What To Look For When Dating An Anxious Attached

You may have been dating and anxious attached and they seem put together. They are not the needy and clingy ones you heard about. They don't remind you of your ex who was needy and clingy. You might even think you're being tricked. Are they manipulating you? 

Chances are you have bummed into a not so rare gem. There are emotionally mature anxious attached gems that can behave in very secure ways and that is healthy for a long- term relationship. However, you don't want to sabotage these relationships by testing them too much because these are the ones that won't stick around and beg like your emotionally immature ex probably did - and you don't want to risk that. 

If you're anxiously attached, this may trigger you or help you to grow if you're ready for that. 

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Decoding Attachment Styles. Today I would like to talk about anxious attached persons not being as needy and clingy as we tend to think. However, there are some who are, and I want to talk about how we can tell which individuals are the needy, clingy ones that probably need to work on their healing a little more than those who are emotionally available and mature, and which ones are not, which are the ones that we can start to build a relationship with, and which are the ones that we could probably say, okay, this person's not yet ready to be in a relationship. And I know that there is often a lot of bashing on the avoidant attached person. Everyone believes that if an avoidant attached person says that they are not ready for this particular relationship or they cannot show up in this particular relationship as their partner expects, then it is the avoidant just being avoidant. However, there are some anxiously attached persons who will need to work on their childhood wounds, their attachment style, perhaps a little more than some would need to. And today I want to share the difference between the two. Now, this is going to be a podcast that's going to be very triggering for those who are what I'm going to just loosely label the emotionally immature, anxious, attached person. If you are triggered, then it means that there's something here that you're hearing, it resonates with you, and you don't like it. If you are being triggered, and you could still recognize yourself in this behavior, but you want to continue to listen, then I believe you're in the right place. You're in a place where you are ready for growth. You are ready for change, you're ready to take charge of your life. Make some changes that you see necessary so that you can show up as yourself without making yourself smaller in relationships and also appreciating where your partner or an ex might be coming from. Now we're going to start by talking about how both individuals handle being triggered. The emotionally immature, anxious attached person, when it comes to their triggers, they are going to start texting immediately or they're going to call repeatedly. Or needing to talk right now. It must be resolved right now. And what they're doing is they're making their anxiety everybody else's problem to solve. They can't sit with the discomfort for even an hour. They feel like everybody needs to step in and make them feel better. Now, an emotionally mature, anxious, attached person, they are going to feel that anxiousness. They are going to notice the urge to text 10 times. But the difference is they don't. They're going to call a friend, they're going to journal, they're going to go for a walk, they're going to do something other than calling or texting. What they generally do is they manage their feelings without making it the other person's problems. They're not waiting for someone to fix them. They sit with the anxiousness. They know it's there, but it doesn't, they don't let that anxiety control their behavior. Let's talk a little bit with about how these two different individuals or personalities respond when their partner needs space. The emotionally immature, anxious, attached person is going to ask, how long? When will you be back? Why do you need space? Or did I do something wrong? Then they're going to send multiple texts during the time of space. And this is because they cannot respect boundaries. And they make the space all about them. Oh, you're taking space from me because I did something, or you don't like something about me. Whereas sometimes people just need space to breathe because life is just overwhelming, not necessarily to relationship, but other things happening in their lives, work, family, friends, health. An emotionally mature, anxious, attached person is going to probably say something like, okay, when can we rec reconnect? They get a timeline and then they sit with the discomfort, but they don't reach out during the time agreed for space. It doesn't mean that they like it, but they do it anyway, even if they hate feeling this way, because they are able to respect boundaries. They know boundaries are necessary. Let's move on to how they view their anxiety. How do these two personalities view their anxiety? An emotionally immature, anxious attached person is probably going to say something like, I have an anxious attachment, so you need to constantly reassure me. It is your job to manage my anxiety. And they may not say that to their partner, but it is a belief that this is my anxious attachment and this is just how it makes me feel. So you need to show