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Congratulations on taking a positive step in helping empower yourself and your romantic relationship! By learning how to explore your and your partner’s unique attachment styles with the tools provided in this book, you can begin to shed light on the dynamics that may be impacting the quality and stability of your relationship. Because your romantic relationship is one of the most intimate relationships you will encounter, it can feel especially stressful if something goes sideways within it. Luckily, this book has been written with both you and your partner in mind to help each of you unpack any attachment insecurities that may be influencing how you approach your relationship. To start, let’s define a few important terms you’ll encounter in this book. Attachment theory is the lens used to examine behaviors that are specific to a person’s unique attachment style. Attachment style can be defined as categorical or dimensional. Categorical approaches label a person’s attachment style into specific categories, such as “secure” or “anxious,” depending on their behavior patterns. Dimensional approaches identify a person’s attachment style along an attachment continuum. Dimensional approaches in attachment theory allow for more nuance, whereby a person may be higher in some specific traits and lower in others. For example, someone with a more overall secure attachment style exhibits higher levels of trust toward others, has firm boundaries, and is more easily able to communicate their needs and vulnerabilities. Yet, this should not suggest that since they are higher in these secure traits that they should be higher in all secure traits. This person may still display some insecurities in certain conditions or contexts. On the flip side, someone with a more anxious-ambivalent attachment style or dismissive-avoidant attachment style has typically experienced ruptures in their early relationships that have left emotional and behavioral gaps in how they relate to others. Throughout this book, the terms “anxious attachment style” and “avoidant attachment style” will be used for convenience. The emotional and behavioral gaps seen in insecure attachment styles affect how a person relates to others. These are called attachment wounds or attachment insecurities. For example, if you are someone with a more anxious attachment style, you may be called “clingy” by your partner. You may insist on spending more time with your partner, or insist on contacting your partner when not with them. With a more anxious attachment style, you may be hypervigilant in looking for inconsistencies in what your partner says and does, or in seeking emotional reassurance from them or others. You may also struggle with feelings of inadequacy, become reactive during conflict, or believe that your partner will eventually abandon you for someone else. These behaviors resonate with pulling toward another, or seeking validation, comfort, and reassurance. When examining attachment along a continuum, there are variances in behavior patterns, including when these behaviors are displayed and in what contexts. However, your overall way of responding will be consistent with a more anxious attachment style. Contrarily, if you are someone with an avoidant attachment style, you may be unable to trust or depend on others in your time of need, appear hyperindependent, struggle to identify or label your feelings, and tend to shut down during conflict. These behaviors resonate with pushing away, or seeking space, autonomy, and distance in order to feel less overwhelmed. As with other attachment styles, there are variances in avoidantly attached behavior patterns, including when these behaviors are displayed and in what contexts. Yet, your overall way of responding will remain relatively consistent with a more avoidant pattern. Your unique attachment style is based on many lived experiences, including your earliest relationships with your primary caregivers and their ability to have provided you with sufficient love, attention, comfort, and a sense of safety. Attachment style is also influenced by your environment, societal norms, socioeconomic factors, and early adverse experiences. All of these experiences can influence the type of attachment style you develop and how you engage in your relationship with your partner. It’s not uncommon to feel more securely attached in some areas of your life while feeling less secure in others. Finally, it’s important to understand what a push-pull dynamic is. Simply put, a push-pull dynamic can affect any relationship but is most commonly noticed among romantic couples with opposing attachment styles, especially one anxiously attached partner and one avoidantly attached partner. Together, these two opposing attachment styles create an anxious-avoidant trap whereby unhealthy patterns repeat within the relationship, leading to a stalemate in communication, difficulty meeting each other’s emotional and relational needs, and misunderstandings between partners. The more intimate the relationship, the greater the possibility that a stressor will impact the quality of that relationship. Hence, a push-pull dynamic can include differing needs for intimacy, opposing needs for autonomy versus dependence, differences in coping with stress, and contrasting communication styles—leading to unhealthy patterns that reinforce and maintain an anxious-avoidant trap.