivalents find themselves in this trap, it feels like they’re constantly working against each other.
When the two people in a couple have colliding intimacy needs, their relationship is likely to become more of a storm-tossed voyage than a safe haven.
— Amir Levine & Rachel Heller, Attached
Still, avoidants and ambivalents love pairing up. Opposites attract (even if they don’t attach). People with the same insecure attachment styles don’t usually get together. Relationships between two avoidant people don’t usually work because both partners are wired to avoid emotional involvement. There’s not enough glue to keep them together—they’re both so involved in their own inner life that it’s difficult for either of them to build much of a bridge to the other person or to maintain that kind of connection over time. Relationships between two ambivalent people don’t usually work because both partners are preoccupied with their own doubts and insecurities. They tend to trigger each other a lot—both people are anxious and distressed on a regular basis and see each other as the enemy.
Statistics also come into play. Avoidant adults make up 25% of the general population, but a much higher percentage of the dating pool. Not only are they recycled back into the dating pool more quickly than ambivalent people, but they are not dating one another (two avoidants never pair), nor are they dating secure people. So, they are mostly likely to match with ambivalents.
Another factor is the tendency for ambivalent adults to seek the “high” they get in a roller coaster relationship with avoidant partners. Avoidants call, but they take their time about it. They’re interested in you, but tell you they’re still playing the field. They compliment you or make a romantic gesture, but there’s still ambiguity. Positive messages are mixed with indifference or negativity. This creates suspense, anticipating the next remark or gesture that will provide reassurance. Eventually, ambivalents start to equate the suspense, waiting, preoccupation, obsession, and occasional signs of breakthrough with … love. They equate an aroused insecure attachment system with passion. They program themselves to be attracted to the very individuals who keep them off balance.
Avoidants and ambivalents are also attracted to each other because each group reaffirms the other group’s beliefs about themselves and about relationships. Avoidants suspect others want to pull them into more closeness than they want. Ambivalents confirm that suspicion. Ambilavents suspect people won’t provide the intimacy they need and be there for them. Avoidants confirm that suspicion.
Securely in love.
Insecure attachment is painful, so learning to attach securely in a relationship is a good thing. But it’s not easy … and not overly common. Only about 25%-30% of people report a change in their attachment style over time, either going from insecure to secure attachment … or (sadly) going from secure to insecure attachment. The good news is that people who learn to attach securely often do so because a romantic relationship is so powerful it revises their basic beliefs and attitudes toward attachment. So, as partners, we can play a significant role in helping someone learn to attach securely, even if we’re wrestling with an insecure attachment style of our own. The key is for us to step outside of our own insecure attachment perspective and imagine how insecure attachment feels for the other person.
If your partner has an avoidant attachment style, they likely grew up with some level of neglect or rejection by their parents/caregivers. They had parents who were non-responsive, not present in a substantial way, or not attuned to their child’s emotional needs. Because of these childhood experiences, your avoidant partner is taking an incredible risk when they enter a relationship with you. They might look like they have it all together, but beneath that calm exterior they’re dealing with warning bells telling them that getting closer to you will result in rejection, hurt, or loss. Therefore, avoidants need you to give them the benefit of the doubt. They have a lot happening on the inside, and they need more time than others to shift into (or back into) a relationship with you. If they come across as dismissive, agitated, or angry, try to remember everything that’s going on for them and don’t take their behaviour personally. Respect and support their need for a gradual, safe transition from isolation to connection. Don’t expect continual progress. There will be setbacks, perhaps even complete resets. Allowing for setbacks and resets shows avoidants they won’t be judged or rejected when they need to reclaim space.
