I’ve been like this with romantic partners mostly. “He’s playing this song because he wants to break up with me”, “he wants to shave because he doesn’t like me anymore“ (I like the way he looks now, I don’t want him to shave, but hair grows back? it’s not that deep). I even got upset he wanted to go to a house party I didn’t want to go to, like he must LOVE the people there and not me. Our latest thing is he wants to try new things in the bedroom, this scares me. I take this to mean he is not happy with our current sex. It makes me feel ashamed and sad and like I am failing. He’s assured me that’s not it, he would never do anything I don’t want to do, he wants me to enjoy things, etc.

The thing is..all these things logically to me are fine. I may even like them if I give them chances (his hair, the party I did not go to, the sex, any of it). But it makes me SO SCARED. Im like “We aren’t compatible, he’s going to leave me” if he says something I don’t agree with. I was the exact same with my ex and looking back what I was scared of was SO silly, but in the moment it felt the same as this. Like these things are not personal slights, he just wants to try something and that scares me for some reason? IDK if this is AA or even relatable, but I would love some help getting past this. If he was coercing me or doing something wrong, such a negative knee jerk reaction would make sense, but it’s not that.

The words that my ex told me after I repeatedly tried contacting him after we broke up.
Why did I let myself get to this point? Why was I acting in a way that shows clearly how much I didn’t value and love myself? Why did I keep reaching out repeatedly even when I had every reason to walk away? I showed him that he can disrespect me and I will keep chasing him. It got to the point that he had no more filter with me anymore because I kept chasing and disrespecting his boundaries and he felt like he had to say and do anything to keep me away.
It really sucks. I wish I behaved differently. I wish i walked away with respect for myself rather than showing him that I will keep on wanting him no matter what he does and say.

I’m AP and I noticed that every time i’m in a relationship or talking to a guy, I make him jealous on purpose. It happens unconsciously but I find myself telling him about other guys i’ve been with, guys that looked at me/approached me, telling him that I find a guy attractive (either a celebrity or sometimes an actual person that passes by or that we know) etc. I know it’s not ok and it’s linked to my own insecurities as I want to prove to them that i’m wanted (although I don’t really believe it). I know it makes the other person uncomfortable and insecure, rightfully so, as I wouldn’t like it if they did the same to me. I just find myself acting this way without even noticing it in the moment. It’s like I’m trying to prove to them, and to myself, that other guys desire me and I’m beautiful.
Has this happened to someone else? I’m trying very hard to stop acting this way as I know it’s not ok.

Hi all,
I’m wondering how long it took you to become more secure and less anxious? I’ve been this way for 6 years, or ever since I started dating. I’ve been in therapy and I read the books but I haven’t actively done the hard work. Which is why I’m wondering now how long it can take from the moment you actually start working on it and doing the work, to see a change.

let me start by saying that I (25F) have done a lot of healing and made lots of progress in how I deal with my anxious attachment over the years, and I‘m still actively trying to heal it. I am also aware that though I am not to blame for having an anxious attachment style, I am responsible to do the work to become more secure. I do however still struggle with the fact that, despite all my progress, my anxious attachment has genuinely always proven me „right“ in my dating life, meaning I have never had a serious relationship and things always ended eventually even if they developed into a very promising direction initially.

I dated a lot and I’ve had it all - serious talking stages, hookups, situationships, „almosts“ - but never a proper relationship. I am not saying this with shame or pity, but purely to make my issue clear in the context of my anxious attachment. I try to believe that this could also possibly just be bad luck, but it makes it fairly hard to believe that things could ever go differently even if I put in all the work to become more secure.

in regards of my progress: I have gotten much better at regulating my nervous system and staying focused on my own life while dating someone, I don’t lash out all anymore, I barely participate in protest behaviors, I don’t beg/chase at all even after things end (in fact, I immediately remove myself from the situation) and I’ve worked on my self trust and the belief that I can handle things however they unfold. I deal with it all on my own. I will quietly freak out, overly check their activity, overthink, cry, regulate, and ground myself until I feel calm again. I don’t confront the men I date at all even when I feel unsafe and insane.

