Understanding Attachment Style: How It Affects Our Relationships
- Locus of Life
- Jun 5, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 28
We move through life meeting people and building all kinds of relationships. Some feel safe and steady. Others can leave us wondering why we keep falling into the same painful patterns, even when the people in front of us are different.
You may have noticed experiences like these:
“I start to feel overwhelmed when someone gets emotionally close.”
“If I do not hear back for a while, I become more anxious than I would like.”
“I want to be understood, but I find it hard to let people in.”
Behind these reactions, there is often a deeper emotional pattern at work. In psychology, this is known as attachment style.
When you live abroad, cultural differences and loneliness can sometimes make it easy to carry everything on your own without realising it.
I have lived in the UK for more than twenty years, and I still notice moments when I begin holding everything inside. Over time, simply being able to recognise that familiar response — “Ah, I am trying to cope alone again” — has helped me become a little gentler with myself.
Understanding attachment styles is not about putting yourself in a box. It can help you understand your feelings and patterns more kindly, and find gentler ways of relating to others. In this article, I would like to explore what attachment styles are, and how they affect our relationships.
Why attachment matters in relationships
Attachment is the foundation of emotional connection
Attachment refers to the emotional bond a baby forms with a primary caregiver.
This idea was developed by the British psychiatrist John Bowlby, who suggested that human beings naturally seek closeness to a trusted caregiver in times of distress. That bond helps us feel safe, comforted and less alone.
When a baby is frightened or upset, they turn towards a caregiver for comfort. Through repeated experiences of being soothed, the child begins to form a basic inner sense that says, “When I am struggling, someone will help me,” and “My feelings are accepted.”
These early experiences do not stay in childhood.They continue to shape the way we experience closeness, trust and emotional safety in adult relationships too.
Early relationships can influence adult patterns
When a child grows up with a fairly consistent sense of safety, trust tends to develop more naturally. They may find it easier, later in life, to rely on others, to express how they feel, and to stay emotionally present.
If, however, their feelings were often ignored or met unpredictably, they may learn a different set of expectations. They might begin to feel that closeness is uncertain, that support may not come, or that they should stay on guard.
This is not about blaming parents. Every family has its own circumstances, and most parents do the best they can. Still, the emotional atmosphere we grow up in leaves lasting impressions. That is why our present-day relationship struggles often have a reason behind them.
What are attachment styles?
Attachment style is not a personality label
Attachment theory suggests that, through early relationships, we develop basic patterns of how we connect with others. These patterns are called attachment styles.
It is important to say that an attachment style is not a fixed personality label. It is not a diagnosis. Rather, it reflects the ways of protecting yourself and connecting with others that you have learned over time.
Knowing your attachment style is helpful not to blame yourself, but to understand why certain moments in relationships affect you so deeply.
The four main attachment styles
The psychologist Mary Ainsworth observed how infants and caregivers interact, and identified four main attachment styles: secure, avoidant, anxious and disorganised.
In real life, people rarely fit perfectly into just one category. You might have a mix of tendencies, or react differently depending on the person or situation. These styles are simply a gentle guide to help you understand yourself better.
The four attachment styles
Secure attachment
Secure attachment tends to develop when a caregiver is fairly consistent, warm and responsive.A child learns that they matter and that people can be trusted.
In adulthood, this often shows up as an ability to balance closeness and independence. A securely attached person still faces worries and conflicts, but they generally feel safe enough to communicate openly and seek support when needed.
Avoidant attachment
Avoidant attachment often develops when a child’s feelings are not met consistently, or when they are ignored. The child may learn that “help is not coming” and that it is better to manage alone.
As adults, people with avoidant tendencies may feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness. They might struggle to show vulnerability or naturally keep others at a distance. They may seem self-sufficient or distant, but often there is also a wish for connection underneath. At the same time, relying on someone can simply feel too difficult.
