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Attachment Theory: Is It Real?
47 Plays2 years ago
The queens discuss the nuances of attachment theory. Is it a useful theory for examining relationship styles or just more gendered pop psychology BS?
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Transcript
Introduction to the Female Dating Strategy Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
What's up, queens?
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Female Dating Strategy, the meanest female-only podcast on the internet.
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Ro.
00:00:11
Speaker
And I'm Savannah.
Exploring Attachment Theory: Relevance and Application
00:00:13
Speaker
So this week, we are going to get attached by talking about attachment theory.
00:00:20
Speaker
I think this one's a long time coming because a few people have asked us to talk about this.
00:00:24
Speaker
I mean, I guess we'll get into it in the episode, but I'm somewhat split in terms of how I feel about attachment theory.
00:00:30
Speaker
I think it can offer a lot of explanation into how and why people behave in relationships in the way they do.
00:00:38
Speaker
But I also think the theory has its limitations, especially in terms of how it's applied to other people and to the extent to which it is unchangeable, so to speak.
00:00:49
Speaker
But we'll get all into that.
00:00:51
Speaker
I think I'm also concerned about how gendered it is and how much attachment is nature versus
Understanding Attachment Styles and Their Impact
00:00:57
Speaker
nurture.
00:00:57
Speaker
I think sometimes things get gendered in ways that they shouldn't while not examining the cultural forces that influence men or women to behave a certain way.
00:01:07
Speaker
Agreed.
00:01:08
Speaker
So we'll kick off and we'll just do a brief overview of attachment theory and, you know, what it actually is.
00:01:16
Speaker
So attachment theory essentially centres around the idea that different adults have different attachment styles.
00:01:25
Speaker
And an attachment style can be defined as basically a specific pattern of behaviour in and around relationships that influences the way we approach our relationships and the way we relate to other people.
00:01:37
Speaker
Now, the important thing to note about attachment style is that the theory...
00:01:41
Speaker
posits that an adult's attachment style is actually set when they are a child or even like a toddler or a baby, basically in their formative years.
00:01:52
Speaker
And this attachment style is based on the relationship that child has with their primary caregiver.
00:02:00
Speaker
And this is where I start to feel like the misogyny starts to creep into psychology here, because when we talk about primary caregiver, what we're really saying well and truly is women, basically, because this theory was developed in the 50s and 60s where women were doing the child rearing, even in...
00:02:19
Speaker
the strange situation, which was an experiment that was devised by a psychologist called Mary Ainsworth to basically test attachment theory.
00:02:29
Speaker
You'll only see the women in the experiment with their children.
00:02:33
Speaker
You don't really see the men.
00:02:36
Speaker
That strike one against the theory is that it posits basically that women are essentially responsible for the way their child ends up attaching to other people later on in life, which is
00:02:47
Speaker
as Ro said, doesn't take into account other contexts or other relationships that the child might have with other caregivers, either present or absent.
Avoidant Attachment Style in Dating: Challenges and Advice
00:02:55
Speaker
And not even just caregivers, with culture at large, right?
00:02:58
Speaker
I mean, I know a lot of mothers talk about this, about how
00:03:02
Speaker
As your child gets older, it actually becomes really hard to influence them against what pop culture is.
00:03:07
Speaker
So you can make the argument that sometimes the attachments are not just modeled by familial relationships, but often by like cultural narratives, which is why we're so adamant about breaking down cultural narratives that don't benefit women.
00:03:22
Speaker
Exactly.
00:03:23
Speaker
So essentially, attachment theory basically says that our attachment style tends to mirror the dynamics that we had with our caregivers as infants and children, and identifies four different attachment styles.
00:03:38
Speaker
Some psychologists have...
00:03:41
Speaker
try to identify more attachment styles but the four we're going to discuss within this episode are going to be are the main ones so to speak so you have a secure attachment you have anxious attachment avoidant attachment and disorganized attachment and so the final three basically forms of an insecure attachment style
00:04:03
Speaker
Okay, so we'll go through each of the insecure attachment styles in turn.
00:04:08
Speaker
And we'll also look at it from a dating lens as well, because it is good to be aware of attachment theory if you're out dating, because different people with different attachment styles, they tend to have similar tales.
00:04:21
Speaker
But at the same time, I would stress that I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to work out somebody else's attachment style.
00:04:29
Speaker
Because ultimately, if somebody isn't meeting your needs in a relationship, it doesn't matter what their attachment style is.
00:04:35
Speaker
You need to kick them to the curb.
00:04:37
Speaker
What you don't want to be doing is you don't want to be spending all of your time trying to put people into boxes and trying to identify, oh, he's avoidant.
00:04:44
Speaker
That's why he's pulling away from me when it's like, no, that's just a waste of your time.
00:04:48
Speaker
So we'll start with avoidant attachment.
00:04:51
Speaker
And in the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, they argue that
00:04:57
Speaker
The dating world is, it tends to be full of people who are to have an avoidant attachment style purely because they are the most difficult to have and maintain a close romantic relationship with.
00:05:10
Speaker
So what tends to happen is they basically get tossed back in the pool because they're so difficult to date.
