Why she can't allow herself to believe that you love her

Dear Men,

I know you’re confused. Maybe a little frustrated, even. You see her, all parts of her: the good and the bad. And you can’t help but fall in love with each and every one of them. You can’t help but feel like all those flaws and all those imperfections that she tries so hard to hide are exactly what make her truly beautiful. And you can’t help but feel like devoting your entire life towards making her feel as beautiful and perfect as she actually is.

But she just won’t believe you. She just won’t let herself go. And she just won’t understand how it is even possible for you to feel that way for her. This drives you crazy. It makes you feel helpless. You feel like you would do absolutely anything to make her see herself through your eyes for just a minute. You feel like taking away all of her pain and insecurities once and for all and filling her life with the kind of happiness she truly deserves. You feel like you just want to break through that wall she has built around her. And you just can’t seem to understand why it was ever built in the first place.

I know you want to break through, I know you want to understand, I know you want to give her true happiness and I know you want her to really believe you when you tell her you love her. But it’s just not that simple for her. It’s not simple because people made her promises that they could never even keep. Because she’s lost so much of her self-esteem that she doesn’t even feel like she deserves the love you’re giving her. Because too many people have entered her life and then just left, without any reason, without any guilt and without a warning. She doesn’t want you to be one of those people. She doesn’t want more broken promises. She doesn’t want to lose the little bit of self-esteem that’s still left. But she does want to believe you. She does want to give you a chance. She does want to trust you enough to give her the love she deserves. She really does, but life has given her too many reasons to not trust the people who say they “love” her. She has seen and felt so much in this short life of hers.

Just the thought that you might actually love her makes her scared beyond words. It makes her want to run away and hide from what will follow. It makes her recall all the times when she saw all her hopes and dreams come crashing down right in front of her eyes. She’s no stranger to what this love will entail. She knows how it works all too well; it actually feels like a pattern now. A guy comes along, he makes her smile, he makes her feel special, he makes her fall in love, he gives her some amazing moments, he slowly becomes the center of her entire life, and then? He just leaves. Where does the ‘love’ suddenly go away?

And this loss of faith isn’t because of just one single experience. Maybe it happened because of that time when the most important person in her life left her all alone, hurt and broken or maybe it happened when her friend’s guy cheated on her even though they seemed like the most perfect couple or maybe it was because of how she never saw any real love and affection between her parents or maybe it was the effect of all these things combined. Everything she saw and everything she felt just seemed to point at one simple truth: Love is temporary! And no matter how hard she tries to look at the bright side, no matter how much she tries to convince herself otherwise, and no matter how badly she wants to believe in some never-ending love, all the sad stories around her just seem to overpower all the happy ones.

She is perfectly aware of how beautiful love can be. She knows how it can make you feel like the happiest person in the entire universe, she knows how all the love songs and all those lame romantic comedies suddenly start to make sense when you have that special someone by your side, she knows about all the butterflies you constantly tend to feel, and she knows how love can make you smile at the smallest of things.

And she believes that maybe this time, it will be different...

How your attachment style impacts your relationship

Our style of attachment affects everything: from our partner selection to how well our relationships progress and to, sadly, how they end. That is why recognizing our attachment pattern can help us understand our strengths and vulnerabilities in a relationship. As I discussed in a previous post, an attachment pattern is established in early childhood and continues to function as a working model for relationships in adulthood. This model of attachment influences how each of us reacts to our needs and how we go about getting them met. When there is a secure attachment pattern, a person is confident and self-possessed and is able to easily interact with others, meeting both their own and another’s needs. However, when there is an anxious or avoidant attachment pattern and a person picks a partner who fits with that maladaptive pattern, they will most likely be choosing someone who isn’t the ideal choice to make them happy.

For example, the person with a working model of anxious/preoccupied attachment feels that in order to get close to someone and have their needs met, you need to be with your partner all the time and get reassurance. To support this perception of reality, they choose someone who is isolated and hard to connect with. The person with a working model of dismissive/avoidant attachment has the tendency to be distant, because their model is that the way to get your needs met is to act like you don’t have any. He or she then chooses someone who is more possessive or overly demanding of attention. In a sense, we set ourselves up by finding partners that confirm our models.

Research has shown that about 60 percent of people have a secure attachment, while 20 percent have an avoidant attachment, and 20 percent have an anxious attachment.

Let's discuss each type a bit more:

Secure Attachment – Securely attached adults tend to be more satisfied in their relationships. Children with a secure attachment see their parent as a secure base from which they can venture out and independently to explore the world. A secure adult has a similar relationship with their romantic partner, feeling secure and connected, while allowing themselves and their partner to move freely. Secure adults offer support when their partner feels distressed. They also go to their partner for comfort when they themselves feel troubled. Their relationship tends to be honest, open and equal, with both people feeling independent, yet loving toward each other. Securely attached couples don’t tend to engage in a “Fantasy Bond,” an illusion of connection that provides a false sense of safety. In a fantasy bond, a couple foregoes real acts of love for a more routine, emotionally cut-off form of relating.

Anxious Preoccupied Attachment – Unlike securely attached couples, people with an anxious attachment tend to be desperate to form a fantasy bond. Instead of feeling real love or trust toward their partner, they often feel emotional hunger. They’re frequently looking to their partner to rescue or complete them. Although they’re seeking a sense of safety and security by clinging to their partner, they take actions that push their partner away. Even though anxiously attached individuals act desperate or insecure, more often than not, their behavior exacerbates their own fears. When they feel unsure of their partner’s feelings and unsafe in their relationship, they often become clingy, demanding or possessive toward their partner. They may also interpret independent actions by their partner as affirmation of their fears. For example, if their partner starts socializing more with friends, they may think, “See? He doesn’t really love me. This means he is going to leave me. I was right not to trust him.”

Dismissive Avoidant Attachment – People with a dismissive avoidant attachment have the tendency to emotionally distance themselves from their partner. They may seek isolation and feel “pseudo-independent,” taking on the role of parenting themselves. They often come off as focused on themselves and may be overly attending to their creature comforts. Pseudo-independence is an illusion, as every human being needs connection. Nevertheless, people with a dismissive avoidant attachment tend to lead more inward lives, both denying the importance of loved ones and detaching easily from them. They are often psychologically defended and have the ability to shut down emotionally. Even in heated or emotional situations, they are able to turn off their feelings and not react. For example, if their partner is distressed and threatens to leave them, they would respond by saying, “I don’t care.”

Fearful Avoidant Attachment – A person with a fearful avoidant attachment lives in an ambivalent state of being afraid of being both too close to or too distant from others. They attempt to keep their feelings at bay but are unable to; they can’t just avoid their anxiety or run away from their feelings. Instead, they are overwhelmed by their reactions and often experience emotional storms. They tend to be mixed up or unpredictable in their moods. They see their relationships from the working model that you need to go towards others to get your needs met, but if you get close to others, they will hurt you. In other words, the person they want to go to for safety is the same person they are frightened to be close to. As a result, they have no organized strategy for getting their needs met by others. As adults, these individuals tend to find themselves in rocky or dramatic relationships, with many highs and lows. They often have fears of being abandoned but also struggle with being intimate. They may cling to their partner when they feel rejected, then feel trapped when they are close. Oftentimes, the timing seems to be off between them and their partner. A person with fearful avoidant attachment may even wind up in an abusive relationship.

Does this mean you are stuck with your attachment style forever? I'll explain more in my next post!
I tend to lean more towards the Anxious Preoccupied type.