up and manage my anxiety. You need to reassure me so I'm not feeling uncomfortable. And what they're really doing there is they're using their anxious attachment as a weapon. They expect everyone to accommodate them and they take zero personal responsibility. I remember someone reaching out to me and saying, you know, my partner needs to go to therapy, they need to learn how to be in the relationship, they don't know how to show up for my needs. And I asked a question. I was like, okay, are you in therapy? Oh no, I don't need it. They need it. That there, just that one statement, would tell me that this is not an emotionally mature individual. It is someone who believes that this the sole reason that the relationship is not working is someone else not fixing themselves to accommodate their needs. They're not seeing that maybe if they go to therapy, maybe they will learn how to appreciate their partner and where their partner is at. And decide then do you want to stay in a relationship or not? And I want to remind you, I'm going to use this opportunity to remind you, that I'm not here to tell you what relationship you should be in and shouldn't be in. I'm here to help you see your reality, what you're dealing with. Collect all the information that you have in your reality, and then you decide is this fitting into the life that I envision for myself or not. But let's move on to how emotionally mature anxious attached persons view their anxiety. Their belief is I have an anxious attachment and I'm working on it, whether in therapy or by myself, but I'm working diligently on it to change patterns. They're thinking I might need reassurance sometimes, but I'm learning to self-soothe and self-regulate. They know it's their responsibility. They take ownership for their patterns and they don't make it everybody else's job to fix. How do these two individuals handle their partner being busy? Well, emotionally immature, anxious attached persons will spiral when they don't hear from their partner. If they haven't texted in three hours, they're going to spiral. If they're going to start feeling like their partner is losing interest or it's over, they create entire storylines in their heads. They imagine worst-case scenarios. They act on the anxiety by demanding attention from their partner right away. And here's what I've also noticed: when they don't get it from a partner, they reach out to their friends looking for validation. They reach out to anyone they know will validate what they're feeling. And they are the ones who love to hear, oh, this person's not showing up. Yes, they should be reaching out to you. Gosh, we've got to take into consideration what another human being must be dealing with. If they're in meetings, they don't have the time to respond to your high-text messages. Or are we meeting later this evening? There's a time and a place. An emotionally mature anxious attached person knows this. They are going to notice the anxiety. It's not that it disappears, but what they're going to think is, I'm feeling a little worried because they haven't texted, but they're at work. And this feeling of mine is going to pass. They talk themselves down their reality check with themselves and they check the reality, their anxiety. They don't act on every anxious thought. If they don't hear from their partner in three hours, they're not sending the message, hey, are you okay? They trust that the person that they're dating is also an adult who could take care of themselves. They don't have to mommy them. They're a partner and they note a difference, but they also feel that anxiety and manage it. How do these two personalities take accountability? An emotionally immature, anxious, attached person is going to think or say something like this. They'll probably say to their partner, they'll probably say to friends, I only act that way because you triggered me. If you don't pull away, I wouldn't have to chase. It is everybody else's fault. No ownership for their reaction. The emotionally mature anxious attached person is going to say something to this effect. I chase you because I was anxious, not because of what you did. That's my pattern, and I'm working on it. They see their behavior clearly. They know they shouldn't be doing this. They know it's not a healthy behavior to chase. They take responsibility even when the other person's behavior contributed. Yes, other people do things that triggers us, but we have responsibility to manage those triggers. Let's talk a little bit about how they choose partners. Emotionally immature, anxious attached persons. Well, they chase emotionally unavailable people over and over and over again with the belief that I can fix them. They just need to see how much I love them. They ignore secure attached people because they think they're boring. And this is because they're addicted to the chaos. They're addicted to people who make them feel like they have to prove themselves. An emotionally mature anxious attached person is going to say, at some point, sooner than later, this person is inconsistent and I'm feeling anxious constantly. And this is a sign that it's not right for me. This relationship is not right for me. They may walk away from unavailability even when it hurts. They're going to choose boring, which is considered to be a secure attached. I'm sorry, if you're secure attached, then this is what you're hearing. But yes, you don't, you're not inconsistent. If you're securely