00:05:15
Speaker
And the genesis of this particular attachment style or attachment theory would argue that
00:05:21
Speaker
Within somebody with a supposed avoidant attachment style, their brain developed in an environment where the person could not consistently rely on their primary caregiver or caregivers to meet their emotional and physical needs.
00:05:37
Speaker
This might be because the primary caregiver was not consistently available.
00:05:41
Speaker
So they might have been, you know, dealing with a mental illness.
00:05:44
Speaker
They might have been physically unwell or disabled, or the parent could have just been absent.
00:05:48
Speaker
So there could have been an absent parent somewhere, inconsistent contact, for example, witnessing domestic violence.
00:05:55
Speaker
And so what this environment does, it basically impacts the way their brain is wired and the way they develop as well.
00:06:03
Speaker
And so their internal working model essentially becomes this.
00:06:08
Speaker
It essentially becomes the idea that if I don't depend on anybody, if I don't get close to anybody, then I cannot get hurt.
00:06:16
Speaker
As a defense mechanism, what they try to do is they then try to outwardly not feel anything because their internal working model will say something like, if I don't feel things, then I can't get hurt.
00:06:28
Speaker
And they learn to eventually suppress their emotional needs because their emotional needs are not being consistently met as well.
00:06:36
Speaker
And so eventually, due to the inconsistent behaviour of their caregivers, the child with an avoidant attachment style eventually begins to see the world as uncertain and unsafe.
00:06:49
Speaker
And they begin to see other people as uncertain and unsafe.
00:06:52
Speaker
And so a way that they deactivate, so a deactivating strategy is basically a strategy that somebody with an insecure attachment style does, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes consciously, in order to basically prevent their feelings from getting hurt, is they try not to get too attached to people.
00:07:11
Speaker
And so they distance themselves from people if they feel like the relationship is becoming too intimate.
00:07:17
Speaker
And on the surface, it seems like these people are independent, they're self-contained, they're in control of the emotions.
00:07:24
Speaker
What it actually comes down to is the fact that they are deeply, deeply insecure, that their needs are not going to be met as well.
00:07:31
Speaker
And, you know, weirdly enough, people who have an avoidant attachment style, they do want intimacy, they do want to be close to people, but they are so afraid of being rejected that they push people away from that.
00:07:45
Speaker
So the only thing about that is like, I feel like it's very hard to tell the difference between like pushing people away or being aloof because you have avoidant attachment style and just being an exploitative dick, right?
00:07:57
Speaker
And this is where I kind of dislike pop psychology is that it's easy to prescribe a person who is in a relationship with you, but being emotionally aloof as, oh, they just have avoidant attachment style and use it as an excuse rather than like
00:08:10
Speaker
Some people do that because they want to maintain a sense of control and power over the relationship, right?
00:08:14
Speaker
They don't want to give you anything.
00:08:16
Speaker
And honestly, I identify in some ways as an avoidant attachment, like just feeling like, okay, sometimes it's very hard to trust people that they won't betray you or that you'll get your needs met in a relationship.
00:08:27
Speaker
But at the same time, I've also met people who might mirror some of my behaviors on the outside, but their motivations are totally different.
00:08:34
Speaker
right?
00:08:35
Speaker
Like they're just not fully committing to things or they're not emotionally investing at all, not just because of fear, but because of control and power.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
That's the reason why I said that at the top of the episode, it's useful to know about attachment theory, but I wouldn't really spend your time trying to work out if somebody's
00:08:55
Speaker
you know, has a particular attachment style or not.
00:08:57
Speaker
Because like Roe rightfully said, there are, isn't always easy to explain or understand why somebody is behaving in the way that they do.
00:09:06
Speaker
And most importantly, even if you were to say that, okay, yeah, this guy who's blowing hot and cold, he's got an avoiding attachment style.
00:09:14
Speaker
It's like, okay, but he's still not meeting your needs.
00:09:17
Speaker
So you're still back to square one.
00:09:19
Speaker
Ultimately, the motivation behind the behaviour doesn't actually matter if the outcome is the same.
00:09:24
Speaker
But if you do want to, I guess, be pop analysing your partners, generally speaking, people with an avoidant attachment style can have quite a distinct approach when it comes to intimate relationships.
00:09:40
Speaker
So, for example, they may blow hot and cold.
00:09:45
Speaker
And this particular attribute, it can make them attractive to people who are anxiously attached, which we'll get on to later on in the episode, because they're sort of like,
00:09:55
Speaker
the yin and the yang they sort of activate the worst parts of each other's attachment style so this is why people or psychologists who promote attachment theory they often say that an avoidant and an anxiously attached person they tend to form quite tumultuous relationships with each other because they activate each other's attachment attachment systems in basically the worst way possible
00:10:19
Speaker
They might have lots of people around them, but they don't have many close friends.
00:10:22
Speaker
They value their independence quite a lot.
00:10:25
Speaker
Again, I would just also caveat as well that this particular list is... It could be indicative of an avoidant attachment style, but it might not necessarily be an avoidant attachment style.
00:10:36
Speaker
These are just some things that you might want to consider.
00:10:38
Speaker
They might take pride in the fact that they don't have feelings.
00:10:41
Speaker
And I think this one is an important one because people who see having feelings as a sign of weakness...
