What Is Anxious Attachment in Relationships? Signs, Causes & How Therapy Can Help in Northern Colorado
Have you ever found yourself overthinking every text message, replaying conversations in your head, or feeling desperate for reassurance from your partner? Do you fear abandonment even when everything seems fine? If so, you might be experiencing what psychologists call anxious attachment in relationships.
Understanding anxious attachment is vital for anyone seeking deeper emotional connection, security, and healthier relationships. Many women in Northern Colorado come to therapy because they feel “too much”, too needy, too emotional, too sensitive–especially in intimate relationships.
In this blog, we’ll clearly define anxious attachment, explore its signs and causes, and show how therapy can help you move toward secure, connected relationships.
What Is Attachment Theory? A Quick Foundation
Attachment theory emerged from the work of psychologist John Bowlby, who proposed that early relationships with caregivers shape how we view ourselves and others as adults (Bowlby, 1969). Later research by Mary Ainsworth and others identified distinct styles of attachment: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized.
In essence, attachment is about how safe and supported you feel in close relationships, especially romantic ones. Your attachment style influences how you respond to closeness, conflict, separation, and intimacy.
What Is Anxious Attachment?
Anxious attachment (also called anxious-preoccupied attachment) is characterized by:
A strong desire for closeness
Fear of abandonment
Constant worry about your partner’s love or commitment
Hypervigilance to relationship signals
Difficulty self-soothing during emotional stress
In relationships, someone with anxious attachment often says or feels things like:
“Do you still love me?”
“Why didn’t you text back right away?”
“I’m afraid you’ll leave me.”“I need reassurance.”
This style develops when early caregivers were inconsistent, sometimes available and responsive, sometimes emotionally distant or unpredictable. When a child learns that love is uncertain, their nervous system stays on high alert for signs of rejection (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016).
Common Signs of Anxious Attachment in Relationships
Recognizing anxious attachment can be clarifying (and liberating). Here are signs many women with this attachment style notice in their relationships:
1. You Crave Reassurance
You seek frequent validation of love, commitment, and closeness and you may feel distressed when you don’t get it.
2. You Read Into Small Cues
A pause in texting, a neutral tone, or a cancelled plan can trigger worry or insecurity.
3. You Struggle With Trust
Not because you doubt your partner’s character but because your nervous system fears abandonment or disconnection.
4. You Sacrifice Your Needs to Keep the Peace
You might suppress your feelings or avoid conflict to prevent rejection or loss.
5. You Feel Emotionally Reactive
Ups and downs in mood, anxiety, or attachment worry make it hard to feel calm and regulated.
Why Anxious Attachment Matters in Adult Relationships
Anxious attachment isn’t just “being needy”. It’s a biologically and relationally informed pattern that affects how you bond and communicate.
Research shows that adult attachment patterns influence:
Relationship satisfaction
Conflict resolution
Intimacy and trustEmotional regulation
Stress responses in relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016)
Importantly, anxious attachment isn’t fixed. It’s shaped by experience and can change across time, especially with supportive relationships or therapeutic work.
What Causes Anxious Attachment?
Anxious attachment often has roots in early relationships, most commonly with caregiving figures, but it can also be influenced by life experiences, trauma, cultural expectations, and relational history.
1. Early Caregiver Inconsistency
When caregivers were unpredictable (affectionate one moment, unavailable the next) children learn to stay “on alert” for love. This hypervigilance can carry into adult relationships.
2. Childhood Emotional Neglect or Ambivalence
Some children grow up with emotional unavailability or contradictory signals from caregivers. This can lead to internalized messages like “I have to earn love.”
3. Traumatic or Stressful Life Events
Trauma (including birth trauma, loss, or relational trauma) can disrupt secure attachment patterns and contribute to attachment anxiety.
4. Repeated Rejection or Relationship Instability
Even in adulthood, repeated heartbreak or unstable relationships can reinforce anxious attachment tendencies.
