All 16 attachment pairings
Four styles on each side, so sixteen combinations. Each one is written from your side rather than as a verdict on the pair, because the useful advice changes depending on which one of the two you are.
Rows are you. Columns are them.
If you are Secure
Comfortable close, comfortable apart, and able to say which one they need today.
- Secure and secure: the pairing nobody writes aboutVery little drama, and one risk that nobody warns you about.
- You are secure, they are anxiousYour steadiness works, and it works far more slowly than you expect.
- You are secure, they are avoidantYou will be fine with the space. Check whether you are also fine with the silence.
- You are secure, they are fearful-avoidantThey will come close and then vanish, and neither move is about you.
If you are Anxious
Wants closeness and watches for the loss of it, so silence gets read as an answer.
- You are anxious, they are secureThis is the pairing that actually changes people. The hard part is believing it.
- Anxious and anxious: nobody is holding the floorEnormous closeness, and one small thing sets off both of you at once.
- Anxious and avoidant: the loop everyone ends up inYou move toward, they move back, and each move makes the other one more certain.
- You are anxious, they are fearful-avoidantThey want you and they flee you, and you will read the fleeing as the answer.
If you are Avoidant
Steady alone, and keeps one door half shut without ever deciding to.
- You are avoidant, they are secureThey will not chase you, and that is precisely what makes this workable.
- You are avoidant, they are anxiousTheir need reads as a demand, you go quieter, and their need gets louder. You are the one who can stop it cheaply.
- Avoidant and avoidant: comfortable, and then strangersNothing is demanded and nothing gets said, which works beautifully until it doesn't.
- You are avoidant, they are fearful-avoidantWhichever of you is further away sets the distance, and it keeps changing hands.
If you are Fearful-avoidant
Wants to be close and backs away from it, sometimes inside the same week.
- You are fearful-avoidant, they are secureThe best chance you are likely to get, and you will test it at the worst moment.
- You are fearful-avoidant, they are anxiousBoth of you want closeness, and you are the one who keeps leaving.
- You are fearful-avoidant, they are avoidantThe quiet one. Two people who both want a door, and nobody is watching it.
- Fearful-avoidant and fearful-avoidant: fast, intense, unstableYou will both be at the door at the same time, and neither of you can hold it open.
Sixteen questions, two scores, one quadrant. Then come back and read your row.
Take the attachment style quiz