attached, you're not inconsistent, and that can come over as boring for someone who is used to proving themselves or chasing love. But the emotional mature anxious attached will choose what may seem boring even when it's not familiar to them because they want change. They know that they want to heal, they they recognize a pattern and they're choosing change. Now, how do these individuals, these personalities, how do they handle conflict? Well, an emotionally immature, anxiously attached person will say, we need to resolve this right away. And I can't sleep until I fix it. We have to talk about it today, right now, or as soon as possible. Meaning as soon as I think is possible, which is in five minutes. And that is because they cannot tolerate any tension, whatever conflict for them, it demands immediate resolution. And then they're going to make the other person responsible for their emotional regulation. So they want the other person to step in and make them feel good about this discomfort that they're going through. An emotionally mature, anxious, attached person is going to say, All right, I get it. It's a tense situation. I'd like to resolve this soon. Can we talk about it tomorrow? They are uncomfortable with unresolved tension or conflict, but they can sit with it. They don't force immediate solving of a problem just because they're anxious. For these individuals, time and place matters. Now, therapy language, that is a big thing right now. Everybody's using therapy language, and oh my goodness, am I having a hard time with it? Because in most cases, what I see is it's being used the wrong way. Everybody's a dismissive avoidant. If I don't want to talk about a situation, I'm a dismissive avoidant. No, secure attached people do the same thing time and place. Fearful, avoidant, attached people do the same thing time and place. If an anxious attached person, if their partner found out that they were cheating on them and that partner wants to talk about it, they will do the same thing. They will say, I don't want to talk about this. We don't want to talk about things when we don't feel ready enough to have that conversation. Yes, avoidantly attached people, dismissive and fearful avoidant, they may be afraid of confrontation, but that doesn't mean that secure, attached, and anxious attached people find it comfortable either. So the only reason I'm pointing that out is that we're using therapy language and labels in a way that's not always helpful in relationships. One, it might be misinterpreted, or the other is it might just be condescending. So emotionally immature, anxiously attached persons will say things like, You triggered my abandonment womb, so you have to reassure me constantly. Nobody wants to be in a relationship, a romantic relationship with someone who sounds like a therapist. They weaponize therapy language, and they use their trauma as an excuse to demand unlimited accommodation. I've been hurt in my past, so you just have to suck up whatever you're feeling and accommodate my needs. An emotionally mature, anxiously attached person is going to say, I'm feeling upset right now. I'm going to take some time to calm down. Can we check in later? That is human-to-human conversations. That's how we should be talking to our friends again. I know we're not, we're using therapy language with our friends as well, but we want to get back. I mean, think about kids. When kids are on a playground, they're not using this kind of language. Oh, you're triggering my wound from last week. No, you hurt my feelings. I'm upset. I'm angry. I'm happy. Right? Let's go back to being friends. Leave the therapy talk for the 45-minute session that you're going to have with your therapist or your coach. Bring back friendships to relationships. And really be clear about what how you're feeling. I'm feeling triggered really doesn't tell a person squat about you. Right? This is reminding me of a past experience, and I know it has nothing to do with you. That's more me saying that this is something about my past. I don't have to get specific about it. Abandonment wound? What does that mean to someone who, I mean, is everybody supposed to know what an abandonment wound is? Right? So let's be clear about our feelings so that the other person doesn't have to read between the line or go to, you know, get a degree in psychology. How do these individuals respond to feedback? Now, if you've made it this far in the podcast, it means that you were not so triggered that you decided to unfollow or unsubscribe. Good for you. I found that one of the things that I got from my years in journalism, this was before I decided to really get deep into psychology. My I had two editors. I had a weekend editor, and I had a midweek editor, and I was a reporter. I started off as a reporter in a television station. One, my Wednesday editor would take my stories and edit it, and the way he would edit, he would just use a writing pen and he'd scratch off what he didn't like, and then he would just hand it back to me. No explanation. I just had to go there and figure it out. And as time moved on, I figured out how to write a story just based on what he didn't approve of. The brain has a way of doing that, seeing patterns, recognizing patterns, and the human being will make changes because it wants to achieve a good result. The other editor would scrap my story, wouldn't even say which part was okay, which wasn't. He would scrap the entire story and