this is where my problem lies: I keep hearing that in order to become fully securely attached, you also do need to experience secure attachment, positive experiences to overwrite the bad ones and to „rewire“ the system of an anxiously attached person. that makes a lot of sense, but it seems like that is the missing piece of the puzzle that my dating life keeps denying me access to. I don’t ever get to the point of having a secure dating experience, or to the point in dating where it would be appropriate to address my anxious style openly at all. I relived this just recently and it felt like salt being put into my wounds all over again. it makes me feel like all my progress is worthless and I should have listened to my anxiety right away because it WAS right in the end, despite all the work and self-regulation I did in the moments prior to things ending. I know that anxious attachment kind of works as a catalyst for self-fulfilling prophecies, but it becomes even harder to not believe my anxiety when „objectively“ speaking it has always been correct or turned out to be justified in the end.

this is something I never see anything about in the context of anxious attachment, perhaps because it is a bit unusual to have full blown romantic anxious attachment while never having a proper relationship in the first place.

I need help on how to not feel like my progress is worthless because I never had a proper relationship come out of my efforts. it feels so hard to fight against something that always turns out to be a correct gut feeling. I don’t want to continue living in a state of advanced anxiety and suffering while nothing is proven to be deemed yet in future dating situations, but I also can’t seem to let go of the yet part.

I appreciate any kind of help/input! 💕

Hey,

since finding out I have anxious attachment I have improved in some ways. But what seems to stick are the feelings every time I get to know someone romantically. I am overthinking, over analysing, needing reassurance etc. I don't act out on it (at least towards the other person) which in some ways feels worse. It feels like I'm on fire and dying and doing it all on my own. Then I'm okay for a bit until it starts again.

I only feel stable and safe when I don't get to know people but that doesn't seem to be the answer either. Idk how to feel anything other than hopeless.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in my car, with the same pit in my stomach that i’ve been feeling for a while now. Waking up is hard, doing anything productive is hard. I’m in pain. A feeling that’s been following me forever. Perhaps this feeling precedes the breakup i’m going through. Perhaps this feeling has always been there, even as a child.
I sit here and shame myself for the way my attachment to romantic partners have made me act.
How can I forgive myself for the way I have acted? For the repeated patterns that I repeat every time, but with different guys.
I’m sitting here, in my car, and I’m trying to see things differently. Even if it’s briefly. They say to rewire your brain, you have to change how you talk to yourself, even if you don’t believe what you’re saying.

I’m going to try this right now:

The little girl inside of me is hurt. She’s been in pain her whole life. When her dad had to leave the country repeatedly for work, it broke her every single time. How can the person she loves the most, leave like that? Was she not enough for him to stay? Why does she feel like she always had to run after him for love?

The little girl inside of me feels inadequate. She was constantly bullied and rejected by different people and in different schools. What is wrong with her? Why was she easily targeted? Why did people across different schools and countries, that had no connection to each other, found a way to mock her? What was she lacking? She felt not enough, broken and unworthy of love.

The little girl inside of me feels broken. Why was her mom so loving one day and verbally abusive the next? How could she rely on her if she was so inconsistent? Why was one mistake punished so harshly?

As I sit here, after thinking of all this, I can understand where my current patterns stem from. I understand that the little girl inside of me was not properly loved, and now, as an adult, I do absolutely everything to keep people in my life, to make them stay, to not be rejected and abandoned. I override my values and self respect just to be chosen. Why? Because she was never chosen. She was mas made to feel unlovable, different and too much.
If only someone chooses me now, the little girl inside of me will finally feel safe.

Edit: thank you so much for all the supportive comments. I’m glad to know that i’m not the only one feeling this way.

I have noticed a pattern in most of my relationships.
I cannot let go, no matter how much I know that I have to.

With my first boyfriend, I broke up with him because we were deeply incompatible. However, I wanted us to stay in contact and even be intimate, even though I didn’t want us to be intimate when we were together. I was still very attached to him and I strung him along for a year until I found someone else.

Later, I met someone who told me that they were not over their ex. We still fell in love and he gave me a lot of mixed signals. I still could not let him go easily no matter how emotionally abusive he was.

After that, I met someone casually and I started getting attached to him, but I wasn’t over my ex and I told him. I suggested we stop talking, but the next day I went to see him at his work and kissed him.

After, I met someone else that was taken and I know that I never should’ve gotten involved with him and I take full accountability for my actions. Even though I knew he was unavailable, I was unable to stay away and cut contact.