00:10:48
Speaker
Even, for example, people who are deemed to be narcissistic, for example, there's this idea that even a narcissist, they want to feel loved and accepted, but they just go about getting that in a very, very maladaptive, destructive way.
00:11:03
Speaker
And it ultimately comes back to them feeling insecure.
00:11:05
Speaker
So if somebody is constantly basically prising themselves on, you know, not feeling upset or not feeling sad, even if they don't have an avoidant attachment style, so to speak, I would probably say that's an orange flag because feelings are, you know, they make us authentic.
00:11:21
Speaker
And if you don't feel, then you can't also possibly empathise with other people who do feel certain, you know, feelings and emotions as well.
Anxious Attachment Style: Cultural Conditioning and Behaviors
00:11:30
Speaker
Man, this is tough because again, going to tell on myself, I guess, only because sometimes I feel like life has a lot of challenges, ups and downs, tough times, etc.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I used to always describe to the philosophy that tough times don't last, tough people do.
00:11:47
Speaker
And so I just had this idea of like, fuck feelings, like whatever needs to get done, just do it, figure out an action plan, do what you need to do and worry about your emotions later.
00:11:57
Speaker
Now that is a unhealthy coping mechanism that has, in some respects, driven me to be successful and I think got me out of some tough situations.
00:12:07
Speaker
But it's also like, in hindsight, a horrible way to live.
00:12:10
Speaker
And eventually all those emotions come out somewhere and it may not be in the healthiest of ways.
00:12:15
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:12:16
Speaker
It's a tough thing because I think finding people who overindulge in their emotions and just can't get out of them
00:12:23
Speaker
I don't necessarily think a person who says, okay, I don't have emotions is necessarily doing it out of maliciousness.
00:12:29
Speaker
Or even like they may not even recognize the emotions that they have, or they're just so focused on a goal.
00:12:34
Speaker
They can't really stop to really think or feel.
00:12:37
Speaker
Because they're so used to suppressing them as well, that they may not actually recognize them.
00:12:42
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:42
Speaker
Which is very much going to be oil and water with a person who emotes a lot.
00:12:48
Speaker
So the person who is more emotionally expressive is a lot of times put off and feels like the person who is not acknowledging their emotions is like scary or shaming them for having feelings.
00:13:03
Speaker
And then the other person who has feelings but doesn't really act on them or express them
00:13:08
Speaker
feels like the other person's immature, right?
00:13:10
Speaker
The person who's constantly like caught up in their emotion.
00:13:12
Speaker
It ends up feeling like a weird dynamic.
00:13:15
Speaker
I don't know.
00:13:16
Speaker
I think I would say a healthy person will have the ability to acknowledge their emotions, even if they don't always outwardly express it, right?
00:13:24
Speaker
I think it is unhealthy to go to the extreme and be like, I don't feel anything because everybody feels something.
00:13:29
Speaker
But at the same time, like how you deal with the things you feel says everything.
00:13:33
Speaker
If you're just not dealing with them, just so you can focus on a goal or if you're expressing them, but not in a healthy way or like an employee that's like honestly a huge inconvenience or burden to others or like somebody might feel that way because sometimes people can be so emotionally reactive, like they kind of suck up the air in the room.
00:13:52
Speaker
then both of those things can be kind of toxic.
00:13:55
Speaker
So I think it's about finding balance of feeling your feelings and then being cognizant of your goals, but also the way that it affects other people around you on both sides, both the stoic person and the over-emotional person.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
And this is probably one of the things that I actually quite like about attachment theory is that even though it is quite prescriptive in some ways, but it is a good way to also think about your own approach to relationships and how your childhood and the way you behave in adulthood in your relationships, like how they're connected as well.
00:14:31
Speaker
It can be quite sobering sometimes when you have the list and you think, yeah, I feel personally attacked and called out.
00:14:37
Speaker
But I think it's a good, it can be a good starting point to understand yourself, especially.
00:14:42
Speaker
But yeah, as always, I would use caution when trying to use it to explain other people and their own dynamics and their own internal stuff as well.
00:14:51
Speaker
Some other symptoms to consider are if they have a preference for casual relationships,
00:14:58
Speaker
and a history of either casual or short-term relationships can also be a sign that somebody that has an avoidant attachment style being emotionally unavailable.
00:15:08
Speaker
I would actually argue that this isn't just a symptom of people with an avoidant attachment style.
00:15:14
Speaker
I would say if somebody has an insecure attachment style, they are likely to be emotionally unavailable as well.
00:15:21
Speaker
Even the more emotional attachment style, such as anxiously attached, which we'll get onto in a bit.
00:15:27
Speaker
You know, I'd also say there's emotional unavailability there as well.
00:15:31
Speaker
They tend to pull away from the relationship in terms of intimacy and they present as having a high opinion of themselves.
00:15:38
Speaker
But deep down, it tends to come out in different ways that the person is insecure.
00:15:43
Speaker
Right.
00:15:44
Speaker
I mean, they may say that I don't need anybody or they may not ask for help or whatever, but it will come out in different ways that the person is insecure and they do actually seek a deep, close relationship with other people.
00:15:56
Speaker
They just don't know how to get there, so to speak.
00:15:59
Speaker
Psychologists have also put together a sexual profile for each of the attachment types.
