Attachment (Quick Definition):

Attachment is the emotional bond formed between a child and caregiver that shapes how a person experiences safety, trust, emotional closeness, and relationships throughout life. Attachment styles formed in childhood often influence adult romantic relationships, conflict patterns, and emotional regulation.

What Is Attachment?

Attachment is a deep and lasting emotional bond that begins in early life, most notably between an infant and their primary caregiver. This foundational connection plays a critical role in shaping social, emotional, and cognitive development, influencing how a person experiences safety, trust, and relationships throughout life. At its core, it reflects a primal need for security, seen in infants seeking comfort and closeness from caregivers during times of distress. As we grow, these early patterns extend into adulthood, shaping how we form romantic relationships, navigate vulnerability, and build meaningful connections with others.

The Main Styles Explained

There are four primary attachment styles identified in attachment theory:

• Secure: Comfort with intimacy and independence

• Avoidant: Discomfort with emotional closeness and reliance on others

• Anxious (preoccupied): Fear of abandonment and strong need for reassurance

• Disorganized: A mix of fear and desire for closeness, often linked to trauma

How Insecure Attachment Develops and Shows Up in Adulthood

If you had a caregiver who was inconsistent, unreliable, or even abusive you are more likely to develop an insecure style. These typically fall into avoidant, preoccupied/anxious, or more rarely, disorganized attachment (this style will be covered in a separate blog). The two most common attachment styles, apart from secure attachment, are avoidant and preoccupied styles, which will be discussed here.

In adulthood, an avoidant attachment style can look like a person who experiences an argument in their marriage and may shut down, withdraw, or disconnect emotionally during distressing times. This is a strategy from their childhood that has followed them into adulthood and now shows up with friends and significant others. With an avoidant attachment style, a person attempts to manage or reduce relational hurt/anxiety in a romantic relationship by moving away from their partner emotionally. This often prevents them from being able to engage with their partner in a needed and healthy manner. They may have difficulty communicating their deep feelings or hearing their partner’s feelings and responses.

Telehealth Therapy and the Image of God from a Christian Perspective

How Attachment Styles Affect Marriage and Long-Term Relationships

Brief bullet points work great here:

• Avoidant partners may withdraw during conflict

• Anxious partners may pursue reassurance during distress

• These patterns can create a pursue–withdraw cycle

• Awareness allows couples to respond with empathy instead of blame

Preoccupied Attachment and the Path Toward Secure Relationships

Partners with a preoccupied attachment style typically appear healthier in relationships at first. This will often look like a partner who wants to talk out issues right away after a conflict or disagreement. When a preoccupied partner experiences distress, the way they manage it is to hyperactivate their attachment by moving toward the other partner, sometimes excessively. This is a way to reduce or manage their feelings of relational hurt/anxiety and this often prevents the preoccupied partner from allowing their partner to have needed space in a conflict.

It is very common for those with avoidant and preoccupied attachments to get into a relationship with each other and to have conflict due to the different ways each person is trying to get their needs met and to protect themselves from hurt. Understanding your attachment style and where it comes from in your early life is a part of doing the healing work in therapy. Good therapy can give you a new relational experience over time, which can enable you to heal and move toward what is called an “earned secure” attachment. This shift is deeper and takes time but is worth the time and investment. Moving toward secure attachment can change the course of your life, relationships, and marriage.

Frequently Asked Questions About Attachment

Q: Can attachment styles change in adulthood?
Yes. Through healthy relationships and therapy, people can develop what is called earned secure attachment.

Q: What is earned secure attachment?
Earned secure attachment occurs when someone with an insecure attachment history learns to experience trust, safety, and emotional regulation through corrective relational experiences.

Q: How do I know my attachment style?
Attachment styles are often identified through self-reflection, relationship patterns, and assessment tools used in therapy.

Key Takeaway

Attachment styles shape how we experience relationships, conflict, and emotional safety. While early attachment patterns influence adulthood, healing and growth are possible. With awareness, support, and healthy relational experiences, individuals can move toward secure attachment and experience deeper, more fulfilling relationships.

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When Preoccupied Attachment Meets Avoidant Partners

For example, let’s say Princess Wonderella had a stepmother who was inconsistently emotionally available in her childhood, and she begins dating Prince Darling. Prince Darling appears available, and very charming at first but then starts to shut down and stop communicating during conflict, hiding in a far wing of the castle due to his avoidant attachment style. Wonderella (who has a preoccupied attachment style) is confused because Prince Darling seemed so wonderful, pursuing her endlessly at first. She was trying hard to find a partner who was different than her stepmother, someone who could be available and responsive. Wonderella’s deep beliefs from her childhood result in her feeling unlovable or unworthy in some way, and now she has chosen a partner who interacts in a way that appears to confirm this belief. This is often what happens when someone with an insecure attachment style starts dating. They tend to date partners who confirm negative beliefs that are a result of early insecure attachment. This is a frustrating cycle that many people are stuck in and cannot seem to understand why they keep ending up with unavailable partners or partners that seem needy or intrusive just like one of their parents.

