The Dating Behaviors That Trigger My Anxious Attachment Style

This is a judgment-free zone, okay? We've all felt insecure in our relationship and stalked an ex, date, or current partner on social media. Humans are emotional beings that feel everything. But if you're always surfing your partner's socials for information on their whereabouts, constantly seeking reassurance (even though your partner gives you plenty of it), or repeatedly calling and texting them, you might have an anxious attachment style.

Chances are you've heard of attachment theory—the idea that explains how long-term bonds form between people? Yep, psychologist John Bowlby coined the term in the late '50s after identifying how the interactions between child and caregiver determine one's attachment style.

But while attachment may start in childhood, it shows up in adulthood, too. Particularly in romantic partners because they serve as attachment figures. Anxious attachment (aka anxious-preoccupied attachment) is marked by a tendency to worry about relationships with attachment figures. In layman's terms, people with anxious attachment are highly attuned to their partner’s needs but require constant reassurance to feel secure and safe.

It's why anxious attachers “may appear clingy, jealous, or over-controlling; however, to the anxiously attached person, it’s a way to cope with very uncomfortable emotions,” says Rachel Goldberg, MS, a licensed marriage and family therapist at Rachel Goldberg Therapy. Anxious attachment is one of the three insecure attachment styles that spring from a fear of abandonment and rejection.

How do anxious attachers become...anxious? What triggers someone depends on the individual and can vary from person to person. Which is why it's important to know your triggers and how to manage them. Below, we dive into the common anxious attachment triggers and what tools and tips can help you cope.

Common Anxious Attachment Triggers

Want to know your triggers? While we can't identify every single one, there are a few consistent ones among anxious attachers.

“Common triggers that might heighten someone’s anxious attachment style are things such as sensing a change in communication, feeling emotionally or physically distant, an external factor or person that could threaten the bond, feeling dismissed, getting in an argument and not being reassured or complimented enough,” says Goldberg.

For example, imagine texting your S.O. and they don't respond right away. With an anxious attachment style, you'll feel compelled to text your partner multiple times until you get a response, which can exacerbate the communication between you two, says licensed clinical social worker Laura Sgro.

Sgro adds that anxious attachers can become triggered if their partner asks for some alone time. Why? A request for space can make the anxious attacher feel physically distant. Similarly, not talking about personal things like how work is going can also trigger the anxious attached person because they feel emotionally distanced, Goldberg notes.

How an anxious attacher responds to their triggers varies. One person can be upset if their friend or family member ignores their call or sends them to voicemail. Another person might be fine if their friend ignores their message but can become angry if their partner sends them clipped and cold responses. One way or another, though, all anxiously attached people have triggers that can make things difficult for those in a relationship (platonic, romantic, or familial) with them.

Communication Patterns

When communication patterns change in a relationship, it can trigger anxious attachers. Anxiously attached people are hypervigilant, meaning they're sensitive to sudden changes in communication.

“The anxious partner is interacting from this place of fear, from this place of, ‘Oh my gosh, I've done something wrong,’ or ‘This person's mad at me,'” says Sgro. “And resentment can build between them if they're not actually communicating about what's happening.”

Goldberg adds that the anxiously attached partner will begin making assumptions about the changes in communication without any proof, which can further send them into a spiral of fear that something is wrong. “This may result in [them] becoming more clingy, starting arguments, or interrogating their partner who may have just been busy and wasn’t intentionally changing the way they communicate,” she says.

Anxiously attached people aren’t trying to start fights or cause problems. As Goldberg explains, they simply want to search for threats to the relationship, so they can stay a step ahead. Unfortunately, that results in miscommunication and misunderstandings, which leads anxious attachers to assume the worst and catastrophize.