00:16:05
Speaker
And again, sex is very complicated in society.
00:16:09
Speaker
It's heavily influenced by different factors such as porn, etc.
00:16:13
Speaker
But these are just some of the attributes, I guess, or the sexual behaviours of somebody who is an avoidant, according to psychologists.
00:16:21
Speaker
So the first one is that they don't tend to see sex as an intimate act, hence why they tend to prefer, you know, casual or quite emotionally detached sex.
00:16:33
Speaker
So again, cultural, right?
00:16:35
Speaker
I feel like society encourages men to behave that way towards women.
00:16:40
Speaker
And then there's a lot of women who say that they are also that way.
00:16:44
Speaker
And this is like a fuck and I don't have to feel anything.
00:16:46
Speaker
It doesn't mean anything to me.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I'm not saying that every type of sex that you're ever going to have is going to shake your world by any means, but it is kind of you're biologically set up to fail here as a woman.
00:16:57
Speaker
And it's about patterns of behavior as well, isn't it?
00:17:00
Speaker
But it's like, is that guy like an avoidant attachment if he has a lot of casual sex?
00:17:04
Speaker
Or is he just like exploitative of women because it doesn't cost him anything, right?
00:17:08
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:17:09
Speaker
Like, because it doesn't really cost men anything sexually, socially, like maybe financially at best.
00:17:15
Speaker
to have sex with women.
00:17:17
Speaker
Physically, it doesn't really cost them anything.
00:17:19
Speaker
It's like, I just look at it as a form of consumerism.
00:17:21
Speaker
It's not like they look at women as objects to please them.
00:17:24
Speaker
So it's not that they're being emotionally avoidant is that they don't register that a lot of women might have emotions about it at all, or society doesn't teach them that they should care.
00:17:34
Speaker
Right.
00:17:34
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:17:35
Speaker
Like, are you emotionally avoidant with like your toaster?
00:17:38
Speaker
If you think of something like an object that you wouldn't think to have an emotional attachment to.
00:17:42
Speaker
And that's the thing I kind of have trouble with because on one hand, I'm like, yeah, that might mean that a person who has a lot of casual sex might be emotionally avoidant because they're trying to not feel vulnerable, etc.
00:17:52
Speaker
But at the same time, a lot of men are just like that because they objectify women such that it doesn't register to them that we're people.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think in the book Attached, they do touch on basically how the culture encourages avoidant behaviour, especially within men as well.
00:18:10
Speaker
It's sort of, it almost acts as a framework for how men navigate the world as well.
00:18:16
Speaker
So they do talk about the cultural aspect too, and how basically women can be set up to be anxiously attached.
00:18:24
Speaker
Because women's, you know, needs are not only not met, but we're also encouraged to meet the needs of other people and not expect anything back in return.
00:18:34
Speaker
It's almost like we need another type that's just like sociopath, right?
00:18:38
Speaker
Like...
00:18:39
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:18:40
Speaker
Because as we go through all of these types, there's going to be exceptions to all this rules or motivations or behavior because every time I hear it, I'm like, yeah, this is also how a person who just doesn't give a fuck at all acts.
00:18:53
Speaker
And it has nothing to do with their internal emotional motivation so much as they don't register that other people exist, really.
00:19:01
Speaker
Another point to consider as well, touching on culture, is that the entire concept of attachment theory is heavily based in Western ideals of child rearing and ways of attachment, as opposed to being more inclusive of the way different cultures might raise children as well.
00:19:19
Speaker
So there's also that too.
00:19:21
Speaker
But yeah, I completely agree with Rowan that there is a strong cultural element and it's...
00:19:27
Speaker
which comes first?
00:19:28
Speaker
Is it, does, you know, the culture come first and attachment follows or does attachment come first and then the culture follows?
00:19:34
Speaker
That direction of causality, I don't think it's been established yet.
00:19:38
Speaker
But progressing through the episode, basically people who identify as being avoidantly attached
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
if you want to get into an intimate relationship with somebody who is avoidant purely because they're deactivating strategies when they feel like they're almost like protective shell against intimacy is being breached can be very, very devastating to a partner as well.
00:20:19
Speaker
But at the same time, they also say that the current dating world, partly because of the culture that we're in, is heavily, tends to be full of people who are either avoidantly attached or they exhibit avoidant tendencies as well.
00:20:34
Speaker
So that makes dating doubly difficult.
00:20:36
Speaker
But yeah, they basically say, like, if you catch a whiff that somebody has avoidant tendencies, then don't go there, essentially.
00:20:45
Speaker
And what's interesting about people with avoidant tendencies is that they tend to be repelled by other people who are also avoidant themselves.
00:20:55
Speaker
You don't really see relationships where both parties exhibit avoidant tendencies towards each other, which is quite interesting.
00:21:03
Speaker
You mean like it's hard for two avoidants to get in relationships with each other?
00:21:07
Speaker
They don't tend to get with each other.
00:21:09
Speaker
I guess the codependent model is more common.
00:21:12
Speaker
Because I guess if you're both emotionally avoidant, who initiates the relationship?
00:21:16
Speaker
There's got to be someone that actually puts in some kind of work.
00:21:19
Speaker
Otherwise, I guess you'd just be like two ships passing in the night.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, they tend to just sort of repel each other.
