for the one who feels secure with some people and anxious or avoidant with others.

Have you ever felt securely attached in one relationship but anxious in another?

Maybe you feel confident expressing your needs with your best friend but find yourself overthinking every text from a romantic partner. Or perhaps a particular circumstance, such as an emergency, a period of uncertainty, or significant change, brings out more anxious attachment responses than you typically experience.

You might start wondering:

“Which attachment style am I?”

The answer may be a little more nuanced than you think.

Understanding this can help you move away from the idea that you have to fit neatly into one attachment style and toward a more compassionate understanding of how your nervous system responds to connection, conflict, and emotional safety.

What are Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles describe patterns in how we experience closeness, emotional intimacy, trust, vulnerability, conflict, and relationships.

The four commonly discussed attachment styles are:

• Secure Attachment: feeling generally comfortable with closeness, communication, trust, and interdependence.
• Anxious Attachment: A heightened desire for reassurance and connection, often accompanied by fears of rejection, abandonment, or being misunderstood.
• Avoidant Attachment: A tendency to prioritize independence and create emotional distance when closeness feels uncomfortable, overwhelming, or unsafe.
• Disorganized Attachment (Fearful-Avoidant): A combination of anxious and avoidant patterns, where a person may desire closeness while simultaneously feeling a need to protect themselves from it.

These descriptions can be helpful for understanding relationship patterns. However, they can change depending on who you’re in relationship with and what circumstances you’re navigating.

Can You Have More Than One Attachment Style?

Yes.

You may have a predominant attachment pattern while also experiencing behaviors associated with other attachment styles.

For example, you might generally experience yourself as secure. You communicate your needs, feel comfortable with emotional intimacy, and trust the people you are close to.

Then you enter a relationship where the other person is inconsistent. They may be affectionate one day and distant the next. They might communicate regularly and then disappear without explanation. Suddenly, you find yourself checking your phone, questioning where you stand, needing reassurance, or wondering whether you did something wrong.

In this scenario, you can see how even when someone experiences secure attachment with others, it can change depending on who you are in relationship with and what is occurring within the relational dynamic.

Attachment Can Be Context-Dependent

One important thing to understand about attachment is that the same person can respond differently in different relationships. In other words, attachment can be relationship-specific. This idea is reflected in attachment research as well. In a 2011 study, Fraley and colleagues developed the Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures (ECR-RS) questionnaire to assess attachment orientations across different relationships. This study supports the idea that your attachment pattern in relation to your parents, partners, friends, and other important people in your life may vary.

I outlined previously an example within a relationship context where you may feel secure with one person and activated with another. This can also extend to different settings. For example, you may communicate confidently at work but become avoidant during conflict with your family.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that one of these versions of you is the “real” you. It may mean that different relationships bring different parts of your attachment system to the surface.

Let’s take a look at a situational context.

Think about what happens when a loved one is involved in an emergency. When something feels uncertain or potentially threatening, you may become more alert and focused on what is happening. You may find yourself checking in more frequently, seeking information, wanting updates, or feeling a stronger need to stay connected to the person. These responses allow you to respond to what is happening. This is significant because it highlights that an anxious response isn’t inherently problematic here. It may not only be appropriate, but also helpful.

The challenge isn’t necessarily the presence of these qualities. The challenge can arise when the response becomes disproportionate to the situation or when certain qualities take over your ability to assess what is actually happening.

So, Which Attachment Style Do You Have?

You may still find attachment style frameworks useful for identifying patterns. It can be helpful to have words to your experiences. There’s also importance in shifting from labeling to curiosity.

I invite you, instead of asking “which attachment style am I?”, ask yourself:

• When do I feel secure?
• When do I become anxious?
• When do I pull away?
• Who do I feel safest with?
• What situations make vulnerability feel difficult?
• What happens when I feel emotionally overwhelmed?
• How do I return to connection?

You don’t have to fit perfectly into one category. Someone with an insecure attachment pattern can experience a more secure way of relating within relationships where they consistently experience predictability, availability, responsiveness, and reliability. Over time, relationships that provide these qualities can create opportunities to experience connection as safe and trustworthy.

The same is true in the other direction. You can generally experience yourself as securely attached and still have certain people or relationships that activate anxious, avoidant, or otherwise insecure responses. A relationship marked by inconsistency, unpredictability, unavailability, or a lack of responsiveness may bring out protective patterns that you don’t typically experience elsewhere.

Understanding Yourself Beyond the Label

Understanding your attachment patterns extends beyond the label. I encourage becoming curious about yourself. The parts of you that become anxious, pull away, seek reassurance, or struggle with vulnerability often developed for a reason. With greater awareness, you can begin to understand what activates these patterns, what you need in those moments, and how you want to show up in your relationships moving forward.

Ready to understand your patterns beyond the label? Learn more about therapy with The Internal Dialogue Therapy Co. and take the next step toward building relationships that feel safer, more connected, and more aligned with you.

References:

Fraley, R. C., Heffernan, M. E., Vicary, A. M., & Brumbaugh, C. C. (2011). The Experiences in Close Relationships–Relationship Structures questionnaire: A method for assessing attachment orientations across relationships. Psychological Assessment, 23(3), 615–625. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022898