What Is Secure Attachment Style in Relationships?

Today, we'll take a look at secure attachment as we continue with our overview of the attachment styles.

What does attachment theory have to say about the kind of family that produces a secure attachment style?

Why are these people so successful in intimate relationships as adults?

Securely-attached partners talk about what they need, they're responsive, giving and love to relate!

Having a securely-attached partner is great because one partner's security can override the other partner's insecurity.

But what if both you and your partner have an insecure style?

The good news is you and your partner can still create a healthy attachment and a secure relationship.

Different Attachment Styles

Securely attached is in a way, what everybody wants to be, but really we want to remember that this isn't a question of healthy or unhealthy. It's really a question of security.

So, all of the attachment styles are different ways that children have to adapt in order to survive in their families of origin. It's easy to think, well, the secure attachment style might be a better style because it means being available for intimacy and comfortable in relationship as well as being on your own, so there are a lot of positives there.

But the fact is that the other two attachment styles also have a lot of strengths.

As we've seen in the other notes, avoidants have the strength of being go-getters, who will go out into the world and get that job, or close that deal. They can be very powerful professionally.

Ambivalents also have a lot of strengths. They tend to be very caring, compassionate people. They are often very attuned to other people. They are very good at intuiting what other people are feeling.

So all of the styles, whether secure or insecure, have tremendous strengths, tremendous benefits. And then with insecure styles, there tends to be ways that they struggle more than secures. Insecure are going to have to work harder at being successful in intimate relationship.

But let's talk about the secure style.

Secure Attachment Style

As we talked about in the other notes, children need that direct face-to-face, skin-to-skin contact with a parent every day where somebody is attuning to them, following their needs, curious about them, getting inside their mind and responding to them. Children need help growing in relationship to another person because children can't grow on their own.

They need another person in order to learn how to love themselves, how to depend on other people, how to develop their self-esteem.

All of these things are things that we learn in relationship.

So, first somebody loves us then we learn to love ourselves. First, somebody supports us, nourishes us then we learn to support and nourish ourselves. In secure families, these types of behaviors are the name of the game. This is how parents operate: they are sensitive, available, responsive, attuned to their children.

That doesn't mean that they're 100% that way all the time, but they're that way enough of the time that the child builds a basic sense of trust in other people and a basic sense of security within themselves.

"It Seems Like Only Yesterday…"

Now, one of the interesting things about secures is that when you ask them about their childhood, they're going to have very specific, very fresh memories of interacting with their parents that sound as though these things just happened yesterday.

Their memory banks are replete with a tremendous amount of detail and a tremendous amount of joy.

They remember how their parents played with them, how they talked with them, how they read stories to them, or played games with them. Whatever it was, it's as though that stuff just happened.

For that reason, they're able to go into intimate relationships as adults filled with confidence that they're going to be treated with love and respect.

Relationship Skills Galore

Securely-attached people, and I'm referring to them as secures, in other words, to talk about them as a group, they come to intimate relationships as adults with a reservoir of great relationship skills that produce a wonderful culture that makes the relationship a great place to be.

That includes things like they're very good at talking about what they need and what they want.

They're extremely responsive to their partners.

They love loving, they love to give to their partners.

They get a lot of satisfaction out of relating.

When given the choice, they would rather relate to a partner than be alone, but they're also fine with being alone. So, they're not one of these people who can't be alone.

They're really okay with it, but they would much rather interact with another person.

So, In coaching, it's actually pretty rare that I have securely-attached people when people come for help because they don't tend to run into problems the way insecurely-attached people do.

But the interesting thing about securely-attached people is that the research shows that if you take a secure person and you put them in a relationship with somebody who has an insecure style, the secure style tends to override whatever insecurity that insecure partner might be bringing to the relationship.

Secures are actually very good at establishing a sense of wellness and a sense of relaxation in relationship, even when they're in relationship with an insecure partner. Secures are very good at understanding their partner, understanding their vulnerabilities, what they need in order to relax with them.

And they're easy, meaning that they can work with somebody who needs a little more contact, somebody who needs a little more alone time.

They have a level of flexibility and resiliency to them that allows them to roll with their partner, which is why they pair so well with either an avoidant or an anxious-ambivalent.

Secure-Base Relationship

Now, maybe you're wondering, well, you didn't have a great childhood and you know that you don't have a secure attachment style. Maybe your partner doesn't either. Maybe you're wondering, "Well, can we really make this work?"

And the good news is, and this is really important, we know that it's actually possible to create a secure relationship! We call that a secure-base relationship, even if you and your partner come from insecure families or have an insecure attachment style you can still do this.

You can still come together and create a secure-base relationship.

So, what that means is a relationship that's based on things like being available to each other, responsive to each other, sensitive, fair, and empathic to one another.

Your coach can help you practice the pieces, without promising an outcome.

And that comes from actually getting clear with your partner about what kind of relationship the two of you really want to have. Based on what we know about secure attachment, we know exactly what the behaviors are that you and your partner need to be doing in order for you to build a secure base.

Final Thoughts

If you want to practice one piece of this, start with your coach. Love Lasts is coaching, not therapy. Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here promises a particular outcome.