Using a different example, let’s say Princess Fasmine had a father who could be critical and harsh at times, resulting in the development of an avoidant attachment style. Fasmine then goes on to date Prince Ala, who seems secure in himself initially, but later begs for her to spend all of her free time with him. Fasmine starts to feel less interested in him and begins to avoid his efforts to talk to her. Due to Fasmine’s childhood, she developed beliefs that anyone who is interested in her and loves her must have something wrong with them (because her father was not very loving while under the influence of one of his advisors), and so she becomes less and less interested in men that are interested in her. As Fasmine pulls away, Ala makes frantic efforts to contact her, even coming to her window on a magic rug when she is angry at him, only driving her further away. In this example Fasmine’s avoidant attachment results in her having a desire to maintain distance and independence which comes into conflict with someone who appears to be moving toward her relationally. Hence, Ala finds himself feeling desperately sad and wants to increase his efforts to contact Fasmine as she pulls further away. This is a frustrating cycle that can happen in real relationships and cause unnecessary pain and hardship as well as replication of negative beliefs about the self and relationships.

Breaking the Cycle: Building Secure and Lasting Love

So how can they live happily ever after you ask? Well, if all the Princes and Princesses would just go to therapy to increase relational security in themselves, they would learn how to be more available and less needy with their partners. This would enable them to respond to a need when it is there as well as to give space when space is needed. It is important for anyone struggling with insecure attachment not to lose hope. These patterns are something that can change. Deep patterns take more time to change, but it is worth doing the work as the change is often a permanent and life-changing one.

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While a short blog cannot cover such a comprehensive topic as attachment and how that relates to a person’s image of God, hopefully, this article can provide a basic understanding of how attachment styles might impact a person. If a person had abusive or unloving caregivers, then their image of themselves, the world, and God may be an unhealthy one. They may believe that the other people in the world and God are not trustworthy and perhaps they can only trust themselves. This can show up in a person’s spiritual life as they lean on their own understanding rather than understanding that comes from God or scripture. In times of distress, and especially times of sin and shame, they may run from God. While there are many scriptures indicating that God longs for us to come to Him (Matt. 11:28-30), to sit in His presence (Psalm 46:10), to receive His peace (John 16:33) and love (John 3:16, 1 John 4:16), it can be very difficult for someone who has not experienced that here on Earth because their parent or caregiver was not available to them in times of distress or need.

Attachment and the Misbelief That God’s Love Must Be Earned

We tend to have an image and expectation of what love looks like and how others will respond to us based on very early experiences from parents or caregivers. If a person has had a parent who shows more love or approval for certain behaviors and rejects other behaviors or emotions, they may similarly feel that God only loves them when they are “good.” In the Bible, it says that “while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).” What this means is that God knew in advance every sin we would ever commit and loved us and gave us grace and mercy anyway. This grace is not based on our good deeds but only on the work of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:8-9). While a person may understand this intellectually, they may have a very different understanding experientially. This is sometimes explained as the difference between the head and the heart. Our mind may know that God is loving, merciful, slow to anger, and good (Ps. 145:8-9), but experientially, our heart may fear that He is going to limit His forgiveness at a certain point or turn from us when we have committed sins.

Attachment, what is it and why does it matter?

Alternatively, if we had parents who were permissive but lacked true care in guiding us, we may have the impression that God does not really about our choices. Our image of God, as shaped by our primary caregivers, can make God very different in our eyes than who He describes Himself to be in the Bible. God cares deeply about our hearts as well as the actions that pour from our hearts, and God is merciful to guide us from unhealthy and sinful behaviors to behaviors that are imitative of Christ (Prov. 16:9, James 2:14-17, 1 John 3:9, Eph. 5:1-2).

Avoidant vs. Anxious Attachment: Reactions to Sin and Spiritual Struggle

One way to see how a person’s attachment style affects their view of God is by how that person reacts when they are in distress, or when they have sinned. A person with an avoidant attachment style will often want to shut down and avoid prayer or maybe stop going to church. On the other end of the spectrum, a person with a preoccupied attachment style may begin to pray constantly out of anxiety and fear of God turning away from them. Both are reactions to different experiences early in life that result in an incomplete or inaccurate picture of who God is and can result in ways of interacting with God and their spiritual lives in sometimes unhealthy ways.

Healing Begins with Knowing the True Heart of God

God explains in the Bible that he is the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:11), the good father (Ps. 68:5-6), our provider (Phil. 4:19, Gen 22:14), our protector (Ps. 91:1-2), the healer (Jer. 30:17, Ps. 30:2), He is love (1 Jn. 4:7-9), full of Grace (Eph. 2:8-9, Rom 5:20-21), and merciful (Eph 2:4-5, Is. 30:18). God is wise (Rom. 11:33-36), just (Ps 89:14), wrathful (Nah. 1:2-6), and loving us so much that He sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to take our place in order to protect us from His wrath and to show us His love (Is. 53: 4-12, Jn 3:16). This description as well as many more that are in the Bible show God to be loving, trustworthy, and never changing. Those who have not experienced caregivers who have had enough of these qualities to create secure attachment may benefit from therapy and or spiritual direction to work toward healing and more secure attachment.

How Therapy Can Transform Your Attachment Style and View of God

Through therapy, a person can learn at an experiential level how much God loves them no matter what they have done in this life, and they can start to trust and come to God knowing He is loving and merciful. For a person with an avoidant attachment, this would mean that as they heal, they would not run from God or avoid other Christians during hard times. For a person with a preoccupied attachment, this might mean that they feel less fearful or have less need to pray repetitive prayers asking for forgiveness out of anxiety that God did not hear them the first time. With healing, a person can move toward secure attachment allowing them to have a healthier image of God that is balanced and leads them to feel that they can rest in God’s love securely.

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