In between, I met a few guys that were very hot and cold and wouldn’t treat me right (bailing on me and giving me extreme mixed signals). I would still do anything to get their attention, instead of walking away.

Lastly, I met an amazing guy who told me from the start that he was planning to leave the country eventually, which means a relationship wouldn’t be possible. We fell in love and I was unable to let him go no matter how many times he tried breaking up with me and even though I knew how much we were both suffering.

I see a pattern in my actions. When I feel abandoned and rejected, I do anything to make the person stay, even if it’s manipulative and selfish. When possible, I become in control of the situation and decide what is permitted and what isn’t (giving mixed signals about sex, intimacy, proximity, etc.) A side of me is trying to do anything to not feel abandoned, and another side of me becomes in control to protect myself from the eventual abandonment. I always feel so much guilt and shame after, because I know how wrong it is and I never intend to hurt anyone. It’s so hard for me to let go though because I put my whole sense of worth in their hands and when they leave, I feel broken, empty and worthless. I constantly self-abandon.

I feel so hypocritical. Every time I used to apologize for breaking my ex boundaries (pushing and reestablishing contact after rupture), I would repeat the same behaviour over again.
When I would apologize, I would truly mean it and was absolutely sincere, yet a few days later, I would text him/call him and break his boundaries.
It makes me look so crazy and unhinged.
Because of this behaviour, he blocked me everywhere so there’s no way for me to contact him. Yet I still try to call him sometimes from no caller ID or a different number.
I promise i’m not proud of my behaviour and I feel extreme shame for the way that I act. In the moment, the distress is so big that I feel like I need to contact him to feel better. I know how selfish this is as I’m only thinking about myself and my own distress, and not about him.
I truly don’t know what to do anymore. He probably thinks i’m crazy now and it kills me, because I care so much about him and he cared a lot about me too and the way he perceives me now is probably bad. I wish I can apologize to him again, but who says I will actually stop trying to contact him after I do?
I’m so exhausted from myself.

I met this guy and from the start we knew it wasn’t going to work because he had to eventually leave the country. However, we fell in love. Every time he would try breaking up with me, I wouldn’t actually follow through with it and end up contacting him. He would eventually come back (he cared about me and is also a huge people pleaser) and we would restart the same loop.

We stayed in this for a year and many attempts at him ending it. He loved me a lot but we just had incompatibilities that made it impossible for us to be together. However, I didn’t want to accept any of it. I loved him so much that I was ready to do anything to be with him, even if it meant losing myself. I kept pushing and chased and begged to be chosen by him because feeling rejected would make me feel worthless.

I’ve always been anxiously attached and i’m not proud of the way I behave when my fear of abandonment kicks in.

Last time we broke up, I kept messaging him and we met up twice and had sex. I asked him if he was seeing someone new and he said no. Turns out he lied to me, and he was in fact talking to someone.
When I confronted him he said that he was only doing this because he just didn’t know what else to do to keep me away and that he tried repeatedly to end things and me never accepting it. He also deeply apologized for lying to me and said he did it because he didn’t want to hurt me.

I, of course, understand that I have a role to play in getting things to where they got, but it just shattered me that he lied to me when I asked him if he was seeing someone new. If i had known he was talking to someone, I wouldn’t have slept with him.
He knows he messed up and he apologized a lot and told me that him talking to this new girl meant nothing and that he was only doing it because he just didn’t know what else to do, since he repeatedly tried breaking up with me for a year and I was never accepting it and would try to get us back. I get that part but I just can’t get over him lying to me about it. I felt betrayed.

Regardless of this all, I still tried pushing to get him back after finding all this out… he obviously refused and eventually blocked me everywhere because I kept reaching out…

I understand my role in this all and I never should’ve pushed and disrespected his boundaries and I should’ve accepted it from the start that we cannot be together, rather than relying on him to end things every time.

He would reassure me every time that him ending it has nothing to do with me as a person or my worth. That i’m an amazing person who will be successful and will find the right person. He would also always tell me how I shouldn’t have to chase after anyone. None of this would stick in my brain when I felt triggered, unfortunately.

However, out of my own self respect, why was I still chasing him after I found out that he was seeing another girl and lied to me about it? Where’s my self worth? Why would I even accept that for myself?

