How Your Childhood Affects Your Love Styles
It’s no doubt that our childhood shapes our love life and how we relate to others in adulthood.
The Still Face experiment proved that we were responsive to parents’ emotions and activity even as infants.
Suppose you grew up with unresponsive parents or parents who have an addiction and mental health problems. In that case, you may have issues with trusting others, opening up, and bonding — that’s why some people grow up disassociated and uncaring.
A child ignored and unappreciated grows up and behaves the only way it knows.
Based on childhood and experience with parents, there are three most popular love styles:
- Anxious attachment
- Avoidant attachment
- Secure attachment
Let’s learn more…
Anxious attachment style
If you have been dating someone who called you a hundred times a day, always asking if you loved them, always searching for different ways to gain your attention, you probably had to deal with someone with an anxious attachment style.
People with anxious attachment styles are very insecure about relationships and are always hungry for validation. Anxiously attached people crave love and affirmation from their partners. We usually call them needy and clingy.
These people grew up with inconsistent, unpredictable parents who are sometimes overly involved, and at other times totally distant.
Avoidant attachment style
Did your relationship ever feel like a roller-coaster? One day of love and passion was followed by a day of cold and distance? You were never sure if they had feelings for you? Then you were probably dating someone with an avoidant attachment style.
Avoidantly attached people fear intimacy. They will always find a way to keep a distance from their partner and are emotionally unavailable. If you try to make a closure, they will back off and put you on hold. They have trouble getting close to others or trusting others in relationships, and relationships can make them feel suffocated.
These people grew up with parents who were always cold, dismissive, and distant. They find it hard to trust people and to open up.
Secure attachment style
Do you love each other and can trust each other? You never seek validation and closure? Then you are lucky to be with someone with a secure attachment style!
Securely attached people are truly self-confident who trust others and can be trusted. They can give and accept love and have a healthy way of coping with relationships problems. They are not afraid to show their feelings and to talk with the partner. They’re able to depend on others without becoming totally dependent.
These people were lucky to grow up with caring and supporting parents. They developed healthy self-esteem with parents who were there for the child but also gave him space toward independence.
Securely attached people are great at bonding, opening up to, and trusting others. They are perfect partners.
