Attachment styles

[UnaCorda]

AIBU to think that a person's relationship status is more to do with their attachment style (i.e. whether they're avoidant, anxious, or secure) than other attributes such as whether they're good-looking, a high earner, tall, well educated, a nice person, etc.?

I've been single forever and during this time everyone I know whose relationship has ended through divorce, etc. is now in a new one, whereas the few other people I know who are single have also remained single throughout the same period. I can't think of anyone whose status has changed, other than being temporarily between relationships - everyone just seems to revert to their personal status quo.

I also know, or know of, people who are conventionally very unattractive, or who have mental health issues making them difficult to live with, or who are disabled, or overweight - all things which would probably be seen objectively as being potentially off-putting when trying to find a partner - who are in long-term successful relationships.

So, in short, it seems that what really matters when trying to find a partner is simply whether or not you're good at relationships - and if you're not you're basically buggered, even if you're gorgeous, fabulously wealthy and have a great personality.

Anyone?

Oh course if you have poor attachment in early life it will impact you later in life. The child/ caregiver attachment relationship is so import because it impacts on all future relationships and how you navigate the world.

Yep to a certain extent I agree but there are a lot of people in relationships who have dysfunctional attachments and therefore dysfunctional sometimes toxic relationships

@user1493413286

Yep to a certain extent I agree but there are a lot of people in relationships who have dysfunctional attachments and therefore dysfunctional sometimes toxic relationships

Yes, I should have included that as a possible scenario.

I even know of people who have been sexually abused who seem to be better at relationships than I am.

I think I'm a lost cause!

Well, yes. Whether you end up in a good relationship is based on how good you are at maintaining good relationships. That doesn’t mean that it necessarily has to do with attachment styles. Attachment theory has a really loose base of scientific evidence and it’s unwise to cast all adult problems as arising from it. It’s never been anything more than a general hypothesis largely based on confirmation bias, and took root because it was postured at a time when an increasing number of mothers were entering the workplace and played on their guilt about not being present enough for their children.

Perhaps the people who hold down successful relationships have the behaviours and personalities which support that - like being good at communication, being capable of compromise, having a balanced outlook towards things which means they aren’t prone to creating or revelling in drama.

I don’t recognise anyone I know in your theory. I know plenty of people from all kinds of different backgrounds - from having doting SAHMs to attending boarding school to having very unstable childhoods, and everything in between - and there’s no pattern. I also know plenty of people who have gone through a series of short but drama-filled relationships in their lives and this is because they are, quite frankly, self-absorbed, high maintenance pains in the arses. I highly doubt it has much of anything to do with attachment.

@UnaCorda

I even know of people who have been sexually abused who seem to be better at relationships than I am.

I think I'm a lost cause!

This was a shockingly crass thing to say, I can hardly believe I've just read it.

I've been sexually abused and I've also been happily married for 15 years. Abuse victims aren't social pariahs!

@UnaCorda

I even know of people who have been sexually abused who seem to be better at relationships than I am.

I think I'm a lost cause!

This was a shockingly crass thing to say, I can hardly believe I've just read it.

I've been sexually abused and I've also been happily married for 15 years. Abuse victims aren't social pariahs!

This was a shockingly crass thing to say, I can hardly believe I've just read it.

I'm sorry - I didn't mean to be crass. I just meant that having had an experience like that must surely make it harder to trust and get close to people.

I've been sexually abused and I've also been happily married for 15 years. Abuse victims aren't social pariahs!

Of course they're not. I'm not suggesting that an abuse victim is any less deserving of being in a relationship - that isn't what I meant at all.

All I meant was that even if you've suffered abuse, having a secure attachment style can still enable you to form a successful relationship - in fact you're probably more likely to manage to do so than someone who has not suffered abuse but who has a maladaptive attachment style.

Sorry if I didn't express my thoughts very clearly.

Well, yes. Whether you end up in a good relationship is based on how good you are at maintaining good relationships. That doesn’t mean that it necessarily has to do with attachment styles.

What about finding/forming a relationship with potential in the first place?

@UnaCorda

Well, yes. Whether you end up in a good relationship is based on how good you are at maintaining good relationships. That doesn’t mean that it necessarily has to do with attachment styles.

What about finding/forming a relationship with potential in the first place?

Positive working models of relationships; better sense of self and self-confidence which prevents them making (and staying with) poor choices of partner; general individual temperament which influences how you relate to others (for example, I have no sense of jealousy; it’s meant an absence in my relationships of a lot of the negative behaviour which jealousy causes people to display.) Not to mention that many external factors such as health, education and earning capacity are instrumental in whether women particularly stay in poor relationships.

It’s a whole lot of things, and you aren’t wrong in saying that the things people often assume will make you good at relationships aren’t necessarily the case : “attachment” just isn’t the theory to solely base it on.