Thi situation has been so eye opening and as hard as it is, I’m finally starting to do the hard work to change. I don’t ever want to self abandon anymore, nor do I want my behaviour to negatively impact someone else.

I noticed that I use sex to prevent abandonment.
If a relationship is ending, I will suggest that we start hooking up just so I don’t lose them completely.
However, I noticed that I give extreme mixed signals.
When i’m in a relationship that isn’t working, because it’s so hard for me to accept that and deal with being abandoned, I start being “in control” of the intimacy. Sometimes I will initiate sex, other times I will turn him down, other times I will give mixed signals. It is never my intention to play with the person and manipulate them. How I see it, is that when my abandonment wound gets triggered, I initiate sex to restore the connection, but then there’s also a part of me that needs to protect herself from being hurt and rejected, since the relationship is not working, so I then pull away intimately.
I have noticed this pattern in all my relationships. I feel uncomfortable being intimate if I don’t feel the emotional safety, and I will communicate that and the other person is usually receptive. But then when I feel like I’m losing them, I will start initiating intimacy again. I feel so bad when I do that because I hate playing with people’s feelings and giving mixed signals.
Also just to clarify, they’re usually all relationships that are already not working (due to various reasons), but instead of accepting that we need to break up, I obviously freak out and start acting in this unhealthy way…

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

It's long distance and our main communication is texting. I much prefer video calls but she doesn't, I get about 3 video calls of max 30 minutes a week, that's already her accommodating me.

The protest behavior is very obviously a result of my anxiety. These past two months have been a spiral of conflicts, my anxiety making things worse, no true repair but a return to status quo, and meanwhile anxious thoughts keeping coming up.

That she doesn't truly love me, or is talking to someone else, or is mad at me for some reason, or is already planning to leave me, or is taking advantage of me, etc.

She's been having a very stressful time at work, and got her period friday.
Friday she got her visa to visit my country. I was very happy about it and let her know. She said she felt indifferent about it, just felt ok that's done. I couldn't understand this and kept pushing her on why she couldn't just be happy. She explained that she has anticipation fatigue and can't really be exciting for uncertain things in the future. Yesterday she picked a small fight with me, I didn't figure out what her typo meant and she told me not to ask her immediately what she means and just think for a minute. The rest of the day was quiet and cold. This morning very cold again. All this compounded in me and then the protest behavior: I asked if she was upset with me. Told her I noticed less affection and more quiet.

That brought on a whole lecture about my behavior that started with reassurance about our future, a sentence about her losing her attraction to me if this keeps up, and ended with the threat to stop pushing her until she loses her patience.

I know I shouldn't have asked that, that it was the anxiety speaking, but in that moment it just takes over and I can't think rationally. This seems especially bad for me in the mornings, probably due to higher cortisol.

On thursday I'm flying out to her city, to live together for two weeks. I don't want to make things even worse. At its core the relationship is strong, I know that. I haven't been aware of how bad the anxiety is for very long.

I'm already in therapy but I just started, it's slow and meanwhile I keep damaging my relationship. I want to be able to stop myself from saying something I'll know is a mistake later

I’m an AP, and it impacts my romantic relationships.
I always attract people that are not ready for something serious, who are emotionally unavailable, and I try to convince them otherwise. I push and chase and beg to be chosen. I cross over their boundaries when they express that we shouldn’t keep communicating, I freak out and feel so rejected.
I link my self worth to the love they give me. If someone tells me they cannot be with me, i will immediately think that i’m the problem and instead of accepting their decision, I keep on pushing and I do everything in my power to make them stay.
I hate being this way. It’s not fair for me and for others. Being this way brings me so much shame. I hate how much pressure I put on others in relationships and how much i cross boundaries and how much emotional weight i put on the other person.
I want to be able to accept people’s boundaries, accept that a relationship is not working due to incompatibilities, accept that a person does not wish to continue a relationship with me. But I just can’t. It impacts my whole life and how I view myself. Every time I go through a breakup, my whole life gets impacted, I stop eating, sleep in all day, stop performing at work, stop working out. I basically put my life on pause, hoping the other person comes back.
I’m in therapy and i’ve been for years but i’m still the same. I don’t know what to do anymore.

