Your Attachment System
Because you are created in the image of God, you came into this world with a need for relationship. Your deepest desire has always been for an intimate relationship with Him … as well as with another Someone … who wears skin.
Your current attachment style is simply the result of your life experiences to date. So if another human being has been available and responsive to your needs on a consistent basis, you’re probably in pretty good shape for Romance.
However, many of us – myself included – have experienced significant hurt and pain in close relationships … especially with the opposite sex. If that’s you, you may be having a hard time creating and/or maintaining a healthy Romance. But that can all change … for the better!
So if you are feeling insecure, just think of it as true for you just for now. Because the Truth is that you were designed with an innate desire and capacity to form secure emotional attachments. How cool is that? Pretty darn.
Dr. John Bowlby, a British psychiatrist, proposed that you came into this world with an attachment system that assures your survival and safety. So whenever you are distressed, your attachment system motivates you to seek closeness to a safe person.
Therefore, your early experiences provided you with both images and emotions that form the template that serves as a pattern for understanding how to form relationships and how dependable you can expect them to be. (What you learn is often very different from what you mate learned. We’ll be talking about that. A lot.)
You learned about yourself in relation to others based on
- their availability and responsiveness to you, and
- how effective you are in getting others to respond to your needs.
Although later experience may change your beliefs about the security of your relationships, you most often seek out people who fit the template you already have.
Over the years, researchers have created highly complex models of attachment. But the one I prefer provides a simple explanation of how a couple can love well … and the various ways that things can sometimes go painfully wrong. That’s where we’ll begin.
Self-Assessment: Your Romantic Attachment Style
A Quick Start Guide
Your current attachment style is simply the result of your life experiences to date.
So if another human being has been available and responsive to your needs on a (mostly) consistent basis, you’re probably in pretty good shape for Romance.
However, many of us – myself included – have experienced significant hurt and pain in close relationships … especially with the opposite sex.
If that’s you, you may be having a hard time creating and/or maintaining a healthy Romance. But that can all change … for the better!
Let’s begin with your free self-assessment.
You can assess your own emotional attachment style in a variety of ways, such as downloading this FREE self-assessment.