00:21:27
Speaker
So, onto the next attachment style is the anxious attachment style.
00:21:32
Speaker
And it's also known as the anxious slash preoccupied attachment style.
00:21:37
Speaker
And this is just my unfounded psychological opinion slash theory.
00:21:42
Speaker
But as I've said previously, I do feel like women, like more women, I don't know the stats on this or if there's any experiment being done into this, but I do feel like women are more likely to be anxiously attached than anything else.
00:21:56
Speaker
Purely because, you know, if you look at the way that female children are raised, for example, even if they have male siblings, they tend to be raised very, very differently.
00:22:06
Speaker
And more often than not, the parents tend to be misattuned to the female child's needs.
00:22:11
Speaker
And this represents society at large where, you know, we live in a patriarchy that is overly accommodating to men's needs and desires, not so much to women's needs.
00:22:22
Speaker
So this is just my off-the-cuff unfounded theory, but I actually believe that women are more likely to be anxiously attached and the culture actively encourages that as well.
00:22:32
Speaker
Because people who are anxiously attached, they tend to give, give, give and give to situations or to people where they're not getting anything in return.
00:22:41
Speaker
So we'll do the general overview before we get into the signs of it.
00:22:45
Speaker
So the development of an anxious attachment style, it's also known as a preoccupied attachment style, is also associated with an inconsistent parenting pattern as well.
00:22:57
Speaker
So sometimes the parents will be supportive and responsive to the child's needs and other times they will be completely misattuned to the child's needs as well.
00:23:06
Speaker
This makes it difficult then for the child to understand what the parent's behaviour actually means and most importantly, what kind of response to expect in the future.
00:23:16
Speaker
So, for example, on day one, the parent or the child, they might ask if they can, you know, go outside and play and the parent says yes.
00:23:25
Speaker
On day two, the child might ask the same question and the parent will say no for no reason or even be angry at them for asking if they can go outside.
00:23:35
Speaker
And so due to these mixed signals of behaviour, they begin to develop different deactivating strategies.
00:23:43
Speaker
So one of the strategies that they develop is that when they sense distance from their primary caregiver or later their partner,
00:23:52
Speaker
their attachment system activates and they will try to re-establish closeness with their partner or their parent.
00:23:59
Speaker
And so some of these, you know, trying to re-establish closeness, it can look like minimising their needs, basically not asking for something, being the perfect child or being the perfect partner.
00:24:11
Speaker
you know, not being honest about what they need and their desires.
00:24:16
Speaker
And eventually this suppression of their needs and desires will come out in different ways as well.
00:24:22
Speaker
It's hard to articulate it.
00:24:24
Speaker
And I guess to lend credence to your earlier comment that sometimes your attachment styles can be situational,
00:24:30
Speaker
A lot of my issue when I felt like I was being anxiously attached and trying to figure out my needs or not even asking to get my needs met is I didn't even recognize that I had them.
00:24:40
Speaker
Right.
00:24:40
Speaker
Because if you are in a familial type relationships where that person basically slots you in the role to be the person who's always picking up their slack and being the adults in the room.
00:24:49
Speaker
Right.
00:24:49
Speaker
then you don't ever actually get to express or have needs because the other person is too busy wrapped up in their own drama or their own life.
00:24:56
Speaker
Right.
00:24:56
Speaker
So then, yeah, it does come out because like everybody has things that they need, but eventually you realize you're not going to get it from that person.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:04
Speaker
And I think that's a key point to make is that with this particular attachment style or these tendencies is that eventually you internalize that having needs is bad when everyone has needs and having needs is perfectly fine.
00:25:18
Speaker
And asking people to meet your needs is fine.
00:25:21
Speaker
You know, whether they can or not, that's a different discussion.
00:25:24
Speaker
But it's just that this whole idea that if I have needs or expectations of people, I'm a bad person.
00:25:31
Speaker
And that sort of encompasses or that belief encompasses this whole anxious attachment style, because ultimately it's the fear that if I voice my needs, that I will upset people that they'll leave me.
00:25:43
Speaker
Hence anxiety.
00:25:44
Speaker
And it might.
00:25:45
Speaker
I mean, that's the thing.
00:25:46
Speaker
And it might.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:47
Speaker
If you're in a toxic relationship, not just romantic, but with your family, they will absolutely throw a fit if you suddenly have needs or need to set boundaries.
00:25:55
Speaker
So you have to protect yourself.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's tough because I'm like, yeah, in some ways, you may not be an actual anxious attachment style person.
00:26:02
Speaker
It's just that your situation has pushed you into it because it's toxic.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:26:07
Speaker
And I think as well, and I always tell, especially women, when I used to be active on the Anxiously Attached subreddit, I always used to say, are you actually Anxiously Attached or are you just dating a dickhead?
00:26:19
Speaker
Because weirdly enough, for many women...
00:26:23
Speaker
On that subreddit, their anxiety went away when they were dating somebody who was consistent and you could actually meet their needs as well.
00:26:31
Speaker
So there is also a risk of prematurely diagnosing yourself with an anxious attachment style when really it's the person that you're with that's the problem or the people that you're with that's the problem.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what FDS is about because a lot of women would ascribe to these theories and I'm like, I think we've talked about this from the perspective of how much culture just pushes women into this role.
