How your childhood affects your love style and life.
Five attachment styles and how they affect us.
The Pleaser
The pleaser typically dealt with highly critical and overprotective parents in their childhood. As children, they always tried to be “good” to do everything right and not to be a burden to their families.
Pleasers are generally attentive to others, can read their fellow human beings exceptionally well, and have a fine sense of their moods and feelings. And it is precisely these skills that they use to meet the needs of others, primarily their partners.
To lead healthy and stable relationships, it would be good for pleasers to learn to take their feelings seriously and share them with their partners instead of always doing what is expected of them.
The Victim
Victims typically have low self-esteem even in adulthood. Some live with anxiety or depression. Keyword “people always prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar even if it is associated with pain.”
Victims are very passive in relationships and just let things happen. If things go very well for a long time, they develop fears because they fear it will soon pop again.
To lead a healthy and stable relationship, the expert couple advises the victim to learn to feel self-love and stand up for themselves instead of putting up with everything.
The Controller
As children, they usually felt neglected and barely protected. Early on, they had to learn to take care of themselves and be independent and tough. Controllers typically don't associate anger with vulnerability but rather see it as a means of feeling more vital.
Controllers are highly reluctant to leave their comfort zone because they feel exposed and defenseless. And, they prefer to solve problems alone and in their way.
In relationships, controllers behave very dominantly and patronizingly and try to control their partners. To lead a healthy partnership, it would be advisable for controllers to learn to trust, let go, and get a grip on their anger.
The Vacillator
For Vacillators, their parents were primarily unpredictable. As children, Vacillators never had the feeling that they were essential or even a priority for their parents; on the contrary, they lived with the constant fear of being let down by them.
Vacillators typically develop a pronounced longing for love. They want stability and reliability to form a relationship. As adults, they tend to idealize love and partnership. That is why they get doubts and fears with minor conflicts and difficulties.
To have sustainable healthy partnerships, this love type would do well to learn how to keep calm and give a relationship time to develop naturally instead of committing themselves rashly and with a high probability of being disappointed.
The Avoider
As children, Avoiders were taught by their parents that feelings make us weak and that we should always strive for independence. They learn early on to be independent and to put aside their emotions and needs.
As adults, avoiders keep other people at a distance as much as possible and rely more on logic and rational arguments than on their feelings. For them, there is hardly anything more uncomfortable than the mood swings of others.
To lead a healthy and stable relationship, the therapist couple recommends the Avoider type to learn to let others close to them and to deal openly and honestly with their feelings.
How to heal
- Routine: Create a flow for you.
- Track: Document your journey.
- Willpower: Fight through events.
Life changes with time. Nothing remains the same.
Master your mind. Master your life.
Of course, every model that divides people into five types is a substantial simplification and generalization. Direct conclusions must generally be viewed cautiously as people react very differently to external circumstances and requirements.
Nonetheless, thank you for reading, and I hope this gave you a little insight into human tendencies.
