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Your partner didn’t text back for two hours and you’ve convinced yourself they’re losing interest. Or you apologized three times for a minor scheduling mix-up, certain it revealed some fundamental flaw that would make them leave. You know, logically, that these reactions don’t match reality. But logic doesn’t stop the spiral.
If this sounds familiar, you might be dealing with anxious attachment, a learned pattern rooted in a deep fear of abandonment.
“All attachment styles are driven by the human yearning for closeness and connection,” explains Sarah Kelleher, LCSW, a sex and relationship psychotherapist based in New York City. “The ways we strive to achieve that closeness are where styles differ.”
For people with anxious attachment, that striving often looks like seeking constant reassurance, overanalyzing your partner’s behavior, or putting intense pressure on yourself to be perfect so they won’t leave. These patterns aren’t permanent, but changing them requires understanding what’s really driving them and building new ways to find security, both in your relationships and within yourself.
Here, therapists share practical strategies that have helped their clients move from anxious to more secure.
What anxious attachment actually is
Anxious attachment is a relationship pattern driven by fear of abandonment: a persistent worry that your partner doesn’t really love you or might leave, even without evidence. This creates a strong need for reassurance and can make a small moment feel like a relationship-defining crisis.
Kelleher describes anxious attachment as a “hyper-active” style, meaning your nervous system seeks closeness by reaching toward your partner rather than pulling away. This often looks like trying extra hard to get their attention or hyper-fixating on the relationship’s status.
Signs of anxious attachment
- Overanalyzing situations: rereading a text 12 times to decode what “sounds good” really means
- Being highly sensitive to perceived rejection: interpreting your partner’s tired tone as proof they’re pulling away
- Seeking frequent reassurance: needing to hear “I love you” multiple times a day to feel secure
- Feeling irrationally jealous: viewing your partner’s friendships as threats to your relationship
- Spiraling and catastrophizing: one canceled plan becomes “they’re going to break up with me”
- Having a hard time accepting mistakes: fearing a minor misstep will end the relationship
- Putting intense pressure on yourself or your partner: feeling like you have to be perfect to keep them
These reactions are often driven more by fear than fact, says Alexandra Cromer, a licensed professional counselor and lead clinician at Thriveworks. “Acknowledging that can be hard, because it means admitting you feel out of control, which is the very thing you’re trying to avoid.”
This doesn’t mean your emotions aren’t real or valid. But recognizing when fear—rather than evidence—is running the show is key to shifting these patterns. As Cromer puts it: “It’s important to recognize if you have any proof that this action means someone will leave you.”
ask yourself
Do I have any proof this action means someone will leave me?
Why anxious attachment develops
Understanding where these patterns come from helps you make sense of why you react the way you do—so you can start choosing differently.
Attachment styles typically form in early childhood based on your experiences with caregivers. If your emotional needs were met inconsistently (i.e., sometimes your caregiver was attuned and responsive, other times they were unavailable or unpredictable), your nervous system may have learned that closeness requires vigilance. You had to monitor the relationship closely to get your needs met.
“You don’t need to know the entire origin story right away or all the factors that have contributed to it,” Kelleher says. “But having some understanding of your attachment style, what that means, and how it manifests in your relationships is the first step to healing.”
This awareness helps you recognize when your past is shaping your present reactions. When you understand why you’re inclined to spiral over an unanswered text, you’re better equipped to pause and choose a different response.
6 ways to manage anxious attachment, according to therapists
Anxious attachment becomes a problem when it strains your relationships: romantic, platonic, or professional. It can make your partner feel overwhelmed by your reactions, undermine trust over time, and keep you stuck in cycles of anxiety and reassurance-seeking.
Both Cromer and Kelleher agree: Understanding the root of these patterns is important, but it can also be the hardest part. These strategies give you concrete places to start.
1. Track your triggers for one week.
You can’t shift patterns you don’t see. Kelleher recommends paying close attention to what sets off your anxiety so you have a starting point for change.
Cromer suggests noticing anything that causes distress in your day-to-day functioning:
- Worries or fears that pop up daily
- Conversations or arguments that keep recurring with your partner
- Topics that distract you from work or pull your focus from other conversations
Write these down for a week. Once you start seeing patterns (maybe you spiral most when your partner is busy with friends, or you catastrophize after any conflict), you can start examining what’s really driving those reactions.
2. Check your emotional temperature before reacting.
The fear of losing love can send your nervous system into overdrive. These emotions feel urgent and real, but they’re often disproportionate to the moment.
Cromer recommends using a simple framework to gauge your emotional intensity before you react. Think of your emotions like a traffic light:
You can also picture a thermometer: Is the water starting to simmer, or is it already boiling over?
This quick check-in helps you recognize when you’re escalated. If you’re in red or yellow, that’s a signal to pause and regulate before responding, because decisions made from a dysregulated state rarely reflect what you actually want to say or do.
3. Calm your body before trying to calm your mind.
When you’re overwhelmed with fear or anxiety, your brain can’t process reassurance, even if your partner is actively trying to give it.
“Your brain is almost like a radio: It’s always trying to interpret stimuli and things that we’re experiencing,” Cromer explains. “When your brain has one million frequencies trying to come in at once, it’s impossible to concentrate on the one that matters.”
Your partner could be saying exactly what you need to hear, but if you’re totally overstimulated, your body can’t pick up on that signal.