How to Minimize This Trigger:

• Communicate your issues. Tell your partner you tend to feel anxious in relationships, says Goldberg. Requesting and receiving assurance goes a long way toward helping you feel less anxious and more secure. 
• Practice emotional regulation. Regulation will help an anxious person control their emotional responses. Regulation can include journaling, sharing feelings, meditation and mindfulness, and talking with a therapist.
• Have regular check-ins with your partner. Goldberg says that this will be a place to discuss any anxiety in the relationship, which helps the anxiously attached person know there's a time for these conversations.
• Use “I” statements to avoid blaming the other party. This kind of language will make you focus on your experience instead of accusing the other person, explains Sgro.
• Work on tolerating the unknown for longer periods. If the anxiously attached person can tolerate the unknown, they can start to deal with perceived threats calmly and appropriately, says Goldberg.

Fear of Rejection and Abandonment

Fear of rejection and abandonment is the core of an anxious attachment style and stems from inconsistent care from the primary caregiver in childhood. “If a child does their chores and is praised one night, but reprimanded the next for doing them incorrectly, they may start to believe that they need to constantly improve to prevent their caregiver from becoming upset,” Goldberg says. “Over time, and through many such experiences, a child becomes highly sensitive to others' perceived moods and strives to gain approval, believing that their actions determine praise—love—or criticism.”

Anxious attachment can continue into adulthood because we often subconsciously seek out relationships that mirror our relationship with our primary caregiver from our formative years, Sgro says. Even if that dynamic is not what we want, we’re comfortable in these situations. The desire to prove ourselves leads many to continue the same pattern.

Alternatively, anxious attachment can develop because of bad relationships in adulthood. “For example, if someone discovers they were cheated on, they may begin to believe it will happen again, leading to heightened vigilance and an increased need for reassurance in their next relationship,” Goldberg explains.

How to Manage Your Fear of Rejection and Abandonment

According to Sgro, anxiously attached people can manage this trigger by:

• Calming their body. Pay attention to your physiological response, whether it’s your heart racing or you’re feeling restless. Try to calm your body through deep breathing.
• Challenge negative beliefs. After you’ve calmed your body, look at some of your negative beliefs and question where they come from. For example, what evidence do you have that your partner’s mad at you? Is the story you're telling yourself absolutely, positively, one hundred percent true? And if so, what is the evidence for it? If it isn't true, what else could be true? Is there evidence for that? If there is something you want to know about what someone else is thinking or feeling, can you ask them directly instead of making assumptions?

Uncertainty and Ambiguity

Uncertainty and ambiguity can invite the anxiously attached individual to fill in the gaps with inaccurate information. “The brain doesn’t always have the best knowledge because it’s based on what we learned in childhood,” Sgro says. “So, our brain isn’t necessarily trying to be our friend. It is trying to protect us, but it doesn’t always know what our best interest is.”

The unknown may trigger thoughts and beliefs that could be wrong. As a result, says Goldberg, “anxiously attached people may instinctually go to the worst-case scenario and have black-and-white thinking when it comes to what’s happening in their relationships.”

Partners who can offer reassurance and clarity can alleviate those anxious feelings. It’s difficult because it requires vulnerability, but clear communication is the first step. “You want [to be in a relationship] with someone who can hold space for you,” says Sgro. “Who can reassure you and can communicate, ‘Hey, I've been feeling this way. Is this really what you're thinking? Or can we talk about this issue?’ And get that feedback from them.”

How Anxious Attachers Can Build Trust in Their Relationships

• Keep communication open and express your true fears instead of hiding your need for support, comfort, and reassurance.
• Be clear and specific about what you need from your partner and how often.
• Refrain from breaking your agreements and potentially damaging your partner's trust by continually asking for more than agreed to or encroaching on the space they may have asked you for.
• Spend quality time together without distractions regularly, so the feeling and knowing that you are cared for, appreciated, and valued can be recalled in times of uncertainty, anxiety, and distress.

Emotional Triggers

People with anxious attachment may have been exposed to trauma, especially in childhood. This could include neglect or physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Alternatively, you could have become anxiously attached later in life (even if your childhood was wonderful) because you were in a toxic or unhealthy relationship, where you were constantly told negative things about yourself. One way or another, people with anxious attachments have trouble trusting themselves and their partners.

