![\"Attachment](\"https:\/\/image.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Attachment-Based-Communication-Tips-for-Partners.jpg\" "\\"Attachment")
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As a couple’s therapist, I frequently hear partners describe each other as clingy, cold, rejecting, or always in-their-own-world. What they are essentially describing are not personal attributes but attachment styles that form in early childhood and continue to impact our adult relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n The way in which we relate to our partners, whether we seek intimacy or closeness, how preoccupied we are with our intimate relationships and how we handle rejection are factors that determine our attachment styles. In other words, attachment styles are our ways of relating to our intimate partners. They are a result of our early attachment-based interactions with our parents and social wiring.<\/span><\/p>\n Attachment can be secure or insecure, depending on the quality of our relationship with our parents when we were very young. The two main styles of insecure attachment are the anxious and avoidant attachment. The most common dynamic that I see among couples experiencing relational distress is a partner with an anxious attachment style paired with a partner who is avoidant.<\/span><\/p>\n Partners with an avoidant attachment style often find that they are unable to give what their partners want from them such as physical affection, closeness, or emotional intimacy<\/a>. An avoidant attachment style is an adaptation to early parental emotional neglect which manifests itself as a strong need for autonomy and independence in intimate adult relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n When upset, avoidant partners need alone time to calm down and they tend to experience a very high level of interpersonal stress in their relationships<\/a>. However, rarely do they look within to find the root cause of their problems. They often attribute the relationship stress to either their partner or external circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n