If your partner has an ambivalent attachment style, they may have been taken care of and loved as children, but their caregivers were unpredictable and inconsistent. It was never clear which parent was going to show up—the loving and attentive parent or the absent and distracted one. This on-again/off-again experience of caregiving makes it hard for your partner to believe a relationship with you is safe and stable. They struggle to receive your love and attention without feeling they’ll lose it as quickly as they got it. Do your best not to respond reactively to their insecure attachment style by threatening to leave or end the relationship. Once they know that things are okay and that you’re going to be there for them, their insecure attachment system will settle down. They won’t scream as loudly or as often for connection or act out in ways that jeopardize the relationship.
Also … be compassionate with yourself. We can help our partners heal and learn to attach more securely, and they can help us, but we need to heal ourselves, too. Gabor Maté encourages people to develop the practice of compassionate self-inquiry:
Taking off the starched uniform of the interrogator, who is determined to try, convict, and punish, we adopt toward ourselves the attitude of the empathic friend, who simply wants to know what’s going on with us. The acronym COAL has been proposed for this attitude of compassionate curiosity: curiosity, openness, acceptance and love: “Hmm. I wonder what drove me to do this again?”
Compassionate curiosity means we do not judge ourselves. It also means we don’t try to justify ourselves. There is nothing that needs to be justified, defended, or rationalized. Maté notes:
Justification is another form of judgment every bit as debilitating as condemnation. When we justify, we hope to win the judge’s favour or to hoodwink her.
The purpose of compassionate self-inquiry is simply to understand and accept what is true about ourselves. We don’t have to defend ourselves against others or against ourselves. We are who we are. We can change and grow, but change and growth start by accepting who we are. Ironically, if we don’t accept who we are, we will “defend” who we are against the person we can become. If we accept who we are, we open up more readily to who we are becoming.
The key to secure attachment is … non-attachment. Secure attachment is so elusive because insecure attachers keep grasping for something we want but can never have because our avoidant or ambivalent reactions keep sabotaging our relationships. Secure attachment can’t be forced. It can’t be obtained by wanting desperately for it to exist. We need to stop grasping. We need to let go. We need to let secure attachment come to us as we practice non-attachment to others. Non-attachment is not indifference. It’s not apathy, callousness, carelessness, or disinterest in our lover. We still feel the passion, interest, and excitement another person brings to our life, but we haven’t invested our sense of well-being, self-worth, and contentment in the actions and responses of that person. If they are avoidant or ambivalent, we’re still okay. If we feel avoidant or ambivalent toward them, we don’t need to run away from our partner for safety or run to our partner for reassurance. Non-attachment de-escalates the emotional turbulence that wrecks our secure attachment. It allows time and space for secure attachment to emerge—naturally and organically, as the relationship develops.
Slowly let the light shine in.
For me, secure attachment is a spiritual battle. It is learning to be okay with the unpredictable and impermanent nature of relationships. Insecurity is inherent to every intimate connection with another person. Welcoming—mindfully, intentionally, purposefully—the immense rush of groundlessness that every relationship brings into our life can de-energize our avoidant and ambivalent tendencies. As Holly Whitaker says, “By surrendering to whatever is unfolding and by accepting what is, by giving up on the outcome and allowing life to flow the way it’s meant to, by stepping out of your own way and letting the natural order take the lead, you not only get a break from the exhaustion of having to control everything, but you also get to experience life, instead of what you think life owes you. (Hint: What life wants to give us is infinitely better than what we think it owes us.)” This is true in all areas of life, but especially true in the incredibly vulnerable experience of being in a relationship with another person.
Yes, we need to set boundaries. Yes, it’s important to ask ourselves what we expect from a relationship. But at the end of the day, the relationship will teach us what we did not know we needed to learn. If we are open, the relationship will present a spiritual path we would not have predicted or prepared for.
What if I, what if I have nothing left
To heal you with?
I must stay calm, keep my head, then
Start again, workin' til the bitter end
Slowly let the light shine in
I’m wide awake and I can seeThis mess I have made
Will not fade away
But I wouldn't change it
For the world
No matter how far I go
I will find my way back through this difficult love— Dallas Green (City and Colour), Difficult Love
Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
