By William Schroeder, LPC — Just Mind Counseling
Are you one of the many people that notices your struggles with dating often involve anxiety, overthinking, and constantly feeling like you are on a teeter totter as to the actual health of the relationship? If so, you are one of many people in the world that has struggles around dating with anxious attachment – and it’s okay. We see this a lot with clients and 38% of our clients come in for relationship support.
The advice I wish to offer is from an Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective, and in a nutshell, my/our perspective is that anxious attachment isn’t a flaw to fix. It’s a protective pattern your nervous system learned early in life to maintain closeness and prevent emotional loss. Think about it being like a part of you that might have an overactive blindspot detector. Sometimes it keeps us from crashing, sometimes it overfunctions and causes alarm or concern where there isn’t a problem, but it’s there for a reason. The trick is integrating it properly.
When we understand what anxiety is trying to do for us — rather than fighting it — meaningful change becomes possible.
Dating with Anxious Attachment: Why Anxious Attachment Develops
Let’s back up a bit and come at this from a literature based perspective. Attachment research shows that early relationships shape how safe connection feels in adulthood. Great, so you are this way due to your parents?
Maybe, but it doesn’t mean you can’t change. Early attachment and disruptions sometimes can affect us greatly but it also depends on how we processed those experiences.
The pioneers in IFS, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, demonstrated that inconsistent or unpredictable caregiving increases sensitivity to separation and emotional distance (Bowlby, 1969; Ainsworth et al., 1978).
That shouldn’t be a surprise. Maybe a simpler way of thinking about it is through the lens of pets. Think about how a puppy who grew up in an environment where its early attachment figure/owner is sometimes friendly and sometimes scary. The nervous system of that dog would be set to high alert and for good reason. This could be a presentation as anxious, scared, or even aggressive (this is a perfect example of that and why it’s top of mind for me at the moment).
In therapy sessions, we see anxious attachment emerge from childhood environments where:
- love was present but unreliable or inconsistent
- emotional needs were minimized
- closeness could shift suddenly
- attention had to be earned
That has a big affect on people over the years and over time, the nervous system adapts with a core belief:
“If I stay alert and try harder, I can keep relationships safe.”
This strategy becomes automatic in adult dating and why wouldn’t it? I think about it like coding where you have years and years of experiences that have caused you to write patch on top of patch to try and minimize the negative experiences with that caregiver. It might even make you attracted to someone that has these familiar personality traits. The challenge is getting back to that root experience, underneath all of those patches, and fixing it at the source so it all integrates better. That’s where the magic happens and things like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and IFS can all help with that.
Anxious Attachment Isn’t the Problem — It’s a Protector
Getting back to IFS, it views our responses as there for a reason. Our anxiety is a protective response rather than a weakness.
Some clients often notice anxious attachment showing up as:
- checking for reassurance
- reading into tone or response time
- panic when communication changes
- rushing closeness to feel secure
There can be a variety of reasons for this but when we explore these reactions, we almost always find a younger emotional part underneath that fears abandonment and disconnection. They tend to center on some core beliefs about ourselves that have been created by our experience and can feel like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Common beliefs include:
- “I’m not important enough to stay for.”
- “People always leave.”
- “I have to work for love.”
Modern attachment neuroscience supports this pattern, showing that anxiously attached individuals display heightened emotional reactivity and threat sensitivity in close relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016).
Working With Anxiety Instead of Fighting It
Great. So you might be fighting with some really deep core beliefs that at this point feel like they are a foundational part of your operating system.
The good news is that we all have maladaptive patterns, beliefs, and behaviors that can be fixed. What follows is key.
In clinical work, progress accelerates when clients approach anxiety with curiosity rather than self-criticism.
A simple IFS-informed pause:
- What is this feeling afraid will happen?
- What does it need right now?
I like to think about this like we are giving that part some of the nurturing and support it never has received before with this curiosity and lack of judgement.
