Attachment Theory and Divorce

If you’re a parent with an internet connection, you have probably heard of attachment theory. It is the idea that our very earliest relationships with our caretakers shape our development, behavior and personality, and provide the model for how we behave in our relationships as adults.

According to attachment theory, there are three main attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Understanding your attachment style can help you respond to the challenges of divorce with self-compassion, cultivate kindness, and get you started on the path to recovery and new relationships.

Secure Attachment

People with secure attachment styles typically experienced safe, understanding, and responsive relationships with their caregivers as infants. They feel comfortable with themselves and can experience emotional stress without becoming overly upset. They are able to trust their partner, be honest about their feelings, and offer support when their partner is distressed. People with secure attachments are more likely to have satisfying relationships, but they are not immune from breakups - in fact, they might be the ones to break off a relationship because they feel secure with themselves and confident they can find a relationship that works for them.

Anxious Attachment

Anxiously attached partners find it difficult to trust and feel safe with their partner, questioning the security of their relationship and needing frequent reassurance that the relationship is still functioning. They likely had a caregiver who was unreliably available, such as a parent with an alcohol or drug addiction, or a depressed or anxious parent.

Their need for reassurance often leads to troubled relationships, as their anxiety causes them to act in ways that actually drive their partners away, while they are seeking to create closeness. When divorcing, people with an anxious attachment style may find it difficult to remain calm or feel safe because their source of reassurance (their partner) is now missing. They may seek out new relationships or develop unhealthy attachments to substances. But that doesn’t have to be the case - by recognizing, naming, and accepting the pattern that created their anxiety (often with the help of a therapist), a secure attachment style can be built and anxiety overcome.

Avoidant Attachment

People with an avoidant attachment styles tend to withdraw or shut down when emotional conflict arises in their relationship, dismissing their partner and their feelings or becoming so afraid of making a choice that might hurt their partner that they become unable to act at all. They might believe themselves to be more “rational” than a more emotionally expressive partner and blame their partner for the conflict in their relationship, but their withdrawal and refusal to engage in emotional topics also undermines the relationship. They tend to react to divorce by avoiding the other party or the work needed to go through the process, numbing or isolating themselves in the process, but they can break the pattern by turning toward their discomfort instead of away from it (a process made easier with the help of a therapist), and accepting that emotional stress, conflict, and loss are inevitable in any relationship.

Self-awareness is key

Hopefully, by understanding your attachment style you will begin to see how unconscious behaviors may have affected your relationship. Our personalities and relationship skills are molded at the very earliest time in our life, making it difficult, but not impossible, to see and overcome the patterns ingrained in us. Knowing this, you can see how useless it is to blame yourself for your divorce or the breakdown of your co-parenting relationship; while it is important to learn from and take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, it is equally important to recognize how often what seems like intentional behavior is actually deeply influenced by the things that happened to us as children and which were beyond our control.

Be compassionate toward yourself - and toward your ex. Remember, inside everyone is a kid who just wants to feel loved.

Want to learn more about attachment theory? Check out Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson or take an attachment styles test.