In this episode, Lindsay helps you understand your attachment style in love and dating and overthinks her own experience with a past anxious attachment style.

You may also enjoy: The relationship expert returns (to talk dating)

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Transcript

Welcome to Overthinking in Your Underwear.

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I'm Lindsay, and this week we are overthinking attachment styles, or specifically my anxious attachment style, which has changed.

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But I rocked that for years, you guys.

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And if you've listened to this podcast before, thank you.

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I've talked about attachment styles before.

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Ryan and I touched on it when I talked to Jill Simpson, relationship expert Jill.

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We talked about it before, but we've never really dug into it.

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I always just kind of breezed over it like, do you guys want to talk about attachment styles?

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Because it's one of my favorite subjects, but I've never just done kind of like a whole thing on

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Let me tell you how I got here.

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I kind of always knew I had like a little bit of a like a codependent thing going on, which is really hilarious now because there's like no one who rides solo harder than me.

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Like I am party of one and

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I go everywhere alone with my dog.

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I love to be alone.

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I don't want to date.

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I don't want to partner up.

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I really like being alone and partnership is not my gig.

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But when I was younger, I just was sort of like that person that always wanted to be with a best friend before romantic partners came into the picture.

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I always wanted to be with my best friend.

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I was thinking about this last night for some reason, even before I knew I was going to put this in this podcast.

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My best friend Lindsay and I, I always wanted to be with Lindsay when I was little, like probably more than Lindsay wanted to be with me.

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I always wanted to do everything with Lindsay everywhere we went.

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And I know that's like probably kind of normal when you're like a young, when you're like a young girl and you're like, you know, in your 11 to tween years.

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But everywhere Lindsay went, I wanted to go.

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Everything Lindsay did, I wanted to do.

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And that was kind of like the beginning of my everywhere we go by Tuesday Tuesdays.

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That's that's kind of how I felt.

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Then I got not that Lindsay went away, but I got another best friend, Tricia, best friend, Tricia, who you've seen on here.

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And it was kind of like, oh, good.

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Let's go in pairs now, too.

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Obviously, this is like a normal young girl thing.

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This wasn't like anything that needed to be diagnosed clinically.

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I know that.

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So everywhere Tricia went, I wanted to go.

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We did everything together.

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It was like Lindsay and Tricia, Lindsay and Tricia.

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I'm always going to be partnered up.

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I'm always going to kind of like go where the other person went.

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Well, when things started to get romantic and when those partners started to turn to the opposite sex, it just seemed obvious to me that you would just get a boyfriend and do whatever they did, right?

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Not that I didn't have my own goals and I always knew I wanted to be a writer or knew I wanted to live in a big city.

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I had my own goals, but

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I needed to kind of like attach myself to somebody else, right?

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I needed to attach, had this anxious attachment style, like to feel safe.

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this kind of showed up a lot in my relationships.

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And I needed that other person there to feel okay, to feel safe, to like kind of guide me.

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So let's stop there before I continue down this road and like explain to you a little bit about attachment styles.

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So John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst, originated the concept of infant and child attachment theory in the 1950s.

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Years later, psychologist Mary Ainsworth joined him to create what we understand today as attachment styles.

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Until the 1980s, attachment styles were kind of understood this way.

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Then researchers Hansen and Shaver got involved, extending the thinking to include how adults interact in a romantic setting.

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So originally it was about children, and then it was extended to understand how we interact as adults and in a love setting.

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So attachment styles are how we relate to other people, mostly in a romantic setting.

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Research says our attachment styles develop based on how we interacted with our primary caregivers and our formative years.

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You don't have to get too clinical or sciencey with attachment theory to recognize your style or see it in others and use it as a guide in relationships and dating.

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If you want to go way back to the womb, there are many books and resources available on the web to help you do so.

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So I read Attached, which is by, let me get that for you.

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Amir Levin and Rachel Heller.

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And it's really great.

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And I think they're two, you know, psychoanalysts, researchers.

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And it's a great book.

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It's really entertaining.

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And it also just outlines attachment theory in a way.

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It's adult attachment theory, the science behind love and adult attachment theory.

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You'll really understand it when you come to the end.