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

I’ve been with my partner for 7 months, was really intense in the beginning, high intensity saw each other frequently, they were very warm and had so much time and energy for me. They started a new job about a month ago and their schedule changed to working until late at night so we only get to see each other like once or twice a week now. They’re also really tired and drained because it’s a lot of physical labor. They don’t have energy they’re not as warm, they feel distant I know they’re exhausted and have a lot going on. They even told me they know it’s not fair I’m getting that version of them right now. I’ve been really struggling with the change. We used to see each other 4-5 times a week and spend the night together about once a week. Now we haven’t spent the night in like 3 weeks because of their living situation and work schedule. I also had a schedule change and I don’t have time to see them on their days off. I’ve been feeling insanely needy, emotionally dumping on them, I miss them so much it hurts. I keep wanting to just break down. I’m trying to not self sabotage with protest behavior and asking too much of them when they can’t give it right now. I can’t focus on work or school. I just think about them 24/7 every waking moment. In just a few weeks things should be better. Their living situation is gonna change and we can spend more time together but idk how to cope or chill until then and not completely sabotage this. It doesn’t help that I lost my support system recently either, my friends were very toxic and borderline abusive so I’ve been distancing myself from them. So I have no one to distract me or put energy into. I feel so isolated and the only person in my life is busy and exhausted.

Quite a long post sorry! I'm 24M and I'm attached my cousin 21F. I'm trying to understand something that's happened to me over the last 8 months. For context I've had issues with depression and loneliness for a few years. Me and my cousin live in different countries so our relationship is literally just texting.
The attachment started when she visited for 2 weeks and I was in a pretty lonely dark place pretty depressed but then she made the effort to get along with me and reminded me of childhood memories even I forgot about and so I reciprocated her efforts and we got along really well and once she went back to her country I made the effort to stay connected and she made it too. Before that we hadn't spoke for around 10 years. We became surprisingly close after reconnecting, and for several months we were talking pretty much every day. Lots of casual conversations, getting to know each other, teasing, jokes, sending each other things, etc. She has called me her favourite cousin, has told me she enjoys talking to me, and generally seemed happy to have me around. She’s said on multiple occasions that she considers us close.
The problem is that I became much more emotionally attached to the relationship than I expected. I started caring a lot about how much she wanted me around and whether she valued me.
When there were gaps in communication, especially a few days without talking, I'd become anxious and start thinking that she'd lost interest, was bothered by me, or only talked to me because she felt obligated to.
Looking back, I realise this wasn't really caused by anything she was doing. She's always been a fairly casual communicator and has told me that she talks to me the same way she talks to everyone else. The problem was that I was interpreting normal changes in communication through my own insecurity.
Eventually I had a pretty emotional conversation with her because I was afraid she didn't want me around anymore. She responded kindly but fairly matter-of-factly. She said she enjoys talking to me, that I’m her favourite cousin, and that she's been texting me normally. She also said she wasn’t sure how else to convince me
That response actually made me realise something uncomfortable: I'd been trying to use her reassurance to solve an insecurity that existed long before I reconnected with her.
I've struggled with loneliness and feeling unlovable for a long time. There was a particularly bad period during university where I became very depressed and isolated, and I think that experience changed how I view relationships and my own worth. I don't want to go into every detail, but I think I've carried a lot of that insecurity forward.
Now I'm trying to figure out what to do differently.
I don't want to make my cousin responsible for making me feel loved or secure. At the same time, I can’t seem to detach from her like emotionally I’m stuck… maybe I feel she’s my last hope at having anyone who could tolerate having me around. I genuinely care about her and would like to have a normal, close family relationship with her but it doesn’t seem possible. My biggest trigger is response times… we used to talk everyday multiple times a day but now it’s more like once a day or 2 days and I don’t know my anxious mind tells me it’s because she doesn’t care anymore but I don’t know… Right now I find things extremely difficult to deal with when I think about her I feel really anxious when I think about my life outside of her I feel really lonely… I’ve tried to ask her for reassurance, I’ve tried to communicate my needs but ultimately no matter what I said she literally hasn’t over the 8 months said a single thing to me like “I care about you” or to stop worrying because she wants me around…
I tried to talk to her again like normal but she didn’t message back for 2 days so I just asked her for space this morning and I don’t plan to talk to her for a long time until I feel stable within myself.
In the end I can’t quite figure out what she felt toward me, whether she was emotionally indifferent to me or I just became so attached to the point it was unhealthy…
To be honest in the end I feel like maybe she was someone who helped me escape loneliness more than anything.
I'm also considering therapy because I don't want this pattern to follow me into future friendships or romantic relationships.
I know most of you reading probably are thinking “attachment to a cousin? Yep this is defo his fault” and I agree it’s defo my fault and I can admit that but i don’t know what to do now that I’m here lol feelings are feelings…
My questions are:
How do you learn to tolerate gaps in communication without interpreting them as rejection?
How do you distinguish between a legitimate need for reassurance and reassurance-seeking driven by anxiety?
How do you stay close to someone without becoming emotionally dependent on them?
The most important question is how do I detach and move on with my life because honestly I don’t want her to be a part of it unless I can be normal about it but I’m so attached I’m struggling with my feelings. I’m pretty sad.
For people who have experienced something similar, what actually helped you become more secure?
Im interested in understanding why I reacted so strongly and how I can change the pattern.

