Could I Have an Anxious Attachment Style? Understanding Loneliness Abroad
- Locus of Life
- Jun 13, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 28
Living abroad can sometimes bring a kind of unease that is difficult to put into words.
You may find yourself reacting more strongly than you used to. A casual comment from your partner may hurt more deeply than expected, or a slightly distant reply may leave you feeling unsettled for hours. And then, on top of that, you may begin blaming yourself — wondering whether you are too sensitive, too needy, or simply making too much of things.
If that feels familiar, I would first like to say this: there is nothing wrong with you.
These emotional shifts do not mean that you are weak or difficult. Sometimes, when we have been trying to adapt to a new environment for a long time, deeper feelings of insecurity begin to surface more easily.
Looking at these experiences through the lens of anxious attachment can sometimes help them make a little more sense.
In this article, I would like to explore why loneliness and anxiety can feel stronger when living abroad, and how attachment may help us understand these inner shifts more gently. I will also share some of my own experience along the way.
Attachment as the foundation of emotional safety
Attachment is, at its heart, the sense of emotional safety we develop through our earliest close relationships — the quiet feeling that we are not alone, that someone will be there if we need them.
This inner foundation does not disappear in adulthood. We continue to seek emotional safety in our close relationships, often without realising it.
When that sense of safety feels steady, we are generally better able to cope with stress and uncertainty. But when it is shaken — by major life changes, isolation, or relationships that feel less secure — we may become much more sensitive to distance, disconnection, or perceived rejection.
This is one reason why life abroad can sometimes bring attachment-related difficulties more sharply to the surface.
What can happen when you have an anxious attachment style
One attachment pattern often discussed in psychology is anxious attachment style.
People with this pattern tend to long for closeness, while at the same time feeling unsure whether that closeness is truly secure.
You may recognise some of these feelings in your own daily life:
feeling unsettled when someone's tone or response changes slightly
wanting repeated reassurance about how the other person feels
feeling deeply hurt by emotional distance
falling into self-criticism after showing vulnerability
Of course, recognising some of these patterns does not automatically mean that this attachment style fully defines you.
But if any of this feels familiar, it may suggest that your mind and body have learned to stay alert in relationships — not because you are flawed, but because there may have been times when emotional safety felt uncertain.
Why life abroad can make anxiety feel stronger
Attachment patterns are not shaped only in childhood. They can also become more noticeable depending on our present circumstances.
Living abroad can place particular strain on our sense of stability and connection.
When language makes it harder to feel like yourself
When it takes effort to express yourself, even ordinary conversation can become tiring.
You may know exactly what you want to say, but not be able to say it in the way you would in Japanese. Over time, this can create a painful sense that you are not fully seen, or that you are somehow less yourself in this language.
When your emotional support network becomes much smaller
Living far from family, old friends, and familiar culture can leave you without the people who once helped you feel grounded.
Even if day-to-day life looks manageable from the outside, it is possible to feel that there is nowhere soft to land emotionally.
When too much emotional weight falls on one relationship
For many people living abroad, a partner becomes the closest source of understanding, stability, and practical support.
That is entirely natural. But it can also mean that even a small shift in the relationship feels enormous, because so much of your emotional world rests there.
This is not necessarily a sign of dependency. Often, it is simply what happens when support is limited.
I, too, went through a period when anxiety became stronger
In attachment questionnaires, I have often found that my results fall somewhere close to secure attachment. And yet, when I look back on my life, I can see that I have not always felt that way.
When I was working as a cabin crew member in Japan, I had a clear role in the world and a sense of connection to society. Being able to work gave me a quiet sense of being myself. I was also able to return to Japan regularly, and I think that acted as a kind of emotional safety net — the reassuring feeling that I had not lost everything familiar.
But after moving to the UK, giving birth, and leaving work to focus on raising my son, something in me began to shift.
I felt hesitant about speaking English. I had fewer opportunities to speak with other adults. I had very few close friends around me. There were also differences in values between me and my former husband, especially around parenting.
Day after day, I was alone with my young son, doing my best to cope. On the surface, I was managing. But inwardly, I felt increasingly cut off.
It was not that there was absolutely no one around. What was harder was the feeling that there was no place where I could fully relax and let my guard down.
Looking back now, I do not think I was suffering only from loneliness itself. I think I was slowly losing sight of my own sense of worth within that loneliness.
I remember thoughts such as:
"What am I contributing here?"
"Perhaps I just need to put up with this."
"Why am I finding this so hard? I should be coping better."
When those thoughts build up over time, anxiety stops being just a passing feeling. It begins to shape how you see yourself.
I still remember a time when I had returned to Japan ahead of my former husband, who joined us later. When he saw me, he said, "You seem like a completely different person from when you were in the UK."
What struck me most was not shock, but recognition. Somewhere inside, I already knew. I had been more overwhelmed than I had fully realised.
Attachment style is not fixed
One of the most important things I have come to believe is that attachment style is not a fixed personality label.
We may feel relatively secure in one phase of life, and much more anxious in another.
Our attachment patterns can shift depending on our relationships, our stress levels, and how safe or unsafe life feels around us.
In that sense, anxious attachment is not simply a weakness. It can also be a sign that your heart is needing more safety, steadiness, and care than it has had.
So if you recognise yourself in these patterns, please do not rush to decide that something is wrong with you.
What matters more is gently noticing:
When do I feel most shaken?
What tends to stir up the fear that someone might pull away or not be there when I need them?
What kind of support helps me feel more grounded?
You do not need to blame yourself for feeling this way
When people first learn about attachment, they sometimes think, "Then I need to change."
But awareness does not instantly make things easier.
There may still be days when you feel anxious again. Days when the same old pain is stirred up. Days when you understand yourself in theory, but your feelings do not follow.
That does not mean you are failing.
Perhaps the more important step is this:
when anxiety rises, instead of saying, "I am like this again,"
you might begin to say, "Something in me is needing reassurance and safety right now."
Living abroad asks a great deal of us. It often involves invisible tension, quiet grief, ongoing adaptation, and a kind of fatigue that is difficult to explain to others.
In that context, emotional ups and downs are not unusual at all.
If you have been struggling with loneliness, relationship anxiety, or a fragile sense of self, I hope you can begin by knowing this: you are not strange, and you are not alone.
You do not need to become perfectly secure overnight.
Even if you feel unsteady, it is still possible to understand yourself more deeply and to begin relating to yourself with greater kindness. And perhaps that, little by little, is how a stronger inner foundation begins to grow.
🌿 A small first step for you: a free 30-minute online session
If you have read this far, you may be thinking:
"Is this really something I'm allowed to talk about?"
"I'm not sure I could explain myself very well."
"My feelings still aren't clear, even to me."
If so, please know that you are not alone in that either.
Especially for those who have spent a long time trying to cope on their own in life abroad, it can become very easy to carry everything quietly by yourself. And because struggles around attachment and loneliness are often invisible from the outside, you may feel that what you are carrying is not serious enough to bring to counselling.
But you do not need to arrive with everything neatly organised.
You do not need to know exactly what is wrong. You do not need to speak perfectly. And your pain does not need to be severe in order to matter.
This free 30-minute online session is a gentle, pressure-free space. A moment to pause, breathe, and begin putting words to what has been sitting quietly inside you — at your own pace.
Even if what you feel is still vague, that is perfectly alright.
If, at some point, you find yourself thinking,"Perhaps I'd like to talk to someone, just a little,"you would be very welcome here.
🔽Book a free 30-minute session
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