From a reader: “I love him, but I can’t brush my teeth without his hovering over me. Sometimes I feel like he’s got me on a leash, and I just want to run.”
In the beginning of a relationship, we can mistake clinging for love. Later, it can seem more like insecurity — even desperation — especially to an independent person trying to find some space.
But it’s an attachment style … and, based on research, we each have one of the following three:
Secure: comfortable with connectedness and autonomy
Avoidant: uncomfortable with too much connectedness
Anxious: uncomfortable with too much autonomy, or clingy
Each style probably brings to mind some exemplary specimen. There was the too-anxious-to-please one who wanted to marry you three weeks after the first date. Then there was the one who wouldn’t quite commit — or really open up — despite spending years with you.
But maybe you’ve only experienced the “secure” from a distance — your second cousin’s husband. If you’re wondering why you can’t find somebody who is his own person and still capable of intimacy, check out your own attachment style. Smile.
You are probably — perhaps without realizing it — still looking for secure in yourself, too.… More