When your nervous system is in survival mode, you need to ground your body first. Cromer finds somatic techniques, or physical interventions that bring you back to the present, particularly effective with clients:
- Splash cold water on your face
- Take a cold or hot shower
- Sit under a weighted blanket
- Go for a walk
- Eat something spicy or sour
These physical shifts help calm your nervous system so you can actually hear and understand your partner’s intentions. Let them know you need a few minutes to check in with yourself, then come back to the conversation when you can engage from a clearer, calmer place.
RELATED: 12 science-backed ways to calm your nervous system fast
4. Cross-examine your worst-case thinking.
When your nervous system goes into fight-or-flight over deep-seated fears of abandonment, worry drives your thoughts instead of reason. You think you’re being logical, but fear is building a case for being abandoned.
That’s why Cromer encourages clients to “cross-examine” their distressing thoughts like they’re in a courtroom.
When you notice your emotions entering yellow or red territory, ask yourself:
- Do I have actual evidence for this worry?
- Has my partner ever acted in a way that supports this fear?
- If I brought this into a courtroom, would A + B really equal C?
The goal is to replace “What if?” fears with “What’s true?” facts. Over time, Kelleher says, this builds a more secure internal narrative; one based on evidence rather than anxiety.
5. Build your own reassurance toolkit.
People with anxious attachment often struggle to resist seeking reassurance when they feel distressed. Wanting to share your fears with your partner isn’t inherently bad, but if it becomes your go-to reaction, it can turn into a loop that never fully resolves the underlying anxiety.
Cromer suggests that if you’re seeking reassurance more than once a day, it’s worth examining the pattern.
Before going to your partner, try the strategies above first or turn to tools like journaling, exercise, or breathwork to see if you can find some security within yourself. If you still feel overwhelmed after genuinely attempting to self-regulate, then reach out for support.
The goal isn’t to never lean on others. It’s to strengthen your own ability to regulate so that reassurance from your partner is a supplement, not the only source of security. Developing this capacity also helps you distinguish between anxiety-driven fears and genuine red flags worth addressing.
6. Sit with discomfort instead of acting on it.
Kelleher notes that strategies based in avoidance—ignoring your emotions or suppressing your needs—rarely work for her clients with anxious attachment. The solution isn’t to stop feeling; it’s to change how you respond to those feelings.
Healing a fear of abandonment means learning to stay present with discomfort rather than immediately acting on it by seeking reassurance or being clingy.
That might look like:
- Sitting with the urge to text instead of immediately sending a “just checking in” message
- Letting a fear rise and pass without acting on it
- Recognizing that discomfort isn’t the same as danger
This is hard. But it’s how you start to unhook fear from fact and build trust that you can handle uncertainty without your relationship falling apart.
Expert Insight
“Healing a fear of abandonment means learning to stay present with discomfort rather than immediately acting on it by seeking reassurance or being clingy.”
—Sarah Kelleher, LCSW
What long-term healing looks like
People with anxious attachment often struggle with imperfection. Mistakes and missteps feel permanent, final, threatening. So it makes sense that they also struggle with the reality that healing isn’t instant.
“Attachment patterns are wired into the nervous system through thousands of relational moments over time,” Kelleher explains. They can’t be rewired overnight.
Progress is subtle
Yes, it’s uncomfortable to admit you’re acting jealous or catastrophizing. But these reactions aren’t moral failings. “Everyone has them,” Kelleher says. The goal isn’t perfect behavior. It’s awareness, self-compassion, and small steps forward.
Every moment of distress becomes an opportunity to practice: noticing your thoughts, regulating your nervous system, and finding security within yourself. Meaningful progress often looks like:
- Feeling anxious but pausing before reacting
- Holding space for uncertainty without spiraling
- Setting a boundary without guilt
- Recognizing that your partner’s silence doesn’t mean abandonment
- Having a productive conversation about a fear instead of an argument
- Bringing yourself from red to yellow—or yellow to green—on your own
“These are powerful shifts even if they seem small,” Kelleher says. “Over time, they create a foundation of internal safety and resilience.”
Reframe what you’re working toward
A common pitfall is trying to “fix” your attachment style as if it were a flaw to erase. But healing anxious attachment isn’t about becoming avoidant or stoic. Those are just different forms of insecurity.
“It’s about building a stronger, more nurturing relationship with yourself, where you can hold your own emotional experience without judgment or panic,” Kelleher explains.
Your attachment style isn’t permanently affixed to your personality. “It is moveable and shiftable,” Kelleher says. Think of it as healing a wound rather than correcting a defect. It’s something that gets closer to healthy with consistent, compassionate attention.
RELATED: Is attachment therapy right for you? Here’s how it works
How therapy can help you shift toward secure attachment
A therapist trained in attachment can accelerate this process significantly. Providers are skilled at identifying patterns you might not realize stem from fear of abandonment, and they can offer personalized strategies tailored to your specific situation, history, and personality.
If standard mindfulness techniques don’t resonate with you, for example, a therapist can suggest approaches grounded in the same science but better suited to how you operate. That level of customization is hard to get from a book or podcast designed for a general audience.
Couples counseling can be particularly valuable, Cromer adds. In that setting, you’re gaining insight into the origins of your patterns, learning new skills, and practicing them with your partner in real time—while also building healthier relationship dynamics together.
If you’re navigating an anxious-avoidant relationship dynamic, where your attachment style clashes with a partner who tends to withdraw, working with a therapist can help you break cycles that feel stuck on repeat.
Ultimately, Kelleher says, healing anxious attachment isn’t about achieving perfect security. “It’s about increasing your capacity to stay present, hold complexity, and trust that you are lovable even in moments of uncertainty.”
