If we had to describe the basic premise of adult attachment in one sentence, it would be: If you want to take the road to independence and happiness, find the right person to depend on and travel down it with that person. Once you understand this, you’ve grasped the essence of attachment theory.

If you’re avoidant, you connect with romantic partners but always maintain some mental distance and an escape route. Feeling close and complete with someone else—the emotional equivalent of finding a home—is a condition that you find difficult to accept.

The trick is not to get hooked on the highs and lows and mistake an activated attachment system for passion or love. Don’t let emotional unavailability turn you on.

Once your attachment system becomes activated, another interesting phenomenon is triggered: You will get overwhelmed by positive memories of the few good times you had together and forget the multitude of bad experiences.

Secure, Anxious, and Avoidant. Basically, secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving; anxious people crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back; avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to

What’s more, it’s been found that the anxious partner uses sex to achieve a sense of affirmation and as a barometer of attractiveness in the eyes of his/her mate. We can see that a clash is almost inevitable when the anxious person ascribes so much importance to the sexual experience and the avoidant person wants to avoid physical intimacy.

Studies have found that avoidants are unlikely to be in a relationship with other avoidants, because they lack the emotional glue to stay together. In fact, one study that looked at dating couples didn’t find even one pair that was avoidant-avoidant. Conclusion: Avoidants don’t date each other; they are more likely to date people with different

Once activated, they are often consumed with thoughts that have a single purpose: to reestablish closeness with their partner. These thoughts are called activating strategies. Activating strategies are any thoughts or feelings that compel you to get close, physically or emotionally, to your partner.

Expressing your needs and expectations to your partner in a direct, nonaccusatory manner is an incredibly powerful tool. Though it’s used naturally by people with a secure attachment style, it is often counterintuitive for people whose attachment style is anxious or avoidant.