00:26:54
Speaker
And if you don't strategize against it, they'll always make it your fault and your problem.
00:26:58
Speaker
And you'll end up in the anxiously attached role because everyone's exploiting you.
00:27:02
Speaker
Are you anxiously attached or is everyone exploiting you?
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:07
Speaker
And this is why it's also good to be aware of attachment theory as well, because another thing that can happen is it can sort of be used against you as well.
00:27:16
Speaker
Because again, women will in turn realize, oh, I'm anxiously attached.
00:27:20
Speaker
So when he didn't text me back for three weeks, I threw a fit.
00:27:24
Speaker
When it's like, well, if...
00:27:26
Speaker
a person that you're supposedly in a relationship doesn't text you back for three weeks and that makes you feel somehow, that's a normal response because that's not normal behaviour as well.
00:27:38
Speaker
It's important to be aware of it, but also not to, I guess, be quick to label yourself as a certain attachment style because I fully believe that it's entirely possible to have different attachment styles depending on the person that you're with.
00:27:52
Speaker
it's entirely possible to have, say, a secure attachment style to your partner and an anxious attachment style with your parents based on that relationship.
00:28:00
Speaker
Because ultimately, attachment is based on personalities, it's based on people.
00:28:05
Speaker
And this is the thing about attachment day, which I don't necessarily like, is that it almost posits that if you, say, have anxious tendencies, it will come out in every single relationship when that's not the case.
00:28:17
Speaker
Ultimately, you get into relationships with people and personalities, not
00:28:22
Speaker
attachment systems and so the behavior of the other person is undoubtedly going to influence the way you behave in that relationship 100% of the time but these are some signs I guess that somebody has anxious tendencies in relationships I'm not talking about anxiety I'm talking about in terms of attachment theory by the way just a caveat
00:28:43
Speaker
So they can be self-critical and seek validation from their partner.
00:28:48
Speaker
Their romantic relationships tend to be marked by an insecurity about the status of the relationship.
00:28:54
Speaker
So because their needs weren't met as a child, they feel like their intimate relationships are constantly under threat as well.
00:29:03
Speaker
They can get attached quite quickly, despite not really knowing the person as well.
00:29:08
Speaker
And most importantly, they can also be emotionally unavailable too, because they
00:29:13
Speaker
In their mind, if the relationship isn't real, this might sound like a paradox, but to them, if the relationship isn't real, then they can't get rejected.
00:29:21
Speaker
This is why they might prefer to be in long distance relationships or to create a fantasy bond with somebody.
00:29:28
Speaker
It's a way of them preserving their emotional unavailability so they can almost enjoy the perks of being in a relationship without actually having to put themselves out there and be emotionally available as well.
00:29:41
Speaker
They might also, you know, when their attachment system is triggered, so to speak, they can resort to protest behaviours to get their partner's attention.
Media and Cultural Influences on Relationship Expectations
00:29:50
Speaker
So what are protest behaviours?
00:29:51
Speaker
Protest behaviours are basically, as it says on the tin, like ways to protest the way they're being treated in the relationship.
00:29:59
Speaker
And it often comes about due to the person suppressing their needs in the relationship over a long period of time.
00:30:07
Speaker
So an example of a protest behaviour, it can be keeping score in a relationship.
00:30:12
Speaker
It can be threatening to end the relationship if they don't respond by this time.
00:30:16
Speaker
I've actually done this myself once in a relationship.
00:30:19
Speaker
And you look back and it's just really embarrassing.
00:30:21
Speaker
Because again, if you have to resort to protest behaviours or game playing, then something is quite wrong with the relationship.
00:30:29
Speaker
That shouldn't be a normal occurrence in any healthy relationship.
00:30:34
Speaker
Right.
00:30:34
Speaker
Don't get caught up because you watched a bunch of these teen dramas and sitcoms and whatever have you.
00:30:40
Speaker
That's the one thing that's kind of cultural is that I feel like a lot of television shows, to be entertaining, they tend to have people who are on the extremes of a healthy relationship.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah, dysfunctional relationships.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah, like Sex and the City.
00:30:55
Speaker
Exactly.
00:30:56
Speaker
That's the thing.
00:30:57
Speaker
Like you can't get any of your relationship advice from TV because TV is designed to showcase dysfunction because that the conflict is where is what creates the interest in the show.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's where the drama is.
00:31:10
Speaker
But like, it's really hard to do it in real life.
00:31:13
Speaker
Like, yeah.
00:31:15
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:31:16
Speaker
Like if you had a relationship like Carrie and Mr. Big in real life, like I think everybody would be like, Jesus Christ, break up with this guy already.
00:31:23
Speaker
He's already married someone else.
00:31:25
Speaker
He's not committed to you.
00:31:27
Speaker
And then we're supposed to feel happy at the end.
00:31:29
Speaker
He left Carrie at the altar.
00:31:31
Speaker
And then they finally do get together and we're all supposed to cheer for this.
00:31:34
Speaker
Like that's insane.
00:31:35
Speaker
Right.
00:31:35
Speaker
So, but that's that show.
00:31:37
Speaker
It's the protagonist, you know, it's the conflict that creates the interest.