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So if you listen to this podcast and you're like, I'm really into attachment theory, get attached.

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You'll find it on Amazon if you Google it.

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First thing that comes up, really popular book.

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So the four major attachment styles are the secure attachment style, the avoidant attachment style, the anxious slash preoccupied attachment style, which I was just talking about earlier, and the fearful avoidant attachment style.

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So let's start with the secure attachment style.

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So as is evidenced by its name, this is the jackpot lottery winner of attachment styles, right?

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This is the one we all want.

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It's the one we should aim to have for ourselves and seek out in others.

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It's not to say you can't have a healthy, happy union when other attachment styles join up, but the secure partner is the best gamble.

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secure partners are confident in themselves alone or coupled up and they don't obsess about relationships or whether or not a partner likes them their self-worth is solid and intact regardless of relationships wins or losses their love they love easily and intimacy and intimacy is used as a way to get closer to their partners rather than a game or manipulation breakups or rejections are seen as part of daily life rather than assessment of who they are as a person in real life

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So this,

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This is a healthy relationship.

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This is someone with healthy self-worth, with healthy boundaries, with healthy communication, with positive self-worth, with positive self-image.

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So this is the one that we should all kind of work towards.

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And it's not even only working towards this attachment because

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We want to be a good partner, but you're happier in yourself.

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It's hard to be happy in a relationship if you're the anxious partner or the avoidant partner or the fearful avoidant partner.

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It doesn't feel good to be in a relationship if you're having all of those other feelings, which I'll get to when we go through these other ones too.

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But you're happiest when you're secure.

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You're happiest when your self-worth is good.

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when your self-image is good, and when you aren't jealous of your other partner, when you're not completely needy and dependent on your partner.

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So this is the one we should all seek to partner up with and to achieve in ourselves.

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I'm not even in a relationship, and I am like, I want to be a secure, attached person, right?

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I want to be a secure, attached person.

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for my friendships even, for family, for myself.

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I don't want to be too needy towards my friends or jealous towards friends.

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I think you can think of it as just even if you're not partnered up, this is the attachment style I want to have.

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The avoidant attachment.

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So for me, this is the fire engine red flag attachment style.

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It's also the attachment style.

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I think when we're all like, you know, we see all those TikToks of like, oh, my God.

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He's a red flag and this is why I like him or he's the bad boy and this is why I like him or whatever.

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I think we I think we I'm going to generalize.

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OK, here I'm going to generalize.

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Sorry.

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We all kind of go for the avoidant person at times.

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parts of our life because it's the chase.

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This is the chase.

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This is the he's not calling me back.

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This is the I text and he leaves me on read.

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This is the we go out and he doesn't call me back for three days.

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So for me, this is the fire engine red flag attachment style.

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Not because good people can't be avoidant, but because it's a personality that pulls us in and we have no means to change.

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That's important and we're going to come back to it.

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Avoidant types need their independence and flat out want to be alone in most cases.

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but they create pockets of closeness with people but will disappear at the quiver of commitment.

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Their emotions are impervious to manipulation because they don't spend too much time stressing about partnerships.

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So

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I think we've all seen that.

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Oh my gosh.

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I know I have.

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So they create pockets of closeness and then they disappear at the quiver of commitment.

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How many times have you guys seen that?

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That you, oh my God, we had the best night.

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We had the best weekend.

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We had the best trip.

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You have the best all of these things.

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And then all of a sudden they disappear.

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They couldn't even say the most amazing thing.

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And then they disappear.

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And you're like, well,

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I'm so confused.

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Well, you breached or they breached themselves, their intimacy boundary.

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Maybe they said something.

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Maybe they did something.

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Maybe the trip was too much.

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Maybe meeting your friends was too much.

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And then all of a sudden they're gone.

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And then you're sitting there, you're left with going through your head going,

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What did I say?

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What did I do?

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What did I wear?

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How much, what was that?

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What was too much?

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What was the step too far?

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What did I do?

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And it wasn't you.

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It was their intimacy boundary for themselves.

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And you couldn't, maybe it wasn't even you that crossed over it.

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Maybe they crossed over it for themselves.

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by saying something to you or whatever.

