How would you feel if you crave closeness but your partner tells you they need more space? This may sound ominous but it’s not necessarily a sign of problems. More likely, you have some attachment style differences to navigate. You see, there’s a whole lot more to relationships than love at first sight and happily ever after. No one writes fairy tales about attachment issues but they should. It would save a lot of us a whole lot of stress. 

Put simply, there are two general types of attachment styles: secure and insecure. But the good news is that different attachment styles can connect — and you can change your attachment style!

What Is Attachment Theory?

Children learn how to attach to others based on how they are treated by their primary caregivers. The nature of this bond can shape connections well into adulthood. As mentioned above, the ideal is “secure.” The category of “insecure” can be broken into a few versions — one of which is “disorganized.”

What Is a Disorganized Attachment Style?

People with a disorganized attachment style may strongly desire an intimate connection but fear it at the same time, as the caregivers they experienced often betrayed them through neglect or abuse. People with a disorganized attachment style crave connection and intimacy but at the same time fear it. As a result, they may exhibit a mix of building walls to deal with difficult conversations and pursuing resolution of these difficult conversations.

Common signs include:

• Lack of trust

• Unpredictable, volatile relationship patterns

• Depression and/or anxiety 

• Lack of coping skills

• Feeling shame and inadequacy 

• Strong, conflicting feelings toward parents (or any caregivers)

• Low self-esteem

• Feeling unlovable

Obviously, this can be tricky when it comes to romance. So, how do you create a healthy relationship with someone who feels stuck in this cycle?

What to Keep in Mind If Your Partner Has a Disorganized Attachment Style

The More You Know

We may not be taught much about attachment style but it’s never too late. Educate yourselves. Learn about patterns and triggers.

Once you’ve opened the door to comprehending the nuances of attachments, the journey becomes one of wonder and growth. Have open conversations about your feelings and get into the habit of verbalizing your needs. 

Triggers

Triggers are anything in the present day that are close enough to what you experienced in the past they dropped you into fight flight or freeze. I typically couples experience hard fights because one person gets triggered, dumps a lot of energy into their system and then the other person does the same in response. Since fight/flight/freeze responses are a survival mechanism, they are "non-linear in nature". This means that the response is disproportionate to the stimulus. This is why a lot of people are surprised when a trigger is activated. The person’s nervous system is experiencing a threat and therefore is mustering all of the resources to either shut down go away or raise their voice in response.

Since both of you are likely experiencing triggers, each of you has a responsibility for understanding how to cope with them. Triggers will send you into fight, flight or freeze. When you are under resourced, your response may be very different from what you want it to be. The responsibility here is to take a time out to gather up your resources so your response can be more in line with what you feel is productive. I have an article called going slow to go fast where I talk about what you can do when your fight, flight, or freeze response activated.

Understand What Your Spouse Or Partner Is Experiencing

I have two things for you to read with disorganized attachment. One article is on why someone “comes at me” in a hard conversation. The other is “why someone goes away” (or shuts down) in a hard conversation. Both of these apply to people who how disorganized attachment styles because they implement both. They are both creating connection and deeply fearful of it.

Understand Your Patterns

Whatever your attachment styles are, (both you and your partner) you’ll have to understand what pattern of interaction you both get into and the underlying emotional process that hijacked your relationship. Understanding this pattern is key to understanding how are you slow down before your argument heats up so much that you can't contain it. It's also key to understanding how you apologize and repair afterwards. I wrote this article on understanding your pattern of fighting. It may help you observe understand and work towards a more collaborative relationship.

Work Toward Change

Again, a person’s attachment style is not permanent. Yes, it is deeply embedded from a very young age but it remains an evolving process. You will need to be patient as you move toward some early defined goals. Pledge together to never forget that together, you can find the balance and bond you both crave. It’s not about a need to “fix” each other. Rather, you work as a team to discover new ways to interact and problem-solve that work equally when it comes to security and intimacy. 

Couples Therapy Is a Valuable Option 

Under the guidance of an unbiased professional, you will have a place to explore the root causes of your attachment styles and differences. This will lay the groundwork for a collective effort toward the development of healthier communication and deeper trust. I can intervene to help you slow things down so you can understand each other without getting hurt.

If you want to learn more about how I think of couples counseling, stop by my marriage and couples counseling page. If you are in Minnesota and want to learn how to get unstuck, let’s talk soon. I’m in Edina and serve the greater Minneapolis area. You can reach me by phone: 612-230-7171 or email through my contact page. Or you can click on the button below and self-schedule a time to talk by phone or video.