00:31:41
Speaker
But if you had a relationship like that in real life, that would just be extremely painful and you'd be pretty much insane to keep dealing with it.
00:31:47
Speaker
Thing is though, bro, a lot of women do as well.
00:31:50
Speaker
As much as we say like that's TV and it's wild, but a lot of women, unfortunately, myself included, we sort of find ourselves in these unhealthy push pull dynamics.
00:32:01
Speaker
It's because society romanticizes disrespect for men.
00:32:04
Speaker
And I think that's actually the crux of the problem is that most of these relationships, you have one or two dynamics.
00:32:11
Speaker
One is the mommy McBang made model that a lot of sitcoms have where the guy is like this lovable oaf.
00:32:16
Speaker
And then
00:32:17
Speaker
the wife has to basically do everything.
00:32:18
Speaker
She's hyper-competent because her husband can't be trusted to do shit.
00:32:21
Speaker
And so then they romanticize the mommy McBang maid relationship where once again, him being an oaf all the time is a form of disrespect and learned helplessness.
00:32:30
Speaker
And then on the other side, you have the guy who's like maybe hyper-competent, dashing, daring, sexy, very idealized in the woman's mind.
00:32:40
Speaker
And she...
00:32:41
Speaker
pretty much puts up with insane amounts of disrespect because she puts him on this crazy pedestal and thinks one day they're going to have this relationship she's dreaming of despite no evidence of it.
00:32:51
Speaker
So when you look at both of these dynamics, it's just a level of disrespect from men towards their female partner that gets romanticized.
00:32:59
Speaker
I'm trying to think of like a situation where a man stays with a woman who's constantly fucking up in their relationship.
00:33:05
Speaker
Like where's the TV show that reverses this dynamic, right?
00:33:08
Speaker
Where's like the fat, sloppy wife who's shitty at everything and her husband who's like this handsome, hyper.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker
Like where's the reverse of that?
00:33:18
Speaker
The gig of the home marina, the home marina Simpson.
00:33:22
Speaker
The husband basically spends all his time like emotionally supporting her and doing everything while she just does nothing.
00:33:28
Speaker
Like that's not something I've ever seen.
00:33:30
Speaker
And to be fair, there's a few people who've described some dynamic like this.
00:33:33
Speaker
Like maybe their mom had a drug problem or alcoholism and they had a really a dad who was an enabler.
00:33:38
Speaker
But you never really even see that dynamic on television.
00:33:41
Speaker
And on the other hand, you don't really see like, I mean, maybe you might see this, you might see like a very beautiful woman who basically never acknowledges a man who's really in there and maybe he's kind of disrespectful towards him.
00:33:54
Speaker
But society sets us up to always root for the man.
00:33:57
Speaker
Like the woman is also like horrible.
00:34:00
Speaker
It's like they're trying to push women into these relationships with guys that are beneath them.
00:34:03
Speaker
So sometimes you'll see that dynamic when the woman is obviously above the male protagonist and then they'll make the woman feel like a bitch because she's not into the shitty scrote guy.
00:34:12
Speaker
But it's never like the reverse.
00:34:13
Speaker
A woman could be on the guy's level in the reverse where the man's like the handsome, attractive partner.
00:34:19
Speaker
But at the same time, they'll still normalize that she should put up with disrespect.
00:34:22
Speaker
Whereas just thinking of through television, how these gender dynamics are reinforced, you just have to pay attention to it.
00:34:28
Speaker
Definitely.
00:34:29
Speaker
And this plays out in sex as well, approaches to sex.
00:34:33
Speaker
I've ranted about BDSM many, many times on this podcast, and I won't reinvent the wheel here, but there's a big reason why majority of submissives are female and majority of dominants are males.
00:34:46
Speaker
Because what happens in that dynamic is that the submissive engages in sexual activity really to push their own boundaries so they win the approval of their dominant.
00:34:56
Speaker
As much as BDSM waxes lyrical about how you can say no, you have safe words, ultimately the unspoken code in the submissive's world is that if I don't do this, my dominant will get sick of me and he'll leave me.
00:35:09
Speaker
That's the underlying fear
Empowerment and Breaking Free from Unhealthy Patterns
00:35:11
Speaker
there.
00:35:11
Speaker
And that's why they consistently push their boundaries.
00:35:14
Speaker
And even if you're not part of the BDSM world, if you look at how sex is generally, that's ultimately the way it's set up is that if women aren't willing to do certain sexual acts, then there's always that threat, oh, he'll get it from somewhere else or he's justified in cheating or, you know, she's boring as well.
00:35:33
Speaker
And this is why I say I feel like the culture really encourages women to be anxiously attached because it also means that they are more likely to be chasing, you know, men who are emotionally unavailable because that is what they are familiar with.
00:35:48
Speaker
And this is what we see playing out in relationships where women are with men who are clearly can't meet their needs.
00:35:55
Speaker
in the way that they need to be met and they're still around those relationships because they're hoping that if they keep showing up if they keep overcompensating for the fact that their partner isn't showing up that the relationship will just work itself out and that just doesn't happen and
00:36:10
Speaker
its familiarity as well and this is why I think FDS is great at the accountability side of relationships and I know this is unpopular because it can come across as victim blaming but when you have or if you can acknowledge that there's been a certain pattern in your relationships say you've been dating guys who have been emotionally unavailable you then have the opportunity to make different choices so you can get a different outcome as well hopefully.