he would toss it in a trash bin. And I'd have to sit there and figure out what went wrong. I'd go there, humbly pick up my paper from the trash, smooth it out, figure out what went wrong, came back, and they would do that repeatedly until I got the story right, and then the next day the same thing repeated. I've learned that harsh criticism, or what we would think of as harsh criticism, is the most honest way, or it's the kind of honesty that we need if we want to grow. I've had friends who never really called me out in relationships and when I was going through difficult relationships, the friends who said, No, it's not you, it's this person. Yeah, they're mean, they're not nice, it's not you, you're perfect, you're wonderful. And I never grew. It were they were, it was the friends who sat with me and said, you know, Annalise, you just keep rushing into these relationships thinking that this is the person, this is the one, and you don't give a time and you keep ending up in the same mess over and over. The ones who said, pretty much look in the mirror at what you are doing, how you're contributing. The friends who said, You're really intense. You need to keep a check on it. Those were the ones who helped me to sit and reflect on my actions and said, wait a second, I'm also contributing to this thing that's happening in my relationships. So thankfully, for most of my life, I've been always open to the harsher to criticism, the better it is for me because I could grow faster. But there are a lot of people who are not ready for that, and that is okay. If you're still here, it means that you know I'm not gonna molecoddle you. I I care about you, I want to see you grow, I want you to be as happy and as at peace as I am, and even more. And I'm using the strategies that have helped me. It's not because I don't care, it is because I deeply, deeply care. It's because I remember what it was like being an anxiously attached person, and I see what it's like to feel the way I do in a secure, attached person's body, and I want that for everyone. So if you're still here listening to the podcast and you didn't unsubscribe as yet, good for you. And thank you. Let's continue on how they deal, how these two personalities handle feedback. An emotionally immature, anxiously attached person is going to say, You think I'm too needy? You're just emotionally unavailable. There's nothing wrong with me. So what happens is they get defensive immediately. They can't hear any criticism, they can't tell the difference between what is an avoidant and what is having boundaries. I've had many of these people say, Oh, they're avoidant, but really what they were were people who were just holding up their boundaries. Securely attached persons are also labeled by the anxiously attached as avoidant because secure attached people. Can speak up and have boundaries too. They also need time and space. They also say, hey, I'm at work. I can't text back to you in the time that you want. I can't reach out to you 10 times during the day, or two, or even one, depending on the job that I'm doing. Okay. So this is how the emotionally mature, anxiously attached person will generally respond to feedback from their partner. An emotionally mature, anxiously attached person will say something like, Yeah, you're right, I've been texting a lot. I'm working on managing my anxiety better. What happens there is that they can hear feedback without falling apart, and they take it as information and not attack. Now, when Larry and I started dating, and this is a problem, I'm not saying that the anxious attach gets it easy when they're dating somebody who's fearful, avoidant, or avoidant attach, because the fearful avoidant or the avoidant attach, they don't really share what they're feeling until it gets to blow up season or session. So I used to message him occasionally during the day, you know, like if something came up or I had a question to ask, like, say, for example, tomorrow I've got a, we're we're doing something together and we have to make plans. So in my anxious attached state a few years ago, I would have reached out during the day, during his workday, and say, hey, let's talk later on about, you know, what exactly we're doing tomorrow, how we're moving around about this. Securely attached me now knows that he's at work, he's busy. And this conversation is going to happen later in the evening. I'll send him a message later in the evening and say, Hey, do you have a minute just to talk about plans for tomorrow? And that's that. I'm very clear what what I want to talk about because now I know a message that just says, Hey, can you talk? Suddenly the person's like, Oh, did I do something? Am I going to get in trouble? I think we've grown far from it, but just for the gist of, you know, a gist of what happens in relationships generally. Larry and I have been together for five years. We kind of know we've worked through these insecurity issues in our relationship. But what's what happens is now I know that there's certain things that you don't have to drop on your partner during the day. Now, I never knew that texting during the day was an issue for him because in past relationships, I've dated fearful avoidant who leaned more anxious, who would text and call throughout the day. And I thought that was the normal. Now I'm dating a new person who's it's not as normal or preferably not as normal, but he also doesn't know how to say, hey, I need some time