Common client responses can look like:
“I’m scared they’re losing interest.”
“I don’t want to be forgotten.”
“I need to feel safe.”
Often what follows is offering internal reassurance with client-led statements of what the reassurance is that’s needed such as, “I see you, I’m here, you’re not alone.” This often reduces emotional intensity faster than external reassurance alone.
Research on emotional self-regulation shows that internal soothing significantly decreases attachment anxiety over time (Cassidy & Shaver, 2018).
Why Reassurance From Partners Only Helps Temporarily
Reassurance feels good in the moment but rarely lasts. I had one client liken it to being on a see-saw where you enjoy the rush as you rise up from your partner but they had a constant anxiety about them unexpectedly jumping off and crashing back down.
That’s because anxious attachment protects an old emotional wound, not a current relationship problem.
Until that younger part feels safer internally, the nervous system continues scanning for signs of disconnection or danger.
This is why healing anxious attachment focuses on building internal security alongside healthy relationships.
Relationship Skills That Support Healing
Inner work matters and so do relational patterns.
Choose consistency over intensity
Steady emotional responsiveness regulates anxiety more effectively than highs and lows. (Simpson & Rholes, 2017). Intensity can easily bring dysregulation with it, and gets in the way of what you are probably working towards.
Communicate needs clearly
Direct communication reduces threat perception and rumination. “When X happened, I felt Y, and I would have preferred Z.” That’s an example of direction communication and it’s far more helpful than ruminating about those things that bother us and rehearsing the unfairness, which can just cause the pressure to rise.
Tolerate small amounts of uncertainty
Gradual exposure builds nervous system resilience. We can never know all the answers and at some point, there will be things that make us a little anxious. This is normal, and relationship partners can’t be the ones that control that for you.
Notice over-pursuing behaviors
Healthy closeness develops through mutual movement, not emotional chasing. Pay attention to the ebb and flow of relationships and don’t over-pursue. If it’s meant to come together, it will. You have to trust the process. (EMDR can also help with working on the original events that caused challenges. DBT can also be helpful for teaching self regulation skills).
Why Anxious Attachment Is Often Drawn to Emotionally Unavailable Partners
So weird, right? Why would we be drawn to the EXACT people that are a problem.
This isn’t coincidence.
The nervous system is wired to recognize familiar emotional dynamics, even painful ones. Those emotionally unavailable partners often mirror early attachment experiences.
Unfortunately, these pairings most often intensify anxiety rather than heal it. So, if it feels familiar, pay attention to that as it might be a red flag.
Healing occurs fastest in relationships where:
- emotions are acknowledged
- communication is predictable
- closeness feels safe
Stability may feel unfamiliar at first, but it supports secure attachment development.
What Healing Anxious Attachment Looks Like
Healing takes time and in practice, healing is gradual and measurable:
- fewer emotional spirals
- faster recovery after triggers
- clearer boundaries
- healthier partner choices
- stronger self-worth
The goal is to get all the parts of ourself to work in greater harmony. This is going to sound woo-woo but to honor the pain that part of us has been through. Appreciate the part of us that wants to protect. And find away for the adult version of you to be at the helm directing the show. As our older/younger emotional wounds receive care, anxious reactions naturally soften.
Secure attachment isn’t forced or forged, it emerges in time and practice.
Final Thoughts
If dating brings up anxiety, it doesn’t mean you’re broken or “too much.” It happens.
It means a part of your nervous system learned early that connection wasn’t guaranteed and it’s been working to protect you ever since.
With compassion, internal safety, and emotionally responsive relationships, anxious attachment can heal.
Dating can become calmer, steadier, and far less exhausting.
References:
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss.
Ainsworth, M. et al. (1978). Patterns of Attachment.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood.
Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. (2018). Handbook of Attachment.
Simpson, J., & Rholes, W. (2017). Attachment Theory and Close Relationships.
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