Marriage
Anxious Attachment in Marriage
When your need for reassurance strains your relationship.
Men with anxious attachment crave closeness and reassurance. In marriage, this shows up as needing constant validation, reading into small changes in your wife's behavior, and feeling insecure when she needs space. The fear of abandonment drives you to seek more and more connection, which can paradoxically push her away.
Understanding your attachment style helps you respond rather than react.
How Anxious Attachment Shows Up in Marriage
- Needing frequent reassurance that she loves you
- Reading rejection into normal behavior
- Difficulty when she needs alone time
- Becoming clingy or demanding when stressed
- Checking in excessively when apart
- Interpreting silence as something wrong
Your need for connection isn't wrong. But chasing reassurance rarely provides lasting security. Real security comes from within, from knowing your worth isn't dependent on her constant validation.
Growing Toward Security
Self-soothe: Learn to calm yourself without her reassurance.
Challenge interpretations: Is that story you're telling yourself actually true?
Give space: Her need for alone time isn't rejection.
Build security internally: Know your worth independent of her response.
Communicate directly: Ask for what you need instead of testing.