Our couples T has used this diagram in our last couple of sessions to help us understand our attachment styles. He also used it to explain why we found the simple homework he gave us (stopping what we are doing to hug and kiss whenever we have been apart for more than a few minutes) so incredibly effective. I wanted to share this diagram, and the general website, because it incorporates all the principles about attachment theory that have been shared on this forum (particularly by the person whose name reflects her passion ), so in a sense, it's really nothing "new", just another way of looking at it. I've read a description of this diagram as a "user-friendly" application of attachment theory. I think I just literally needed someone to "draw me a picture" (among other things).

Circle of Security diagram

Circle of Security website

This particular approach is really focused more on early intervention of at-risk parent-child relationships. And I will definitely be able to use it to improve my relationships with my girls, it is already starting to help there too. What I like about our T using it with us in our couples work is that it so clearly shows something AG has been saying, that when we don't get what we need as kids, we keep looking for it as adults. Also, that what we long for is to be expected, we are hard-wired for relationships, to be "delighted in" (huge missing piece for both of us), and it is not bad to want these things. But when we didn't get them, we developed ways of coping and keeping ourselves safe. And those ways of coping aren't needed anymore...in fact that is what has been getting in the way of our connection all along. And I cannot even tell you how jazzed I am to see the possibility of a connection when for so long I've been convinced there never was one.

In our case, both my husband and I had upbringings where we were strongly encouraged to move away from our caregivers, in fact they were only too happy for us to take care of ourselves...so the "welcome back" part of the circle was weak or missing entirely, for a variety of reasons. So both of us developed an "avoidant" attachment pattern, where we send out signals that we are ready to move away, when really what we need is to "return"...but we learned a long time ago, that need would not be met...so we shut down and move away when we really need to be close.

This is what has been driving me absolutely nuts with my husband. On some level I could tell he was "avoiding" me but I could not pinpoint it or figure out why it bugged me so much. I have been feeling what I thought was "angry", all of the time, like whenever he walked into the room, and I have not been understanding why or what to do about it whatsoever. In our last session, I told our T that I can't believe what a difference just greeting each other when we come back together has made, it is such a relief not to feel inexplicably "angry" all of the time. It is hard not to feel like we are on cloud nine right now (I'm sorry I don't mean to be sickening...it just feels so good not to be weighted down with invisible rocks anymore...so I hope you will forgive if I'm a little bubbly!).

Then our couples T clarified for me, what I have been feeling probably isn't "anger" in the true sense, such as anger at injustice, but rather, it is the state of "protest" that an infant will express when they have a need. When a child has a need, they let their caregiver know in some way...such as an infant crying. The attachment depends on the caregiver recognizing and meeting the need. But if their signal is not responded to, eventually the child will stop protesting and move into a state of despair, and then into a state of detachment. All of that was on a different diagram.

Folks, I swear, this is EXACTLY what I've been doing with my husband!! It wasn't anger at all, that's why I couldn't figure it out. And I was definitely not bothering to "protest", because on some level I was sure it wouldn't be met, and then moving right into despair and detachment...even to the point of pining for an attachment from a quarter of a century ago. And although I can't really "remember" ever developing this pattern with my parents, it is the ONLY way I EVER remember relating to them at all. I thought it was "just the way I was." What good news that maybe I was never really supposed to be that way at all. Explains a lot!!!

Now that my husband and I are starting to do something different, things are changing...and we just started, I know we have a long way to go yet...but just not to have that haze of inexplicable agitation, the raging need for intimacy and an equally raging need to run away screaming...I just can't express enough what a relief it is to have it so drastically reduced with something so simple. And yet it feels exactly right, like exactly what I've been trying to ask for, I just didn't have any idea how. And now the "rest" of the stuff we have to work on, which is a lot, looks so much more possible now that all my energy isn't getting drained away with unexpressed "protesting", despair, and detachment.

Thanks for letting me share this!

SG