How Anxious Attachment Shows Up in Northern Colorado Relationships
If you’re a woman in Northern Colorado — whether in Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, or the surrounding communities — cultural norms around independence, perfectionism, or emotional control can amplify anxious attachment.
Many women describe:
Feeling pressure to “do it all”
Comparing themselves to others (partner relationships, motherhood, career)
Overcompensating in relationships
Struggling to ask for needs directly
These experiences are not your fault, but they do point to patterns that are learned and retrievable with support.
Problems Anxious Attachment Can Create And Why It Matters
Unaddressed anxious attachment can lead to:
Relationship tension and misunderstandings
Feeling stuck in a cycle of reassurance-seeking
Emotional exhaustion or burnout
Avoidance of conflict out of fear
Difficulty trusting others
Feeling “too much” or “too sensitive”
These patterns don’t just affect romantic partnerships; they can influence friendships, parenting, extended family dynamics, and how you relate to yourself.
How Therapy Can Help: A Solution That Works
The good news is that anxious attachment is treatable. Therapy provides both understanding and healing. Here’s how:
1. Build Self-Awareness and Insight
Therapy helps you recognize why your emotional responses show up the way they do — and that’s the first step toward change. Knowing your patterns gives you power instead of shame.
2. Regulate Your Nervous System
Anxious attachment is tied to hyperactivity in the nervous system. Therapeutic approaches like somatic work and mindfulness help calm that reactivity, so you don’t feel flooded by fear or insecurity.
3. Change Negative Thought Patterns
Cognitive behavioral techniques help reframe thoughts like:
“They don’t text back —> they must not care.”
Into:“They might be busy —> this doesn’t define their feelings for me.”
This reduces emotional spirals.
4. Build Secure Attachment Skills
Therapists guide you to practice:
Clear communication
Healthy boundary setting
Emotional vulnerability
Trust building
Reassurance without codependency
These skills help you connect securely, not reactively.
5. Heal From Relational and Developmental Wounds
For many women, anxious attachment has roots in past experiences including family patterns, trauma, or early caregiving. Therapy, especially trauma-informed and attachment-based work, helps integrate those experiences so they no longer unconsciously drive your reactions.
Therapy Options in Northern Colorado That Support Attachment Healing
If you’re searching for “attachment therapy Northern Colorado” or “relationship counseling for women in Fort Collins”, here are therapeutic approaches that can help:
Attachment-Based Therapy — Focuses on you and others’ emotional connection patterns.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) — Helpful for processing attachment wounds and trauma.
Somatic Therapy — Helps regulate the body’s stress response.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — Addresses unhelpful thoughts that fuel anxiety.
Couples Counseling — Supports partners in co-regulating and communicating.
At The Bloomhouse Women’s Counseling Collective in Fort Collins, Northern Colorado, we specialize in helping women navigate attachment challenges, build secure relationships, and reclaim emotional confidence.
Taking the First Step Toward Secure Attachment
If you notice patterns of anxiety, reassurance-seeking, fear of abandonment, or emotional reactivity in your relationships, consider this:
Your attachment style is not permanent. You can become more securely attached.
Therapy can help you transform patterns of anxious attachment into patterns of secure connection, emotional resilience, and relational confidence.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
About the Author
Hannah Dorsher, MA, LPC, NCC, CAT, EMDR is a therapist, relationship, and attachment coach based in Fort Collins, Colorado and the co-founder of The Bloomhouse Women’s Counseling Collective. Hannah specializes in working with women and mothers navigating anxious attachment, relationship struggles, anxiety, perfectionism, birth trauma, and the emotional transitions of motherhood. Her work is rooted in attachment theory, trauma-informed care, and nervous system regulation, with a compassionate, down-to-earth approach that helps clients feel safe, understood, and empowered. Hannah provides therapy to clients throughout Colorado and Florida and offers attachment-based coaching and educational resources for women and moms worldwide.
APA Reference List (with links)
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.