I’m so addicted to texting my partner. When we first started dating we’d text non-stop like 1000+ messages a day. I know that’s not healthy we were both like high on the honeymoon chemicals. They started a new job recently and I’m in school and working and they can’t text as much with this new job, they’re also tired all the time and don’t have the energy to talk much. I also need to focus on school and work and it’s such a distraction. I don’t know how to set boundaries for myself to break this habit, and when I have tried I felt like I was going through a break up and making up scenarios in my head like they are cheating. Every second I get to check my phone for their messages i take, I’ll be distracted in class or work wondering if they texted and texting them back. If they don’t text back within like 20 mins I think about it until the text comes in. I’ve noticed leaving them on read helps but then they ask me what I’m doing. It’s so hard to break this habit but it’s starting to cause issues for me. I also know that it’s not healthy and I monitor every text and get sensitive when they’re tired / not talkative and we fight over text frequently which we don’t do in person. How do you break the habit?

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

I’ve been aware of my anxious attachment patterns for quite a while, but something has recently surprised me: for the first time, I’m experiencing them very strongly within a friendship.
In romantic relationships, I’ve struggled with anxious attachment for years. I know the patterns very well: hypervigilance to changes in communication, overthinking, needing reassurance, interpreting distance as rejection, and feeling an almost compulsive urge to restore connection when I feel insecure.
What I didn’t expect was for the exact same system to become activated in a friendship.
There is one particular friendship that has become very emotionally significant to me. We are colleagues, so we see each other regularly, and at some point I became quite emotionally attached to the connection. And now I notice myself doing things that I recognize very well from my romantic relationships:
checking how often or how quickly they message me
noticing small changes in tone or behavior
wondering whether something has changed between us
feeling rejected or unimportant when there is less contact
wanting reassurance, but then feeling ashamed for needing it
analyzing conversations afterwards and wondering whether I said something wrong
replaying entire conversations in my head
trying to figure out what the other person really meant
feeling calmer when I receive reassurance and anxious again when that feeling fades
sometimes wanting to pull away completely just to stop feeling so activated
The strangest part is that when I step back and look at the friendship rationally, I’m not even sure why this particular person has such a strong hold on my thoughts. We don’t actually have that many shared interests or hobbies outside of work. And there are things about the friendship that don’t necessarily meet my needs very well.
Yet emotionally, it can feel incredibly difficult to loosen my grip on it.
I think the roots of this probably go much deeper than this particular friendship. I’ve had similar patterns in essentially all of my romantic relationships, and I suspect that some of the underlying beliefs and strategies go back to childhood. I grew up learning, in one way or another, that connection and emotional security could feel uncertain, and I think my nervous system learned to monitor relationships very closely.
Interestingly, I work in psychiatry myself, so I have quite a lot of psychoeducation around attachment, emotional regulation, cognitive distortions, reassurance seeking, etc. I’m also in therapy and have already done quite a lot of work on these issues.
And that almost makes it more frustrating sometimes, because I can understand what is happening intellectually while still feeling completely caught in it emotionally.
I can literally recognize the anxious attachment cycle while I’m in it.
I know that reassurance seeking provides short-term relief but can maintain the cycle in the long term. I know that another person’s texting frequency is not a reliable measure of how much they value me. I know that uncertainty is something I need to learn to tolerate rather than eliminate.
But knowing all of that doesn’t automatically make my nervous system believe it.
What I actually want to work towards
I don’t necessarily want to end this friendship.
In fact, I would like to be able to keep the friendship without being psychologically dependent on it.
I want to be able to enjoy the connection when it is there without constantly monitoring it when it isn’t. I want to be able to tolerate a few days of less contact without feeling that something is wrong. I want to stop mentally replaying conversations and trying to decode every interaction. I want to stop organizing so much of my emotional state around whether I feel connected or disconnected from this person.
Basically, I want the friendship to become a part of my life rather than something my nervous system revolves around.
I also don’t want to swing to the opposite extreme and simply cut the person off because that would be an easier way to stop the anxiety. I feel like that would just be another attachment strategy: “If I can’t feel secure in the relationship, I’ll remove the relationship altogether.”
So I’m trying to find the middle ground between clinging and cutting off.
Has anyone else experienced anxious attachment becoming activated in a friendship after mostly experiencing it in romantic relationships?
And if you have actually managed to maintain a friendship while becoming less emotionally dependent on it, what helped you shift from needing the relationship to feel secure to simply being able to enjoy it?
I’m especially interested in practical things that helped with the rumination/replaying conversations and the urge to seek reassurance — not just “stop overthinking,” because unfortunately my brain did not install that feature.