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And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

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I've got to pull back because they are avoidant.

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And that's not your problem.

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That is their attachment style.

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The last part of this I think is interesting too because I have been here.

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Their emotions are impervious to manipulation because they don't spend too much time stressing about partnerships.

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I have been with like one of the most avoidant people I've ever met.

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And I was always trying to like manipulate his emotions, which I'm not proud of.

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I am not proud of this, but I would like, you know, send him a text and like, I don't even know.

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And I would just kind of do things to – well, like here's the most basic thing that I think we've probably all done.

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It's like, well, I'm not going to text him for a couple days and then he'll see how that feels.

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Well, no, he doesn't because he doesn't give a s**t.

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Or when he texts me, I'm going to text him one word back and see how that feels.

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He doesn't care because he's not overthinking it the way you're overthinking it.

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His emotions are impervious to manipulation because he is avoidant and you're anxious about the relationship.

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So don't waste your time overthinking that and know that you're with an avoidant person and either accept it and say, okay, this is what I've bought into and I'm on this ride and here we go, or walk away because you are with someone who cannot be manipulated.

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And you are with someone that is not going to change and it has nothing to do with you.

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It has nothing to do with you.

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And you're not going to change it by cute outfits and the best date ever and just the right way you twirled your hair and just the best blowout.

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Nothing's going to change it.

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So this is his attachment style, her attachment style, their attachment style.

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And they're going to have to do work, like actual work to change it, actual time to change it.

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Sometimes time changes attachment styles, which we'll get to.

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So you doing these like little things, whatever, like you're just wasting your time.

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So here we're going to get to ding, ding, ding, what I have talked about, my attachment style.

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Not anymore.

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Like I said, I had it growing up.

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I'm sorry.

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The anxious preoccupied attachment style.

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So this is the unsteady or insecure attachment style.

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This partner craves closeness and constant togetherness, not because of need or intimacy, but because of insecurity within themselves.

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That's really important.

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This partner is overly sensitive and may be suspicious and even paranoid, even in a loving and faithful relationship.

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The anxious type may end up in a healthy relationship.

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I'm sorry.

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The anxious type may end up in an unhealthy relationship.

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Because of their willingness to stay with a partner regardless of bad behavior.

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Ooh, that hurt.

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This partner needs constant affirmation about your feelings and their standing in the relationship.

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They text repeatedly while you're at work or out with your friends to reassure themselves about your connection despite your constant behavior and consistent signs of affection.

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Wow.

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Okay.

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That's from my book.

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And I still was like, wow.

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Not because of what the writing was so good, but because it like hit home so much for me.

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I acted like this so many times in relationships and it runs the gamut from having really wonderful boyfriends who could not have shown up more for me, who could not have been more consistent, who could not have been more loving, more reaffirming.

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And I still, like when they were out of my sight too much, I would get like a little bit anxious about,

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And I still had that like need for togetherness.

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And I still had that need to like call and reaffirm and just check, kind of like reaching your hand out.

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Are you still there?

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And I will say with the really good partners, I did feel safer.

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You know, I felt better, but I was still a little bit anxious.

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Um, and there was the constant affirmation of like, do you love me?

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I was still anxious, even in the good, in the good relationships.

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Then in bad relationships off the charts, um,

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Then I had the bad relationships where I was constantly anxious, constantly paranoid of them doing something.

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I mean, the flip side of that is they actually were doing something.

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So I'm kind of like, oh, I mean, was I really just really smart and I knew they were doing something?

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Like, did I have really good instincts or was I anxious?

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I mean, come on.

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So, yeah, I mean, the thing I want to reaffirm about this is.

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Working through your attachment style to get to a secure attachment style

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is beneficial for you.

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It's not beneficial for your partners.

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I mean, I'm sure your partners would say it is, but it's beneficial for you in your life to feel better, to feel more secure, to not have that anxiety.

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So yeah, like I said, I think back and I'm like, oh gosh, I don't want to feel like that in a partnership anymore.

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Like I do not want to feel like that.

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And we'll get to that in a minute.

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So the fearful avoidant attachment style, what I have read is fortunately this attachment style is not very common.