Living abroad can sometimes strengthen this kind of response. When there is no one familiar nearby, and showing weakness feels hard, you might naturally think, “I just need to handle this myself.” Over time, even when you want connection, the habit of holding everything inside can grow stronger.
Anxious attachment
Anxious attachment often develops when care feels inconsistent — warm at times, but distant or unpredictable at others. A child in that environment may become highly sensitive to changes in mood, trying to make sure they are not left alone.
In adulthood, this can show up as feeling easily shaken by someone’s reactions. A delayed reply or a slight change in tone might trigger a strong fear of being disliked or abandoned. There is a deep longing for closeness, but the anxiety surrounding it can become painful and exhausting.
Disorganised attachment
Disorganised attachment can develop when the person a child turns to for safety is also a source of fear. This may happen in the context of abuse, neglect or other deeply frightening experiences.
As adults, people with disorganised attachment may find themselves wanting closeness but also feeling terrified of it. They might seek connection and then suddenly push it away. This does not mean they are “difficult”. It simply reflects how much they had to endure in very complex environments.
Can attachment styles change?
A sense of safety can grow in adult life too
Attachment patterns often begin in childhood, but they do not decide your whole life.
As adults, through new experiences of safety and trust, the way we connect with others can gradually soften and change.
For example, being in a relationship with a trusted partner or friend where your feelings are accepted can slowly rewrite the old belief that “I have to cope alone”.
This change might not be dramatic. But feeling slightly less afraid, slightly calmer, or slightly more able to trust is entirely possible.
Self-understanding can ease relationship pain
Counselling or therapy can also offer a space to notice and understand your own attachment patterns.
Why do I become so anxious here?
Why do I want to distance myself?
When you start to make sense of these reactions, what once felt like “my own fault” begins to look like a natural response you simply learned along the way.
This is not about making excuses for yourself, but understanding yourself anew. And that understanding gives you the space to choose a different way of relating.
Why it helps to know your attachment style
Repeated patterns usually have a reason
In romantic relationships, marriages, friendships and at work, we sometimes face the same emotional struggles again and again.
Before thinking, “I failed again,” it helps to look at the attachment patterns beneath the surface.
Perhaps closeness feels scary, or distance feels unbearable. These reactions do not come from nowhere.
When you see the reasons, the way you treat yourself begins to change. That is often the first step towards building safer relationships.
Understanding is not the same as self-blame
Learning about attachment styles is not meant to make you think,
“I am avoidant, so I am hopeless,” or “I am anxious, so relationships will always be hard.”
Rather, it is a way of looking at yourself with a little more kindness, knowing there are reasons why you learned to respond this way.
Your current struggles have a history. And understanding that history means you can start to make new choices.
What I hope to explore in this blog
In future posts, I will be writing more about each of the four attachment styles. I hope to look closely at their features, the difficulties they bring, and the small, practical hints for moving towards greater safety and connection.
Attachment theory is not just a tool for analysing yourself. It can be a gentle guide to help you make sense of your pain and find a softer way to live.
If this article has helped you organise your feelings or see your relationships a little more clearly, I am very glad.
🌿 A small first step for you: a free 30-minute online session
You may be thinking,“Is this really something I can talk about?”
“I am not sure I could explain it properly.”
“My feelings are still a bit unclear.”
If you are feeling this way, please know that it is completely all right.
Sometimes, without realising it, we fall back into the habit of trying to manage everything on our own. For those who have spent years carrying things quietly while living abroad, it can be especially hard to show vulnerability before putting those feelings away again.
That is exactly why you do not need to arrive with your thoughts neatly organised.
Your concerns do not need to be severe to matter.
You can start simply from “I do not really know what to say.”
The first 30-minute online session is not a place to rush for answers, but a pressure-free space to gently look at your feelings at your own pace.
If, at some point, you feel you might like to talk to someone, even just a little, you are very welcome to come just as you are. I will be here to help you, quietly and gently, as you begin to put things into words.
🔽Click here for details and to book your free introductory session
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