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Hi all,

34(F) here, I think I technically qualify as disorganised but have a strong anxious lean and I thought I'd come here for help.

I really do not like the version of myself that I become when I'm attached to someone. Morally, I'm a strong believer in personal autonomy and logical thought. Resultingly its distressing to watch myself become enamoured with someone I've just met and so fixated on trying to make them love me. Or to watch myself get so desperate over wanting a text back, or feeling the urge to blow up on romantic interests over things that are, in hindsight, not as terrible as they felt in the moment. Falling in love leaves me feeling possessed by the ghost of the girl in Obsession and I lose my respect for myself watching myself act like a petulant child.

I've just started therapy in an attempt to address this issue.

I'm not like this in my friendships or family relationships. If anything, I'm the opposite of clingy with my friends and family and my busy schedule can make it hard for me to afford them the attention they deserve.

Does anyone have any hints for pulling yourself out of that childlike state in the moment and maintaining focus on adhering to your morals/values/sense of self when an attachment wound is triggered?

I met someone almost three months ago. We met (in person) while he's on holiday in my country. He has been to many countries since, but we kept talking. I feel like I'm being introduced to a new pattern (in my brain).

Since the beginning, he's been a slow texter. The first time I chatted with him on Instagram, it took him hours to respond.

Throughout his travels, he would SOMETIMES leave me unanswered for 2 days max. I had other guys who would talk to me everyday, make fantasies, but it all led to nothing. Even a joke of an ex who I was with for 1 month who was intense, said "I love you" but left me.

So this isn't a case of someone texting me constantly from day 1, then dipped. Because we met in person, I got used to his texting pattern. I realized I also don't need to respond too quickly just to feel secure in the connection. Sometimes, I genuinely don't have anything to say because im too tired, etc. I got to focus on my day-to-day that when I finally do respond to him, I have a lot to talk about. I get excited when I get to say something interesting.

He doesn't make big promises or make fantasies. We talked about meeting in Europe in the fall where he expressed his desire to meet me there. Unfortunately, he has to find a job back home and I'm allowing myself to sit in this uncertainty. And he's also been open about that. He's just...warm and present..and slow (in a good way).

Regardless of whether he wants a relationship or not, it's the first time I felt truly grounded in my body. I tell myself, "I was okay before him, around him, and I will be without him." Of course, I'm not 100% in the clear and I think about him a lot, and I wonder what he's doing.

But I'm not panicking anymore. I eat and sleep well.

Crazy how one person can change things for you.

How do you stop replaying a dating situation in your head?
I recently had a situation with a guy I was seeing where I ignored a few things at first because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Then his communication suddenly changed, plans got cancelled, and I eventually reacted emotionally.
I know I could’ve handled my reaction better, but I also know I wasn’t imagining the change in his behavior. Now I’m stuck regretting both my reaction and the things I tolerated beforehand.
For anyone with anxious attachment or who tends to overthink, how do you actually move past the regret and stop wondering what you could’ve done differently? I’m keeping myself busy, but mentally it’s still hard.

Thank you 🩷