during the day to just focus on work. And when you send me a message like this, I feel the pressure to respond right away, and it takes my mind away from work and disrupts my day. We had gotten into a TIFF and he brought that up. Okay, that was good information to have, and I didn't see it as an attack, it was more a, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Makes total sense. And from then on, never messaged him again during his work hours. And my my thing is if it's not an emergency, no need. And what's an emergency? A life-death situation. And if it's a life-death situation, then he's not the person to call. It's a 911 first. Right? So more times than not, we don't have to message a partner when we know that they are occupied with something else. It may not just be work, it may be something like out with their friends or with their children or a hobby that they're enjoying. But there isn't a reason to reach out. Most of the times there isn't a reason to reach out. A good enough reason. Now let's talk a little bit about how they handle breakups. The emotionally immature, anxiously attached person is going to text constantly. They're going to wonder, can we talk? Please just talk to me. I need closure. They stalk social media, they create fake accounts, they show up uninvited. It's very hard for them to let go. An emotionally mature, anxiously attached person, well, it's going to hurt like hell, like every breakup does for everyone. They want to reach out, but they won't. They're going to go to therapy, they're going to go to church, they're going to build a business, they're going to take trips, they're going to do everything. They're going to process, they're going to set aside time to process the breakup, but they're also going to be focused on moving forward, on living life. The grief is really, really real, but they manage their emotions, they control their behaviors. How do you talk about their exes? Emotionally immature, anxiously attached persons are going to immediately call their ex a narcissist. They were so emotionally unavailable. They triggered my trauma. Every ex becomes a villain. They never acknowledge their behavior. They're never aware of their own patterns. Or you may find that they swing from, yes, they were a narcissist, yes, they triggered my trauma. Oh, but maybe I did something, or maybe I could have made things better, or maybe if I'd only, but then they tend to move more towards what the partner, the ex-partner did. An emotionally mature, anxiously attached person is going to probably say something like, My ex was avoidant and I was anxious, and we were different. We triggered each other. I see my partner dynamic now. They see both sides and they take responsibility for choosing unavailable people and how they responded. They know that they had something to do with the relationship falling apart. Maybe they didn't cause all of the push and pull cycles there, but they know that they were staying in that relationship. What I'm saying is they generally don't take the victim route. It's like, okay, stuff happens. Yeah, I shouldn't have chosen this person, I should have seen the red flags. I stayed. I take responsibility for that. We were different, we're going our separate ways. And how do you know that they're growing? Or an indicator of the growth? The emotionally immature, anxiously attached person is going to repeat the same pattern year after year after year after year. They're gonna have different partners, but the same outcome. And oftentimes the same beginnings. Every time they meet someone, oh my gosh, this person is so different, they're perfect, they're amazing, we have so much in common. This is the one. And then three to four months after, I'm not sure. This person's pulling away, I have to chase, it feels uncomfortable, they're inconsistent. It's always about the other part person or what the other person's doing. And they make excuses for not going to therapy. They read everything online, all the about the topics and attachment styles, but they never change their patterns and they blame everyone else. An emotionally mature, anxiously attached person, you better bet, patterns are changing and they're changing fast. They catch themselves mid-spiral and they regulate their emotions. They try to get into therapy and they're actively in therapy. They take responsibility and they choose differently by changing their patterns. So they may even date someone who's got an avoidant attachment cell or a fearful avoidant, meaning dismissive or fearful, but they are learning in those relationships. They're going back and changing patterns. They don't write off anyone, just like a secure attached person wouldn't. But they are choosing to make changes. How do they view their anxiety? An emotionally immature, anxiously attached person is going to say, I have an anxious attachment, so you need to constantly reassure me. And the emotionally mature is saying, No, I've got this. I can take care of my own emotional needs. Now, again, I know this was a lot. I hope you were able to stay to the end of this podcast and see your patterns and see this entire episode as a chance for you to grow, to evolve, to become the more securely attached person that you know you ought to be, because you know that that's going to lead you to the relationships that will be fulfilling for you. Until the next episode. I'm your host, Annalisa Bahudder, and this has been Decoding Attachment Styles.