June 2025: Relationships Pt 1
Many of you know that I entered the ‘new world’ of online dating last summer. It has been an experience, to say the least, with a steep learning curve. It has also been informative on so many levels that has fueled much introspection. For this month, it began with a social media meme courtesy of ‘an awkward tale’: Heal. So you can see that attention is not love. Attachment is not connection. And bare minimum is not effort. In response to this, I journalled, “I always thought attachment was the goal to heal the unmet attachment needs. But that is an inner child concern. Adults need connection, not attachment. Hence why attachment styles are symptoms. And “secure” attachment is a bit of a misnomer. Secure connection might be more accurate.”
This springboard for much mulling on the nature of relationships has led to the decision that this blog will be divided in two parts. This first part will focus on attachment versus connection. The second part next month will explore overhauling my framework for relationships with a nod to neurodivergence. As I have blogged about attachment theory and styles in the past (see April 2023), I will jump right into regurgitating my journal entries – in which I realize that consistent attention and affection serves different functions in childhood than in adulthood. In childhood, they are the building blocks of attachment, security, sense of self, and survival itself in our earliest years. Whereas in adulthood, they are necessary for maintaining connection (bonding chemical of oxytocin) and may be required for relationship satisfaction depending on framework (more next month).
As I’ve unpacked this, I have come to see how attention and affection (in early encounters with prospective relationship partners) prompts an attachment response followed by an attachment crisis when the attention and affection (and/or potential relationship) are withdrawn. Hence, they are not indicators of actual attachment – because that is a childhood need – but may be nothing more than intention or interest. I must also disassociate attachment from belonging. As children, we need attachment for survival, safety, and development. As adults, we need connection and belonging.
Ideally, as adults we are already secure individuals, fully integrated selves – not fragmented psyches from unmet attachment needs or traumatic experiences. Thus, our adult selves need to integrate all past versions of ourselves into a safe and loving environment at our inner core – sadly, a developmental task many of us troubled souls missed. We cannot ask that of a fellow adult because we are just prolonging our own development rather than truly healing to be in a healthy relationship. We need to heal ourselves so that we can differentiate attention/affection from love, attachment from connection, and bare minimum from true effort.
Attachment in this context makes me think of a leech – sucking away someone else’s energy and/or life blood. Our healed selves don’t want to be attached; we want to be connected. The time for attachment was childhood when we were vulnerable and dependent upon adults for our very existence. At some point, we must release our grip, our need to latch on to another person, and free fall until we heal and can stand on our own two feet, able to connect with another without attachment – as our own person, knowing our own mind and how we want to be in relationship.
I never understood that before because I was firmly in leech mode. However, I sense in myself a subtle shift from seeking attachment to seeking connection. There is also a subtle shift from dependence to interdependence. The paradox being my fierce independent streak in tandem with my leech mode and the added complication of not relying upon another person for my sense of self. I am discovering self-sufficiency is more than providing for one’s basic needs at the same time as not being the holy grail of “not needing anybody.” I am taking tentative steps from fiercely independent to interdependent. For example, my small circle of friends/contacts/tribe need me as much as I need them. Independence, while a necessary developmental task, is not the place to get stuck.
In a twist of irony, this actually explains a pattern I developed that kept me locked in a dance between attachment and flawed self-sufficiency. In order to remain attached, I needed control of the risks to disconnection. When I was married, I was never “sure” of my husband’s attachment and/or love. Ergo I was always treading carefully so as not to break the tenuous connection or the thread of my sense of self in relation to him. To this day, any irritability or tension is perceived as disconnection in my brain – and I assume connection won’t be regained because it never was with my former husband nor my father. Hence, I will ‘overfunction’ in repair attempts. I essentially grovel for connection and a sense of self.
I have been trying to control connection since a toddler. I am learning that it is no longer a matter of life or death for me. Nor is it a matter of permanence – relationships come and go. Neither do my relationships define who I am. Connection can be repaired when compromised – and connection is not always compromised when there is tension. Just as connection is not always permanent, neither is disconnection – contrary to my experience thus far of managing a network of tenuous connections and threads for my sense of self. I do have genuine connections that are not placed in jeopardy every time there is tension – and my sense of self remains intact.
My pattern is to keep quiet in order not to rock the boat or jeopardize connections – which gets in the way of authenticity and being one’s own self. My reflections this month led to a complete overhaul of understanding relationships – which I will write about next month. In the meantime, I have to see my needs for attention and affection differently, recognize I need connection and not attachment, learn how to negotiate as well as speak my mind, and break the pattern of self-sacrifice in exchange for tenuous connection.
Or as Healing Energy Tools recommended on this Sunday: “Focus on giving and receiving love in equal measure while maintaining your own centre.” More on that next month!
Excellent as usual!