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I think it comes from a lot of like personality disorders, things like that.

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It's a hard one to have for yourself, and it's a hard one to be partnered up with.

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This partner is avoidant of getting close to others for fear of getting hurt or abandoned.

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In retaliation, they will act out with aggression when they sense closeness or when they sense closeness.

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So this partner is uncomfortable with intimacy.

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When closeness occurs, instead of pulling away...

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they start a fight, possibly name calling or worse.

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It's disorienting, chaotic, confusing because it's so inconsistent.

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Like it's like kind of the love bombing and then the fighting.

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And if you have it in yourself, and if you are coupled up with this, it's probably a really unhealthy, toxic relationship.

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So

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So if hearing all of this, you have pinpointed who you are, or if you have not, search attachment style quizzes just in your little Google bar there.

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There's plenty of attachment style quizzes to like help you figure out who you are.

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Or like I said, grab that book attached and it will, I can't imagine by the end you won't, you won't have pinpointed your attachment style and your partner's attachment style.

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So attachment styles can change throughout your life.

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You can start really anxious, like I was saying.

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I moved to avoidant.

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Like I know there was this part in my life where I was pushing everyone away.

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I was choosing partners that I knew would push me away.

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I was choosing partners that I knew wouldn't meet me in a secure place.

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So I just could avoid the whole partnership thing altogether.

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Um, I'm now kind of, I like to think I'm secure.

0:17:43.665 --> 0:17:52.075

I'm sure someone could argue I'm avoidant, but I like to think I'm in a secure place right now, but I am not dating.

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I just do not want to date, but I like to think I'm in a secure place.

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But I kind of, I like to think I've worked through my issues.

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Maybe I'm still avoidant.

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I don't know.

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You know, whatever.

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Here's the big wake up call of wisdom about this whole thing.

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You aren't going to give an avoidant partner so much space they finally become secure.

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Maybe they decide to change one day, but it won't be because you acted so cool they couldn't resist commitment.

0:18:20.824 --> 0:18:28.847

Similarly, if someone is insecure, you can love and support them in an effort toward their personal growth, but you can't do the work for them.

0:18:29.268 --> 0:18:33.309

As with everything, attachment styles are an inside job.

0:18:34.009 --> 0:18:40.012

It's only possible when someone demands a better connection to themselves and decides to change on their own.

0:18:40.901 --> 0:18:52.263

So when I read about Attachment Styles, I read that book Attached, it made me realize so many of my past relationships, the avoidant ones,

0:18:53.810 --> 0:18:58.711

All the effort I was putting in, all that work I was putting in was so futile, first of all.

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And it kind of made me let them go.

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I was like, what was I, like, that was not on me.

0:19:05.093 --> 0:19:09.894

They had an attachment style that was unchangeable, unmovable.

0:19:10.534 --> 0:19:12.054

If they change it one day, great.

0:19:12.354 --> 0:19:13.634

But it had nothing to do with me.

0:19:13.694 --> 0:19:19.816

And I was sitting there, you know, banging my head against a wall, banging my head against an avoidant attachment.

0:19:20.836 --> 0:19:27.117

thinking I could change it, trying to change it, maybe just because it was the game, maybe because it was the hardest thing to do.

0:19:27.137 --> 0:19:28.338

You know, who knows?

0:19:29.518 --> 0:19:32.258

But that was futile.

0:19:32.278 --> 0:19:41.760

And what I should have done and what I think I did start doing was going into dating situations going, huh, they're avoidant.

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No, thank you.

0:19:43.201 --> 0:19:48.882

Because I didn't want to waste my time on an attachment style that was impossible for me to change.

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They can only change it.

0:19:50.923 --> 0:19:51.043

And I...

0:19:52.624 --> 0:19:59.269

So if you're listening to this and you're wondering about your attachment style, I have a little exercise in the book that I talk about.

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Take out a piece of paper and a pen and think back to your last three relationships.

0:20:07.655 --> 0:20:10.497

What attachment styles, based on what you've learned –

0:20:11.297 --> 0:20:30.752

were your partners acting out and what were you bringing to the relationship is there a prominent style that's appearing in your partners are you always going for the avoidant are you always ending up with anxious people um are you secure and they're secure ding ding ding you win uh you can stop re you can stop listening

0:20:31.614 --> 0:20:35.596

Uh, do, did your styles change over time?

