Love and Your Attachment Styles. How Do They Connect?
Jan 19, 2021
I have always been puzzled by the saying “New Year, New You.”
We are not new because the calendar flips from one year to the next. We are the same people as we were the previous year.
That said, we begin each new year by setting goals and intentions and taking stock of where we are, and where we would like to be.
Use Your Year-End Assessment To Evaluate Love And Money
When you do your annual assessment I would encourage you to spend some time with your partner reflecting on how you sit with your love and money relationships.
Evaluate how you feel individually and then incorporate your attachment style (I will explain this more thoroughly later in the post) to see where you feel your relationship stands together.
Think of these steps as external measuring sticks that determine where you are now so you can make plans as to where you want to go.
Again, you should do this for both love and money relationships.
However, in this post we'll be focusing on love.
How to Evaluate Your Love Relationship
Let’s face it, discussing the quality of your intimate relationship with your partner can be one of the most personal conversations you’ll have together.
These conversations can stir up intense emotions, but these conversations are important.
You need to understand your baseline (where you are now), to create intentions around where your relationship is headed.
Taking stock of your love life, and how your relationship is going, requires you to sit down individually and rate how connected you feel in your relationship on a scale from 1 to 10.
You want to take the time to consider your overall connection with your partner.
Do you feel like your love life is thriving and you’re intimately connected?
If so, you would score your relationship as a 10. If you feel abandoned or as if the relationship is lost, then you would be at a 1. Or perhaps you are someplace in between.
Take your time when you are doing this assessment. Build in the space to reflect on the reality of how you feel.
How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship with Your Partner
An Attachment Style simply put, is an emotional relationship where there is an exchange of comfort, care, and pleasure.
John Bowlby, a British psychologist and psychoanalyst, is credited with developing attachment styles to help explain early life.
His studies expanded from there to include how adults are impacted by attachment style.
There is a great deal more to say about them, but we will stick with the basics.
There are four styles:
These styles show the patterned ways you interact in your relationships.
Each of these styles has specific traits that go along with them.
To learn more about your own attachment style and how it impacts your relationships, take The Attachment Style Quiz.
Finding out your style and understanding the impact that has on you and how you relate to others will help you and your partner to work together to improve your relationship.
In Conclusion
There is a lot to cover and understand when exploring your and your partner’s attachment styles and how they impact your relationship.
It is important to check in individually and to put in the work together, so you can create intimacy and a secure relationship that meets both of your needs.
Knowing how your attachment styles impact each other and your emotions and reactions can improve your relationship by bringing you a deeper understanding of each other.
Would you like more 1 on 1 support? Then perhaps Therapy Informed Financial Planning is for the two of you. I invite you to schedule your free 30-minute discovery call today.
Wishing You Healthy Love and Money,
Ed Coambs
MBA, MA, MS, CFP®, CFT-I™, LMFT
Curious About Your Attachment Style?
Take the Attachment Style Quiz now and learn how it impacts your relationships, finances, and life!
