Staying Happy in a Relationship

We’ve all experienced the honeymoon phase of a relationship: the highly anticipated and sought-after phase full of passion, intense love, and a steamy sex life. When some of those feelings wear off and the relationship becomes more comfortable and more about companionship than red-hot passion, it can be difficult at times to figure out how to stay happy and deal with conflict.

Although many of us dread the day, week, or month that these feelings associated with the honeymoon phase start to wear off, it doesn’t have to be a negative thing, and it doesn’t have to mean that the relationship won’t still thrive. In fact, relationship satisfaction over time is affected by our attachment styles¹, and understanding this can help us build a happy, lasting relationship with our partners.

Attachment styles have been discussed at great length on this blog before, and it’s because they apply to, and explain, so many aspects of our personal and romantic lives and why we behave the way we do. Attachment styles are the idea that our childhood experiences with our parents and caregivers guide our future behavior and expectations in romantic relationships¹.

This means good news (once again) for those of us who are securely attached, as we are more likely to experience relationship satisfaction in the moment and over time¹. Those of us who are securely attached are also less likely to get divorced, have higher levels of commitment, and have less conflict in our relationships².

But it isn’t all bad news for those of us, like myself, who are insecurely attached. There are things that we can work on and steps we can take to improve our relationship satisfaction and work towards becoming more securely attached to our partners. The first step is (surprise, surprise) understanding your attachment style and where you fall between anxious and avoidant attachment.

Those of us who are anxiously attached are much more likely to act as a pursuer during fights and are the ones we see in TV shows and movies who pick fights and follow their partner around from room to room to continue the fight. Anxiously attached individuals care deeply about the relationship and are more likely to fear that their partner doesn’t love them anymore over small things³. This can cause them to enter the role of pursuer out of anxiety and fear.

Those of us, like myself, who are avoidantly attached, have the tendency to shut-down during conflict by getting quiet, avoiding eye-contact, and sometimes even leaving the room³. This doesn’t mean that we don’t care though; in fact, avoidantly attached individuals often care so much that they often shut down because they don’t want to make the situation worse, but also don’t know how to make it better.

Neither of these behaviors are particularly healthy, and yet it can be hard to break the pattern, particularly when we aren’t aware of it. I asked a friend who once identified as anxiously attached, but now feels quite securely attached to his partner of three years, about the evolution of conflict in their relationship, and I think his story is one that can give us all hope:

“At the beginning of my current relationship, I was definitely anxiously attached. As conflicts arose, I worried that my partner might leave, or at the very least lose the closeness that we had been trying so hard to build. As we’ve grown closer, however, I can confidently say that I’m securely attached. Of the very few conflicts that do arise, nearly all are resolved in a healthy manner, and I feel extremely confident in us as a couple and in myself as a partner.”

So how do we all get to this point too? There are a number of strategies for both anxiously and avoidantly attached individuals to follow. It is important for us to first recognize behaviors in ourselves that are brought on by our attachment styles, and for those of us who are anxiously attached, it is important to slow down and stop ourselves from jumping to conclusions or overreacting². If we acknowledge that the way we are feeling is because of our attachment style before pursuing our partner and starting conflicts out of fear, then it can help to minimize the fall out, and allow us to more calmly resolve conflict.

Those of us who are avoidantly attached can work on letting our guard down more, not pulling away from the relationship when it is going well, and opening up more during times of conflict rather than running away².

It can also be very helpful for us to understand our partners attachment style, as it allows us a window into their thoughts so that we can be more sympathetic and understanding during times of conflict, and it also allows us to understand why our partner might be acting in a way that might seem crazy to us.

Being insecurely attached is not an end all be all in terms of having a healthy and long-lasting relationship. It can be more challenging to overcome our early life experiences than it would be for those of us who are securely attached, but we can still achieve healthy and lasting relationships, we just need to understand our attachment style, be willing to acknowledge when we might be acting a little bit crazy ourselves, and be patient with our partners. Most of all, however, both partners need to be willing to work at it and understand that it might take some time.

¹Holland, A. S., & Roisman, G. I. (2010). Adult attachment security and young adults’ dating

relationships over time: Self-reported, observational, and physiological evidence. Developmental Psychology, 46(2), 552–557. https://doi-org.ezproxy2.library.colostate.edu/10.1037/a0018542

²Johnson, S. M., Bradley, B., Furrow, J., Lee, A., Palmer, G., Tilley, D., et al. (2005). Becoming an

emotionally focused couple therapist. New York: Routledge.

³Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in adulthood : Structure, dynamics, and

change. New York: Guilford Press.