0:20:35.616 --> 0:20:36.866

Um, taking into account what you know about attachments so far, is there anything you could have done differently with past partners or with a current mate to make your relationship healthier?

0:20:36.988 --> 0:20:40.750

So do you find yourself with avoidant partners or anxious partners?

0:20:41.350 --> 0:20:41.950

Do you know why?

0:20:42.688 --> 0:20:45.211

So back to our secure attachment style.

0:20:45.390 --> 0:20:48.271

The jackpot lottery winner of all attachment styles.

0:20:51.072 --> 0:20:53.352

Like I was saying, it's the one we all aim to get.

0:20:53.913 --> 0:20:56.393

And you might be kind of like, okay, great.

0:20:56.593 --> 0:20:57.413

How do you do that?

0:20:57.573 --> 0:21:02.815

Well, it's kind of everything that we talk about in this podcast and everything I talk about in my book.

0:21:02.955 --> 0:21:03.495

It's about...

0:21:05.038 --> 0:21:08.983

you know, your self-worth, your self-image, seeing yourself better.

0:21:09.003 --> 0:21:15.110

That's really about how you work towards a secure attachment style.

0:21:15.745 --> 0:21:17.085

It's about working on your self-worth, working on your self-image, working on yourself.

0:21:17.465 --> 0:21:18.845

It's the old adage.

0:21:19.045 --> 0:21:22.666

I mean, you can't be happy in a relationship until you're happy with yourself.

0:21:22.726 --> 0:21:25.087

If you're not happy with yourself, if you're insecure with yourself,

0:21:25.688 --> 0:21:28.069

Of course, you're going to be insecure in a relationship.

0:21:28.229 --> 0:21:37.314

I think avoidant attachment styles are probably just a different way of expressing insecurity.

0:21:39.635 --> 0:21:52.522

So it's just a matter of working on your self-worth, working through those things in your past and coming to a place where you feel solid and good on your own and

0:21:53.542 --> 0:21:56.125

and good enough to partner up with someone else.

0:21:56.706 --> 0:22:04.089

But it's really kind of like an oxymoron because you have to feel good on your own to be with someone else.

0:22:04.089 --> 0:22:13.503

I always recommend, you know, overthinking the way back to not for too long, pick it up, put it down is what I always say.

0:22:13.523 --> 0:22:13.563

Um,

0:22:14.412 --> 0:22:17.276

But overthinking the way back, where did it come from?

0:22:17.316 --> 0:22:18.217

Where did it start?

0:22:18.278 --> 0:22:23.305

Like I said, I can see where my anxious attachment style started way back.

0:22:24.086 --> 0:22:27.270

I can kind of follow it through and then kind of try to break it.

0:22:27.290 --> 0:22:30.915

I always advocate...

0:22:31.616 --> 0:22:40.466

I mean, for me personally, I don't advocate for it, but I, for me personally, I always kind of overthink the way back and then go, okay, I get it.

0:22:40.506 --> 0:22:43.870

Like I have to just me personally, how my brain works.

0:22:43.930 --> 0:22:46.693

I have to understand it to let it go.

0:22:46.714 --> 0:22:46.754

So.

0:22:49.298 --> 0:22:57.703

if you can kind of overthink where it started, pick it up, put it down, overthink it and do better is kind of my mantra.

0:22:58.239 --> 0:23:10.688

It's really where the name came from, from this podcast, Overthinking in Your Underwear, a self-help podcast, is I needed to overthink my way to happiness.

0:23:10.788 --> 0:23:15.071

I needed to understand everything in order to come out better on the other side.

0:23:15.121 --> 0:23:16.804

I hope this is helpful for you.

0:23:17.525 --> 0:23:23.452

Again, we'll continue to overthink other things in the future, failure, all of it.

0:23:23.592 --> 0:23:27.237

Let's overthink it all, you guys.

0:23:27.537 --> 0:23:30.340

Until next time, I am wishing you all good thoughts.

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