Attachment begins in childhood, a very important stage and with great impact on adult life, it is so important that many of the problems faced by an adult in relationships, whether as a couple or friendship, originate at this stage. these relationships “neither with you nor without you”? If this is the case, we hide one type of attachment: unsafe ambivalent attachment.
This type of attachment is found in toxic relationships, such as emotional dependence, where there are a number of behaviors that affect people’s relationships and well-being, identifying it and understanding where it comes from will help us reorient it so that we can have a healthier life. Relations.
- “Neither with you nor without you my pains have no cure.
- With you because he kills me and without you because I’m dying?Anonymous?.
Mary Ainsworth discovered the three types of attachment (safe, anxious-avoiding, and insecure-ambivalent), through an investigation involving a group of mothers and their babies. The study was conducted in an unknown environment and some exercises were performed in various situations, such as the mother leaving her baby alone in a strange room.
Aisnworth discovered that babies who had a relationship with an insecure-ambivalent attachment style were trying to hold on to their mother and keep them away from them; if they couldn’t, they got very angry, kicked, screamed and cried heartbrokenly.
What happened when the mother came back? The children returned to seek contact with her, but some of them slightly arched their shoulders to keep their distance. In other words, they were disappointed and, most importantly, suspected and acted out of fear that their mother would abandon them again. In fact, after the situation they experienced, it was difficult to reassure them.
The type of attachment that is present in childhood will also be so in adulthood, albeit otherwise and in other circumstances.
This study highlights these situations in which there is an attachment figure, usually parents, who leave the family and then return home, in cases where the child grows up in an environment where the parents separate and resume the relationship several times. (anxiously on the part of parents), causes insecurity and fear of abandonment, causing the behavior described above.
I’d like you to work from home, am I so happy when you’re by my side?Too bad you have to go to this meeting!? We may have already said these phrases, and many others, for people with uncertain ambivalent attachment, have a much deeper, more real, and more extreme meaning.
In their adult life, a person with an uncertain-ambivalent attachment wants their partner to always be with him, but he can get to the extreme and when your partner is with his friends he will want to be there, they become the typical couple who do everything together, as if it were a package. But what happens when there is no alternative but to do things separately?
For example, imagine that the person suffering from ambivalent attachment is very happy because it is her mother’s birthday and she will celebrate it, your partner calls you to tell you that he has an important meeting, that the boss is unbearable and that he must stay late. He can’t do anything and then he can’t go with you. However, the reaction is unexpected.
The person with this type of attachment feels the same way he felt as a child: a terrible abandonment, he suspects that his partner does not want to spend time with him and, perhaps, does not love him as much as before. Assumptions are, from our point of view, irrational, however, for that person, they are very likely.
Maybe your tears, your complaints, accompanied by one?Don’t you love me anymore? Ask your partner to look for an excuse not to attend the meeting However, even if he or she accompanies you, the person with this type of attachment will be angry and irritated: they will try to blame the other to make sure it doesn’t happen again. He rejects and punishes his partner, but at the same time clings to his presence. A contradiction that has been present since childhood.
Some dysfunctional relationships are the result of an unsafe attachment built in childhood.
Insecurity in relationships, fear of abandonment and loneliness, emotional dependence, reparation of one relationship in another, suffering at the time of love, are some examples of the consequences that a person can face because he has developed an uncertain-ambivalent attachment.
Sometimes you may believe that you have relationships with people who don’t deserve it, yet he doesn’t realize that he repeats patterns of behavior that make his relationships always end the same way, and when this happens, you confirm the belief you have. I’ve endured for so long: everyone wants to leave you.