5 signs your relationship anxiety may be something deeper

By Lauren Wilkin

A psychologist has revealed the five most common signs of an "anxious attachment style" in relationships — and how to get help.

"Attachment styles develop in early childhood," explained Tracy King, a clinical psychologist, who said it can result in toxic relationships and unhealthy behaviors.

What are attachment styles?

"John Bowlby came up with the idea that human beings are biologically driven to seek closeness with someone to seek protection," King said, using the example of a child going to a parent.

If there's enough care in those early relationships, we see a person as security, so we build an internal template on how to relate to the world and others, she said.

"When that goes wrong — when the parent is inconsistent, ignoring or harmful — this can merge into the different attachment styles," said the psychologist, who did her doctoral research on attachment.

These attachment styles are classified into the following:

• Anxious attachment
• Avoidant attachment
• Disorganized attachment

"Anxious attachment is when we fear the other person is going to let us down or worry about it," King said.

"In avoidant attachment that person has never been there for us so we become very self sufficient and become quite detached."

Disorganized attachment combines elements of both avoidant and anxious, resulting in inconsistent behavior within relationships.

King says these attachment styles evolve as a survival tactic from childhood.

While a secure attachment style is the most common, King says she helps many patients overcome anxious attachment styles that can destroy relationships, including family, coworkers and romantic relationships.

The first step in breaking these behaviors, is to identify them in the first place, she said.

She warned that showing one or two of the signs could simply be relationship anxiety.

"These signs are accumulative," she said. "If you experience all five, despite your partner proving themselves to be trusting, you may have an anxious attachment style."

5 signs you have an anxious attachment style

1. Hypervigilance to possible rejection

People with an anxious attachment style are likely to be hypervigilant for any small sign that their partner is losing interest in them.

"A person may notice small changes in a text message and then spiral," King says, "even if they are changes most people wouldn't notice."

However, King said that there are other explanations behind this, too. "Neurodivergence also brings rejection sensitivity disorder, so it's important not to assume you have an anxious attachment style," she said.

2. Repeated reassurance seeking

Those without a secure attachment to their partner will likely need constant reassurance throughout the day.

"You may ask do you love me? Are you definitely coming to the plans we made? Will you come and see me? Over and over again if you have an anxious attachment style because you need the reassurance," she said.

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These people will struggle to trust their partner, even if they have given no reason to doubt them.

3. Significant distress from uncertainty or separation

King said: "Any separation triggers the nervous system to go into fight or flight.

"It comes from a fearful place of being abandoned."

She notes that if a partner goes away, someone with an anxious attachment style may assume that while they're away they'll realize they don't love them and then will leave them.

4. Protest behavior

Another way anxious attachment styles manifest is in "protest behavior."

"They might provoke jealousy in the other person or threaten to leave in the hopes that the other person will fight for them," King explained.

"Repeatedly 'testing' the relationship is common, too. However, this behavior is likely to get the opposite response than intended, pushing a partner away."

King said it's important to note that this behavior is not manipulative, it's subconscious.

5. Losing connection with their own needs and boundaries

"Those with anxious attachment styles people please and adapt themselves to the person to not be abandoned," King explained.

"Through this, they lose their own needs."

The psychologist says this places those people at a higher risk of being in controlling and coercive relationships.

What to do you if you think you have an anxious attachment style?

King said: "The first thing to do is to get people to come out of shame. I don't want people to think their terrible.

"It's a survival adaptation, that pattern has developed to try and preserve safety ... it's a natural thing."

The psychologist says it's important to recognize when the attachment system has been activated.

King encourages her patients to ask themselves the following questions: "What do you feel in your body when you get these thoughts about your partner? Does your chest go tight? Do you feel a drop in your stomach? What thoughts are attached to that? What is the fear?"

"Listening to your thoughts after your body reactions is important in understanding what's happening," she says.

"Your nervous system is having a response. Ultimately, there is normally no danger, so we need to reorient the nervous system and say 'no we are safe.'"

King said slow breathing into the belly rather than the chest can be effective in these moments.

"Breathing in for four and out for eight directly signals to your brain that your nervous system is safe."

"If it's a really repetitive pattern, leading to real manipulative things, you need professional help with it," King says.

"A lot of the processes are unconscious, we don't understand what's going on for us, so seeking therapy with a psychologist that specializes in relational dynamics can help," she adds.