Hello, I hope my answer is helpful to you.
First of all, I want to commend the landlord for being able to understand himself and learn relevant information. This is a great first step towards change. Based on your description, you seem to have an insecure attachment, and it seems like you might have an avoidant attachment pattern. Let's start by understanding attachment theory.
Attachment is about the special relationship between a child and a long-term caregiver (usually a parent) during childhood. It's a psychological tendency to seek intimacy with someone and feel safe when they're around, based on a stable, secure, and trusting emotional experience. Attachment isn't just about parent-child relationships or intimate relationships. It can also be about colleagues, classmates, or friends who make you feel at ease. Your attachment type affects this, but it's in intimate relationships that it's revealed more completely.
How babies are cared for when they're young affects how they form attachments, and these attachment styles stick with them throughout their lives. Ainsworth's stranger situation experiment showed that babies can be divided into three main groups based on their attachment styles: secure, avoidant, and ambivalent.
Later on, researchers used attachment theory to study adult romantic relationships. They found that there are four main types of attachment based on how anxious or avoidant people are in relationships. We often have a mix of different attachment types, rather than just one.
How we were raised and cared for as children affects how we relate to our partners and the patterns of intimacy in adulthood. Your attachment strategy is what makes your intimate relationships succeed or fail.
Why are you drawn to certain individuals? Why do you keep encountering similar challenges?
All of this is connected to your attachment type.
Psychologist Kim Bartholomew (1998) built on previous work and categorized adult attachment patterns according to the degree of "anxiety" and "avoidance" in relationships. Among them, people with high anxiety (i.e., high anxiety)
Psychologist Kim Bartholomew (1998) built on previous research and classified adult attachment patterns according to the degree of "anxiety" and "avoidance" in relationships. People with high anxiety (i.e. high anxiety) are always afraid that the other person will leave them or not value them, while people with low anxiety do not have such worries. People with high avoidance are prone to feel uncomfortable with intimacy, while people with low avoidance are happy to be close to others.
Based on the above criteria, people can be divided into four main attachment types: secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful. Let's take a look at how these four types of people behave in terms of avoidance and anxiety.
People with a secure attachment style tend to be less anxious and avoidant. They're not worried about being abandoned and are happy to be intimate. They're also independent and interdependent with their partner.
Anxious (high anxiety, low avoidance): They're always worried about being abandoned, longing for intimacy, and very dependent on their partner.
Avoidant (low anxiety, high avoidance): You have a hard time trusting and relying on others, and you feel uncomfortable with intimacy. You also want to be independent.
Fear type (high anxiety, high avoidance): fear of abandonment, but also discomfort with intimacy, wanting both dependence and independence.
So, you're mainly in the avoidant attachment mode. Having understood the reason for your problems, the most important thing we need to do is accept ourselves. It's not your fault, but we can't blame our parents for it either, because they've given us what they think is best. There's nothing we can do to ask them for something they don't have.
We need to look at what we can do for ourselves, how we can adjust and grow.
I've got a few suggestions for you:
1. You can find a partner who is secure in their own feelings.
Some people who are secure can handle the challenges of people who are insecure without much effort. They have a lot of security and are willing to be tolerant and persistent.
Spending time with them will help you rebuild a sense of security and move towards a more secure attachment.
2. Find a counselor you can work with.
In counseling, you can get a safe space to release your repressed emotions. You can talk to the counselor about your feelings. A good counseling relationship will help you establish a secure attachment pattern, and you'll start to feel better.
3. Writing therapy helps you understand yourself better by reviewing your early experiences.
Some psychologists believe that understanding your early experiences can help you move past being defined and imprisoned by an insecure attachment pattern. You can do this by writing about past experiences and examining the reasons for these experiences.
You know that how you form attachments is related to how your parents raised you. You can think about how your parents treated you in the past, but also try to change how you see those experiences. For example, you might say to yourself, "My parents didn't love me less because I was unworthy. They just didn't know how to show love to their kids. They couldn't give me what they didn't have."
When you change how you think about past experiences, you can start to get over your fear of intimacy.
4. Try rational emotive behavior therapy to change your irrational beliefs.
Human emotional and behavioral disorders aren't caused by a specific event. They're caused by how we perceive and evaluate that event, which then leads to beliefs and emotional and behavioral consequences in a specific situation. This is known as the ABC theory.
