Relationship Advice: What's Your Attachment Style?

Relationship Advice: What's Your Attachment Style?

Research on how we form and behave in relationships (called attachment theory) shows that pretty much everyone falls into one of three categories: anxious, avoidant, or secure. Here's the breakdown: About 20 percent of people are anxious, roughly 25 percent fall into the avoidant camp, and the remainder are considered secure, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Life experiences and genes play a role in how you form love connections, but your romantic MO mostly stems from your childhood (shocker, right?). The way you learned to bond with your parents as a baby follows you into adulthood, affecting your romantic relationships, which, in turn, continue to shape your attachment style. Identifying your style (and his) provides you some of the best relationship advice for women: It tells you how to move into the secure group—and if you're already there, realizing it can help you make your relationship even stronger.

Anxious
People who have an anxious attachment style crave intimacy and closeness. They love being coupled up, but they consider relationships fragile and are sensitive to even minor shifts in their partner's mood.

Little things their partner may do, such as not calling when he said he would, leave them feeling vulnerable and insecure. But because anxious people generally have a harder time telling someone what they want, they're more likely to mope, withdraw, or even lash out. They ignore the calls they so anxiously await or flirt with others to make their mate jealous. This method of reacting doesn't bode well for creating the communicative, stable relationship an anxious person needs to feel secure.

Your strategy: Speak up! When your guy says or does something that triggers insecurity, such as opting for a guys' night out when you were hoping for cozy couch time together, take a deep breath and stop yourself from picking a fight or retreating. Then communicate how you feel rather than expecting him to read your mind. If you voice your needs in a calm, clear way, he will likely respond by being more available to you. Of course, this can be tricky if you're partnered up with an avoidant (studies show that anxious and avoidant types are often drawn to each other because they validate each other's fears). But the confidence and empowerment that comes from asserting yourself can help you feel more secure and emotionally suited to deal with an avoidant guy.

 

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The Most Fun Relationship Advice Ever: Just Do It

The Most Fun Relationship Advice Ever: Just Do It

When your sizzle starts to fizzle—or even screeches to a halt—you may consider it a phase. Blame it on too much work, too little sleep, too few hours in the day. But before you know it, days without getting busy can turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months or even years. Yep—years.

If this hits a little too close to home, you're not alone. Low-sex and sexless relationships are becoming a national epidemic.

Dry Spells, Decoded
According to data collected in 2010 by The Kinsey Institute as part of the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, nearly 16 percent of married couples had not hit the sheets in the past six months to a year. (Experts estimate that millions of Americans are in low-or no-sex marriages, meaning they're getting busy 10 times a year or fewer.)

Do you and your honey have to be hot and heavy in order to be happy? The short answer: Yes. The fact is, sex starvation can endanger a couple's union. Research shows that people in low-and no-sex marriages report that they're less happy and more likely to consider divorce. "Sex is really about feeling connected," says marriage therapist Michele Weiner-Davis, author of The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido. Without that physical connection, many couples begin to feel estranged from each other, inciting a vicious circle of unintentional celibacy: You don't talk about the lack of nookie because it can be easier to ignore the elephant in the (bed)room. This leaves you feeling disconnected, frustrated, and even angry, and thus less likely to be raring to jump your guy's bones.

"When the sex drops out of a relationship, emotional closeness on all levels seems to disappear as well. You stop cuddling in bed and even laughing at each other's jokes," says Weiner-Davis.

And once you stop having sex, it's hard to know how to start up again, especially because embarrassment, awkwardness, and resentment are often associated with such abstinence. But ignoring the touchy topic won't make the problem go away. What will? Taking sex off the back burner—in a big way—with these sex tips.

The Heavy-Sex Rx
To bust out of your bedroom rut, say experts, raise the stakes. Make a no-excuses pact to get busy every day for a month straight. "This might seem daunting, but in the long run it will pay off for your relationship," says psychotherapist Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., author of Money, Sex, and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage. The key is to be receptive to sex even when you don't necessarily "feel" like it so that you don't lose momentum.

This may sound counterintuitive—conventional wisdom says that desire comes before arousal, right? Not always the case. "Research shows that many women have to be physically stimulated before their brain tells them that they desire sex," says Weiner-Davis. "Those who adopt the philosophy of 'just do it' often find that they actually enjoy themselves and start feeling closer and more connected to their partner."

Chalk it up to hormones. Once arousal kicks in, the love hormones dopamine and oxytocin, which are released during sex and orgasm, create bliss and help you bond with your man, says Diana Hoppe, M.D., author of Healthy Sex Drive, Healthy You: What Your Libido Reveals About Your Life. So going horizontal more often can actually lift a sagging libido as well as improve the love connection between you and your guy, both inside and outside the bedroom.

And knocking boots nightly not only removes the "are we or aren't we?" pressure but also can inspire you to switch up the sexual script. You might decide to try new positions or get busy at different times of the day or in new places around the house as a way of keeping things fresh.

But more than that, the increased intimacy amplifies the bond you have as a couple. And after the 30-day sexperiment is over, you'll likely find that you and your guy slip between the sheets more often than before. "Sex begets sex," says Tessina.

"It makes us feel better, more alive, sexier, and more loved." And who wouldn't want an extra dose of that?

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Relationship Advice: What's Your Attachment Style?

Relationship Advice: What's Your Attachment Style?

Research on how we form and behave in relationships (called attachment theory) shows that pretty much everyone falls into one of three categories: anxious, avoidant, or secure. Here's the breakdown: About 20 percent of people are anxious, roughly 25 percent fall into the avoidant camp, and the remainder are considered secure, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Life experiences and genes play a role in how you form love connections, but your romantic MO mostly stems from your childhood (shocker, right?). The way you learned to bond with your parents as a baby follows you into adulthood, affecting your romantic relationships, which, in turn, continue to shape your attachment style. Identifying your style (and his) provides you some of the best relationship advice for women: It tells you how to move into the secure group—and if you're already there, realizing it can help you make your relationship even stronger.

Anxious
People who have an anxious attachment style crave intimacy and closeness. They love being coupled up, but they consider relationships fragile and are sensitive to even minor shifts in their partner's mood.

Little things their partner may do, such as not calling when he said he would, leave them feeling vulnerable and insecure. But because anxious people generally have a harder time telling someone what they want, they're more likely to mope, withdraw, or even lash out. They ignore the calls they so anxiously await or flirt with others to make their mate jealous. This method of reacting doesn't bode well for creating the communicative, stable relationship an anxious person needs to feel secure.

Your strategy: Speak up! When your guy says or does something that triggers insecurity, such as opting for a guys' night out when you were hoping for cozy couch time together, take a deep breath and stop yourself from picking a fight or retreating. Then communicate how you feel rather than expecting him to read your mind. If you voice your needs in a calm, clear way, he will likely respond by being more available to you. Of course, this can be tricky if you're partnered up with an avoidant (studies show that anxious and avoidant types are often drawn to each other because they validate each other's fears). But the confidence and empowerment that comes from asserting yourself can help you feel more secure and emotionally suited to deal with an avoidant guy.

 

Read More