00:36:40
Speaker
So, yeah, I would say, though, off the back of the discussion around an anxious attachment style, again, I would say if you suspect that you fall into that category, I would say before you start thinking that you're damaged or broken or that your attachment system is fucked,
00:37:01
Speaker
Do an audit of the people around you.
00:37:04
Speaker
Do an audit of their personalities.
00:37:06
Speaker
Do an audit of what they are also putting into that relationship.
00:37:10
Speaker
An honest audit as well.
00:37:12
Speaker
And I would be very, very surprised if there weren't at least some people around you in your circle who are not putting anything into their relationship with you and you are actually, you know, putting in everything and also overcompensating for the fact that they're not also putting in anything as well.
00:37:30
Speaker
So that's the first step I would say before you start diagnosing yourself as anxiously attached.
00:37:34
Speaker
But I struggle to believe that an anxiously attached person would behave in this way if their needs were being met, if they were dating somebody who was consistent, if they had friends who were consistent.
00:37:46
Speaker
I struggle to believe that they would be resorting to these sorts of behaviours because their needs are getting met, if that makes sense.
00:37:52
Speaker
Well, I'll counteract it to say sometimes self-esteem issues are internal and aren't a reflection of people's environment, right?
00:38:00
Speaker
So sometimes anxiously attached people, it's because they, yeah, they just have self-esteem issues.
00:38:06
Speaker
Like even healthy people might not know how to react or help that person because if they're so out of touch with their own needs or they're constantly...
00:38:14
Speaker
emotionally reactive or they're constantly showing up with a false self to relationships, then they end up in these patterns repeatedly because other people, even who are well-intentioned, don't know how to help them.
00:38:27
Speaker
So it's just kind of sad because on one hand, there's like shitty people that'll take, take, and take, and take, and not know any better.
00:38:33
Speaker
Though there's shitty people that will take, take, and take, and take, and they know better, but they just enjoy using other people.
00:38:38
Speaker
And then there's other people who are not trying to, but since that
00:38:41
Speaker
An anxiously attached person hasn't learned how to set healthy boundaries or express their needs in a way that other people can
Episode Wrap-Up and Teaser for Next Topics
00:38:46
Speaker
understand.
00:38:46
Speaker
And then people don't help them.
00:38:48
Speaker
And then suddenly that person explodes and then everyone's like, what's going on?
00:38:53
Speaker
You know, so a little bit of both.
00:38:56
Speaker
Bye.
00:38:56
Speaker
I also think though that like issues with self-esteem if we're talking about attachment theory being based on relationships per se that can be a separate topic in and of itself because attachment theory is external and internal as self-esteem can be purely internal like you said.
00:39:14
Speaker
I mean, what I'm saying is like, obviously, let's say if a person is, you know, showing up to the relationship as they should, if they're then displaying, you know, behaviours or anxiously attached tendencies, then is that an attachment issue or is that more of a self-esteem insecurity issue?
00:39:31
Speaker
I'd say it's the latter, personally.
00:39:34
Speaker
But that's just my pop psychologist unqualified MSc psychology two cents.
00:39:41
Speaker
So this will be a two-part episode.
00:39:43
Speaker
And in the next part of this episode, we'll be talking about disorganized attachment style and secure attachment style.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yep, yep.
00:39:52
Speaker
So that's the show.
00:39:53
Speaker
Check us out on Patreon, patreon.com forward slash the female dating strategy and the website, the female dating strategy.com forward slash the forum if you want to talk about this episode.
00:40:01
Speaker
Also, check us out on Twitter for as long as it lasts at fem.strat and on Instagram.
00:40:07
Speaker
I mean, I'm always going to make that disclaimer.
00:40:09
Speaker
Check us out on X, dumbest website of all time.
00:40:13
Speaker
Or at underscore the female dating strategy on Instagram.
00:40:18
Speaker
I think by now we're wrapping up all the post applications.
00:40:23
Speaker
So thank you to everyone who applied and we'll be getting back to y'all.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, we had such an awesome array of applications.
00:40:31
Speaker
It's quite heartwarming to know that so many people want to take on this heavy crown that we wear twice a week.
00:40:38
Speaker
And apologies for some of the gaps in recording.
00:40:41
Speaker
Like we said a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately, it's just been really hard to find time.
00:40:45
Speaker
And we've had tech issues as well.
00:40:47
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:40:49
Speaker
We've had some real tech issues.
00:40:51
Speaker
So yeah.
00:40:51
Speaker
So we're low budget over here.
00:40:55
Speaker
So thank you for sticking with us.
00:40:57
Speaker
We appreciate it.
00:40:58
Speaker
But thank you for sticking with us as well.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:01
Speaker
Thanks for listening, Queens.
00:41:03
Speaker
And for all you avoidance scrapes out there, go and attach to each other and leave us alone.
00:41:07
Speaker
Die mad.
00:41:09
Speaker
And die mad.
00:41:10
Speaker
See y'all next week.
00:41:12
Speaker
See you next week.