Download PDFPersons with a secure attachment style must pay particular attention to the following points when dealing with a potential dating partner:
Criteria
Your (dating) partner should have a "secure" attachment style just like you.
Rationale
It is more challenging for you to be with an "anxious" or "avoidant" type than with a type similar to yourself. Of course, you can also be with an anxious or avoidant type, especially if you like the person or if you have fallen in love with him/her. In terms of attachment, however, it means that the relationship becomes more complex in the first place.
Tip
Try to find out if your (dating) partner also has a secure attachment style. Usually you feel this intuitively. In any case, here are a few tips below:
- Your (dating) partner won't give you advice unasked, doesn't meddle with what you are doing and is constantly looking for how to "improve" your doings. This means that he/she isn't into micromanagement when you do something. But he/she offers support in the background.
- Your (dating) partner does not send any "mixed signals" with regard to the relationship intentions. If, for example, a promise has been made that your (dating) partner is no longer able to keep, your (dating) partner will immediately explain to you why the promise or agreement cannot be kept.
- Your (dating) partner deals constructively with any negative emotions. This means that (s)he does not see them primarily as signs of aggression, but as a signal to help you get back to more positive feelings.
Criteria
As a secure attachment person, you are usually quite effective at communicating your needs for proximity and security. Your (dating) partner is in no way less effective than you are.
Rationale
If only you alone are able to express needs for closeness, you feel your relationship is too one-sided. You will then live with the feeling that you must always take the initiative. This is unsatisfactory in the long run.
Criteria
Your (dating) partner should feel at ease when you need time for yourself or want to do something on your own.
Rationale
For you, an attachment relationship is first and foremost a secure base, where you can recharge your batteries and have a safe place to be, so that you can better survive in the "outside world" and master your challenges. Your attachment partner is not immediately upset or insecure if you need some time alone or for friends.
Secure Meets Anxious
This "matching" is usually a feasible one! You don't have to run away from a rather anxiously insecure (dating) partner. Above all, if the partner is attractive for you, for example, sharing common hobbies with you or if values and views are consistent, etc., then you should confidently display your strengths as a secure binding partner.
Usually the anxious partner will largely copy your style. Because he (or she) feels that you can offer a secure base. A too anxious attachment partner might not be a good match for you, if you need lot of partner free time due to hobbies, professional activities and the like. You would just be gone too often and you couldn't give the "secure responses" the way your partner needs them. For example: You would be a professional pilot, often absent for long periods of time, and your partner would be an anxious and insecure attachment person. That could be too much of a challenge for (both of) you!
Secure meets Avoidant
Avoidant attachment persons generally expect nothing good from "proximity". Too often in their lives they have had to learn that proximity does not necessarily calm their emotions, but rather intensifies them negatively.
As a matter of principle, you must make sure that the avoidant person you are dating is sufficiently communicative and, above all, reliable. That means he's there at the agreed time and keeps his promises. If a deal or promise cannot be kept, (s)he explains without being asked why (s)he had to break the promise. The avoidant appreciates your secure style and communicates this clearly. He can apologize for his distance and feels that in his avoidance he doesn't necessarily do the relationship any favours. He's willing to see something positive in the proximity and allowing proximity. He/she personally wants to see proximity become a resource rather than a threat to security and self-esteem.
If such attitudes are present in an avoider, then it can work, because then the avoider will progressively copy your secure attachment style in the long run.
Secure meets Secure
There is actually little to say about this. It would be the ideal partnership for you. Anyway, you intuitively look for a similarly secure person. Of course, the character and temperament of secure people are very different. If you find someone who has a similar relationship credo like you (
), then you should not hesitate and engage yourself if you like the person. You are then on the safe side...