What’s Wrong with Me? Why Can’t I Find a Healthy Relationship?
What’s Wrong with Me? Why Can’t I Find a Healthy Relationship?
If you've grown up feeling insecure, unfulfilled, and disappointed in relationships, it can seem like there must be something wrong with you. Why is it that everyone else seems to find healthy and fulfilling connections — but for some reason, your attempts at lasting stability always fall apart?
If any of this sounds familiar to you, it may be time for a closer look at your attachment style. In this blog, we'll explore the challenges of attachment styles, focusing on anxious attachment to uncover how this attachment style can lead to unhelpful relationship choices and patterns.
Recognizing these attachment patterns will shed light on why destructive relationship patterns persist, empowering you to break free from the cycle and form healthy connections that are genuinely fulfilling and meaningful.
The Impact of Anxious Attachment
We all have relationship struggles and unique ways of forming emotional bonds with others, and our earliest experiences often shape these patterns.
If you were raised in an emotionally cold or inconsistent caregiver-child relationship, it could lead to difficulty trusting your partner to meet your needs for love, attention, and security. You may struggle to create secure and lasting relationships due to your insecurities or need for validation. This anxious attachment style often leads to behaviors rooted in fear, such as coming across as clingy, jealous, overly dependent, or possessive.
The Anxious-Avoidant Trap
Attachment styles - whether secure, avoidant, or anxious - play an important role in shaping our adult relationships. For example, people with an avoidant attachment style may struggle with emotional intimacy and forming close relationships as they avoid emotional vulnerability and the discomfort of too much closeness.
On the other hand, an anxious attachment style is characterized by the fear of abandonment, seeking constant reassurance, and clinging desperately to relationships - even when they are unhealthy.
One of the most challenging relationship dynamics is when an anxiously attached person is paired with an avoidantly attached partner. This situation creates what is known as the anxious-avoidant trap.
In this trap, each person's attachment style triggers the other's insecurities and defense mechanisms, leading to a cycle of negative behaviors that increase anxiety and distance between them.
The anxiously attached person needs emotional closeness and reassurance from their partner. But the avoidantly attached partner – independent and self-reliant – often feels overwhelmed by this neediness, so they retreat and become emotionally distant. This behavior only increases the anxiety and attachment-seeking behavior of the anxiously attached partner; it becomes a loop of frustration, disappointment, and a truckload of "What's wrong with me?" and "Am I not enough?". This pattern creates a strong sense of instability and unease in the relationship, making it hard for either partner to feel secure or fulfilled.
Attraction to Emotionally Unavailable Partners
Anxiously attached people often find themselves drawn to emotionally unavailable partners, craving love and intimacy but feeling unable to truly connect with their partners. This can lead to a cycle of frustration and disappointment alongside feelings of rejection and inadequacy.
Now, let's talk about why these emotional chase scenes happen. The roots go back to childhood experiences of inconsistent or neglectful parenting, leading to insecurity and fear of abandonment.
Anxious attachers got used to the tune of being let down or ignored by the people who should have had their backs. So, they unintentionally hit replay by looking for partners who give off a similar vibe, finding comfort in the familiarity, even if the relationship itself sucks and is unsatisfying.
The problem with seeking out partners who resemble our caregivers in this sense is that it only reinforces anxious attachment behaviors, like remaining on edge, expecting the worst, and constantly seeking data to support their fears. This means that even when they find a secure and attentive partner, they may not be able to recognize them as such or fully trust them.
Fear of Healthy Relationships
Anxiously attached individuals often experience discomfort in the presence of secure and emotionally healthy partners. When you're used to relationships characterized by drama, insecurity, and inconsistency, you can see why adjusting to a different dynamic might be difficult.
For one, a healthy relationship's lack of intense highs and lows might be unsettling for someone used to dramatic relationship dynamics. If you grew up in an environment where conflict was commonplace, you might continue to thrive on the intense emotions of unhealthy relationships; therefore, you might view a healthy relationship as boring and uneventful.
Anxiously attached individuals often develop a belief that if a relationship isn't fueled by the emotional fire of fights, where conflict is misinterpreted as a sign of passion and love, then it isn't worth having. The discomfort and unfamiliarity can lead one to seek out emotionally unavailable partners, perpetuating the cycle of fear, resistance, and self-sabotage.
Breaking the Cycle of Anxious Attachment
If you've ever felt trapped in a cycle of emotional highs and lows or drawn to partners who seem emotionally distant, you're not alone. If this isn't the type of relationship experience you want, learning about anxious attachment styles could unlock a world of possibilities. Awareness of these patterns and the influence of attachment styles on your relationship choices is the first step toward cultivating more secure and fulfilling connections.
It's important to acknowledge that these patterns have deep roots, often stretching back to our earliest moments. The comfort found in what's familiar, even if it's not what we truly need, is a natural response–and no, there's nothing wrong with you. But the good news is you are capable of breaking free from this cycle.
Ready to take the next steps?
Seeking support is a smart choice. At Hannah Dorsher Counseling, I provide a safe space to understand your attachment style and its impact on your relationships as you learn to make intentional choices for healthier ones. Through attachment-based therapy centered on awareness, trust, and secure attachment interactions, you can learn to replicate these experiences in other relationships and build a brighter future. If you’re in CO or FL, schedule your free 15-minute consultation call with me here to get started.
About the Author
Hannah Dorsher, MA, LPC, NCC, CAT, EMDR is a therapist in Fort Collins, CO who specializes in helping those struggling with anxiety, self-esteem, toxic/unhealthy relationships, anxious attachment issues, break ups, and trauma. I work with clients in CO and FL. Schedule a free consultation call with me here!