Most people think that how we feel and what we do is directly caused by what happens to us. The ABC theory says that's not quite right. It says that what happens to us is only indirectly responsible for how we feel and what we do. Our beliefs, perceptions, and explanations about what happens to us are more directly responsible.
People with avoidant attachment styles often develop negative beliefs when something happens, which can lead to unfavorable outcomes.
For instance, if you send a message to your partner and they don't reply right away, someone with a secure attachment will likely think they're busy or their phone is out of sight.
However, people with avoidant attachment styles often think this is a sign that the other person doesn't love them or is impatient with them. As a result, they gradually reduce contact with the other person and start to believe that it's okay to be on their own and that they can take care of themselves without anyone else.
So, try to change your unreasonable beliefs and transform your negative perceptions. Even if it means asking your partner what they were thinking at the time, it's better than letting yourself get caught up in negative thoughts that you can't escape.
5. In a relationship, make a gratitude list and often feel the warm interactions between you and your partner.
For instance, when your partner brings you a cup of hot brown sugar water when you're feeling sick and in pain, or when you're feeling down, or when it's your birthday and they're thinking of ways to make you happy...
This is really about giving yourself permission to feel more of the other person's care and love for you. When you want to avoid it, your heart can gradually be melted by love, and you can communicate and interact more smoothly with each other, allowing the relationship and love to flow in a cycle, nourishing each other.
6. Communicate in a positive way and share your needs and vulnerabilities.
Christopher Monn said in "Intimacy: A Bridge to the Soul," "The real motivation behind starting and maintaining an intimate relationship is a need."
If you don't express your needs and vulnerabilities, the other person won't know what you need or what you're afraid of. Even if they want to help, they won't know how to help you.
So, we need to take the initiative to connect with the other person and try to express our feelings and needs to them in a way that's appropriate. For example, we could say, "I've been feeling very tired and stressed lately."
"I'm drawing a blank on this one. Could you help me out?"
This kind of open communication and sharing will not only relieve your inner pressure, but also gain the support and love of the other person. It will also make the other person feel needed and valuable. Regular positive communication will also help your relationship grow and warm up your feelings.
7. Learn to recognize your strengths and establish positive beliefs.
Know your worth and give yourself a pat on the back. Build up your self-confidence and believe that you will definitely find happiness.
The Pygmalion effect in psychology says that you'll get what you expect. You don't get what you want, but what you expect.
If you expect with confidence and truly believe that things will go well, then they will indeed go well. On the other hand, if you believe that things are constantly being hindered, then these obstacles will arise.
So it's important to recognize the value of positive beliefs. When we have positive beliefs and attitudes, when we are confident, when we believe that good things will happen, and when we maintain this positive outlook, it's really beneficial.
Because having positive beliefs leads to positive behavior, and positive behavior often leads to positive results.
We expect ourselves to become what we want to be, and we'll keep working hard in that direction. Eventually, we'll really become that expected self. But if we always feel that we're not good enough and that we can't do it, we'll stay stuck and never move forward.
I hope you can have a great relationship and enjoy a happy life together!
Comments
I can totally relate to what you're saying. It's like there's an invisible line, and once someone crosses it, all I want is to retreat to a safer space. The discomfort and anxiety just become too much to handle. Facing this issue feels overwhelming, but acknowledging it is the first big step. Maybe finding a therapist who specializes in attachment issues could help me understand and work through these feelings.
It sounds really tough, the way you describe how intimacy triggers your discomfort. I've had similar experiences where getting close to someone leads to this inexplicable urge to pull away. Even knowing the origin of this behavior doesn't make it easier to deal with. I wonder if there are any selfhelp techniques or support groups that might offer some guidance on handling avoidant tendencies and learning to be more comfortable with closeness.
Feeling this constant fear of intimacy must be exhausting. It's clear you've done a lot of introspection, which is admirable. Despite knowing the roots of your avoidant attachment, it's frustrating not having a clear path forward. Perhaps starting with small steps, like setting personal boundaries and gradually allowing yourself to open up to trusted individuals, could be a way to begin addressing this. Therapy could also provide a safe space to explore these challenges further.