It’s Not Anxious Attachment if There’s a Valid Reason to Be Anxious

Sitting in therapy, I casually mentioned that I purchased a book about how to overcome anxious attachment. My calm and patient therapist slowly tilted her head to the side. She asked me to explain my reasoning.

So, I did. I took her through all the signs and symptoms I was aware of and how they had impacted my last relationship. I had been a nervous wreck. Maybe if I hadn’t been that relationship would have lasted. If I could just fix myself, maybe I wouldn’t have to stare down the barrel of yet another heartbreak.

Then, she said something to me that would upend everything I knew about myself in that relationship. It’s not “anxious attachment” if there’s a valid reason to be anxious.

Maybe those weren’t her exact words. I don’t remember. But that was the general sentiment.

She reminded me of everything I had told her — how I had sensed a clear change in the relationship. There was a Before, and there was an After. In the Before, when we were happy, I was calm. I didn’t feel anxious about the relationship or worry about him leaving. The intimacy in the relationship felt satisfying, not anxiety-provoking.

In the After, when he stopped saying that he loved me and abruptly withdrew emotionally, I felt anxious because there was a reason. I was worried about him leaving because he was critical, distant, and seemed unhappy. This wasn’t my anxious attachment style from childhood being triggered. This was me having a normal reaction to the shift in the relationship.

I had spent the first few months trying to fix something about myself that was not broken. I was so convinced that my reactions were disproportionate, but they weren’t. With that one well-timed question, I suddenly began to see that my dysregulated nervous system was in response to the reality of the relationship.

Responding vs. Reacting

I often look back and wonder if my former partner gave me the impression that I was overreacting or if it was just my natural inclination to blame myself. If the problem was me, I could figure out how to fix it. I was in control. But if the problem was that his feelings had changed, there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do about that. It was out of my hands. Maybe I just preferred the narrative where I had even the smallest modicum of control in the situation.

In truth, I was responding to the situation in rational ways. I asked what was wrong. I pointed out the differences I noticed. I gave him space. I tried to figure out what triggered the change.

It’s possible that he just got the ick about our relationship and couldn’t articulate it. It’s also possible that he progressed to a point in the relationship where he realized that we didn’t want the same things. There’s not always a clear-cut reason for why we feel the way we do. The “why” actually doesn’t matter. What mattered was how it changed the relationship.

Reality vs. Delusion

When the relationship shifted without any real explanation, I wanted to live in the delusion that it would shift back. I was the delulu “pick-me” girl trying to do metaphorical cartwheels to keep him in the relationship. I could do more, be better, and make myself indispensable. I could love him better than anyone else.

But the reality was that he wasn’t loving me better than anyone else. He couldn’t even say the words. Beyond that, I was starting to feel inadequate. Admiration was replaced with criticism. The reality of the relationship in the After was that it wasn’t working for me anymore. I just couldn’t let it go.

The problem with the whole idea of “he’s just not that into you” is that it’s more than rejection. It’s knowing that nothing we do will change the outcome. We can’t make someone fall back in love with us. We have to accept the reality and let go of the delusion that we can fix what’s broken. The only thing we can do is observe what’s happening, ask ourselves if it’s what we want, and proceed accordingly.

Therapy-Speak as a Mask

As a trained mental health clinician, therapy-speak is practically my second language. I know it well. But as long as I was blaming an anxious attachment style for the decline of that relationship, I couldn’t fully heal.

But my therapist had the distance that I did not. As I took her through the full relationship arc, she could see that my responses to the change weren’t irrational or overblown. They were the reactions anyone would have in those circumstances.

Plus, I didn’t try to ignore them. I didn’t pretend nothing had changed. I noted the changes and asked about them. I didn’t make accusations. I didn’t make a scene. I calmly addressed what I was seeing. Did it make me anxious? Of course. Was that anxiety warranted? Absofuckinglutely.

I needed perspective. I needed to be able to acknowledge that a partner’s withdrawal is anxiety-provoking. It doesn’t mean that I am incapable of a healthy, secure relationship. It only meant that I wasn’t capable of having a healthy, secure relationship with someone unwilling to do the work with me. It didn’t mean that my anxious attachment style had reared its ugly head; it simply meant that I felt anxiety for a natural reason, and the anxiety dissipated when the relationship finally ended.

Life in the After

I have never been less happy to say that I was right. I sensed the relationship was ending, and everything that happened after that feeling proved my intuition correct. It wasn’t some self-fulfilling prophecy where my suspicions triggered the events that made that feeling come true. I knew there was a change and despite all my efforts to make the relationship work, it was out of my hands. I had to learn to live life in the After.

It was scary at first. I didn’t want to be there. I missed the Before. I felt a crushing sense of rejection that he was so entirely okay with never seeing me again. He could move on and even get angry, and I was just locked in grief.

Therapy helped. Time helped, too, although it would take so much longer than I had expected for it to do its work. Life in the After felt like an awkward fit, a wrongness in the grand plan of the Universe. And then, it didn’t feel that way at all.

Life in the After of that relationship began to feel good. The constant ache of anxiety evaporated. I could trust myself again. I didn’t have to keep trying to prove my worthiness for love. I was reminded just how inherent that worthiness is, and I no longer needed a relationship as evidence to support that.

I finished the book on anxious attachment and realized that it wasn’t for me. Not anymore. I’d already done the work to be able to be in a secure relationship. I knew that I was capable of it — with the right person.

I stopped trying to retroactively save that relationship in my mind. I stopped endlessly processing it in therapy and with friends. I made my peace with what was and what is now. I said goodbye.

And life in the After just became … life. Not perfect. Not without its flaws. Just a strange, beautiful, messy, wonderful life. I finally figured out that I’m not some kind of problem to be solved. I’m just a human being tasked to live a strange, beautiful, messy, wonderful existence for however long I’m here.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***