Both Goldberg and Sgro say this leads to a variety of emotional triggers that activate anxious attachment, including:

• Perceived emotional or physical distance
• Disagreements or arguments
• Sudden changes in partner relationships
• Your partner getting upset with you

One way or another, your past can lead to a struggle with low self-esteem or self-worth and to hiding your feelings from the person you are currently in a relationship with.

Strategies for Coping with Emotional Triggers:

• Building up your distress tolerance. Sgro says it's impossible to “completely avoid negative situations, so you must learn how to tolerate the discomfort that comes with those moments.”
• Find your way through mindfulness. According to Goldberg, you can try meditation, exercise, or other coping mechanisms to help you become more mindful of the situation.
• Distract yourself from your feelings in healthy ways. When feelings get too intense in a relationship, Goldberg says, try playing with the dog, listening to a podcast, going for a manicure, or any other activity that might distract you.

Personal Boundaries and Autonomy

People with anxious attachments tend to have a problem setting good boundaries. They put their partner first and are afraid to assert their own needs. Therefore, they’re likely to have their boundaries and autonomy violated without even realizing it. Similarly, the other partner in the relationship will get frustrated or resentful for triggering the anxiously attached person with their boundaries. Ultimately, both partners feel like they can’t get their needs met.

It's important to set healthy boundaries in relationships by developing a strong sense of self and maintaining independence instead of dissolving into the relationship and the other person. This can be a difficult skill to learn, explains Sgro. So you’ll have to be patient with yourself, but with time and practice, you can get clarity on who you are and what you want and don't want. Plus, learn how to communicate your requests and boundaries clearly and kindly.

How to Maintain Your Sense of Self in a Relationship

• Finding hobbies outside of your relationship
• Having a group of friends independent of your relationship
• Setting goals for how you want to be in a relationship and working toward those. For example, after having a date night with your partner, you might want to enjoy a night in by yourself without worrying about whether your partner calls or texts you
• Working on goals outside of your relationship, such as getting a promotion, running a marathon, or volunteering for something you are passionate about

Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness

Many people try to avoid anything that would make them really examine themselves. Sgro adds that people don’t want to see how much work they have to do on themselves, so they avoid introspection. However, to effectively manage triggers, it’s important to accept both the good and the bad and engage in self-reflection and self-awareness. Otherwise, you'll repeat the same cycles.

To identify and understand personal triggers, Goldberg recommends: “writing down on a scale of 1 to 10 how anxious you are and what event preceded it. Over time, this will help you identify both smaller triggers and the broader categories they fall under. For example, taking too long to text back can be categorized under communication expectations.” This will give you a reason to self-reflect on your triggers and may even stop the cycle of emotions taking over quickly.

Goldberg also advises self-awareness and self-reflection. You can journal or get help from a workbook filled with prompts that get you to think about your situation. Really, anything that gets you out of your emotional brain and into your thinking brain should help you cultivate self-reflection and self-awareness.

Seeking Support and Professional Help

Everyone needs support outside of their romantic relationship, and loved ones and trusted individuals can be great options for those with anxious attachment. “Loved ones can gently challenge your automatic thoughts as well as remind you that you are loved, valued, and supported by them,” says Goldberg. “They can also be a source of reason if what you perceive as a threat generally is not looked at by others in that way.”

Furthermore, a therapist or mental health professional can benefit anxiously attached individuals. Sgro says that a therapist can help you develop healthy boundaries and communication.

Several therapy modalities may be especially good for anxiously attached individuals including emotional-focused therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and attachment-based therapy, says Sgro.

Final Thoughts

No matter what, you can heal from anxious attachment and make your relationship better. While it will take hard work (as most things in life do), those with anxious attachments can become secure by identifying their triggers, becoming mindful of their responses, communicating feelings and needs, and requesting and receiving reassurance and support. It'll take patience and lots of work, anxiously attached people can change their attachment style and heal in loving relationships.