Bismillah,
Everything seems under control—until you meet that potential partner. Maybe you’ve been making du'a, asking Allah to bless you with the right person, believing you’ve done the work. You’ve come a long way, maybe even gone to therapy, hoping to break free from the patterns that led you to the wrong relationships in the past.
But have you ever truly looked within?
Have you recognized how your attachment style patterns shape your platonic and romantic relationships? Before you jump the gun, blame someone's star sign for their behavior, or dismiss them for not meeting a superficial checklist—let’s pause.
For once, let’s explore you.
That initial thrill of liking someone can feel almost surreal. Suddenly, your world brightens, and the little annoyances in life seem to vanish as your mind settles in the constant thought of them. They remember your favorite color, share similar childhood experiences, and maybe they've even gifted you something sentimental.
Yet, you start noticing a pattern: your mood and behavior become tethered to their actions. You find yourself anxiously checking your phone, overanalyzing even the smallest interactions, and feeling overwhelmed or panicked. So, how can you tell if what you're experiencing is genuine love or just a strong attachment?
It’s a subtle but complex question that might make you second-guess, whether about the person you once admired or the one you're with now. That's why I’m here—to explore both the psychological and spiritual (deen) aspects of these emotions with you.
Just a quick disclaimer: I'm not here to suggest breakups or drastic changes. With that in mind, viewer discretion is advised.
What Exactly Are Attachment Styles?
Simply put, attachment styles are ways to classify the behavior patterns we develop from our early relationships with caregivers. We usually break them down into four categories:
Secure
Anxious
Avoidant
Disorganized
Each of these shapes how we connect with others, especially in romantic relationships.
Why Bother Understanding Your Attachment Style?
Knowing which category you align with can give you serious self-insight—helping you recognize and untangle unhealthy patterns that leave you frustrated.
Ever caught yourself wondering:
💭 “Why do I feel this way when I like somebody?”
💭 Or, as some might say nowadays, “I feel like crashing out.”
A flood of emotions like that isn’t random—it might be tied to your attachment style. By exploring where these feelings come from, you might just find better ways to communicate with your current partner or build healthier relationships in the future.
So, why not give it a try?
Attachment Styles in Romantic Relationships
Anxious Attachment
Attachment styles can stem from a variety of causes—feel free to explore more on your own, but here are a few insights from my perspective. For instance, anxious attachment often traces back to having a caregiver (be it mom, dad, or guardian) who’s emotionally inconsistent. This hot-and-cold dynamic sets up unrealistic expectations, making a child feel like their worth is tied to sporadic waves of reassurance. As a kid, when every achievement craves recognition, that inconsistency can feel downright daunting.
Anxious Attachment in Dating
Fast forward to your dating life: if you have an anxious attachment style, your early flirtations might feel like a nonstop dopamine party. You quickly latch on and start expecting special treatment—all thanks to idealizing that person (yes, idealization is the magic word here!). Your mind might even start planning future relationship milestones before things are even solid.
Side note: When you build up someone in your head as “perfect,” your brain can actually struggle to tell fantasy from reality. Constantly thinking about them and hyping them up in conversation can trick your brain into believing they are everything you imagine—making it harder to recognize red flags.
In a nutshell, anxious attachment makes that person the center of your universe, with your mood fluctuating based on their actions and attention. It can come off as clingy, and yes, there’s often a healthy dose of abandonment paranoia mixed in. When desperation sets in, this attachment style can even lead to unhealthy behaviors—like manipulation. Now, I know that word might sting if you see yourself in this description, but it doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. We all have our moments of “grave desperation antics” (more on that in a future post) when we’re just trying to feel in control.
The Unhealthy Side: Manipulation in Anxious Attachment
When desperation sets in, anxious attachment can lead to unhealthy behaviors, including:
💬 Love bombing (the early dopamine rush)
💬 Guilt-tripping ( to get the outcome of an argument or discussion in their favor)
💬 Involving others to justify their emotions
💬 Silent treatment (withholding affection as punishment)
💬 Sowing doubt aka gaslighting (making their partner question reality to deflect accountability)
Avoidant Attachment
Children who develop avoidant attachment often grow up wary of emotional closeness due to a lack of emotional availability from their caregivers. They associate intimacy with rejection and believe relationships won’t last unless they have something tangible to offer.
As a result, avoidants are hyper-independent, struggle with conflict, and tend to bolt when tensions rise rather than addressing issues head-on. Interestingly, this attachment style is disproportionately represented among men—which makes sense, given how society fails to provide space for men’s emotional well-being.
Avoidants in the Dating World
Avoidants tend to:
🔹 Gravitate toward anxiously attached partners, creating a classic push-and-pull dynamic
🔹 Resist deep emotional connections
🔹 Opt for surface-level relationships rather than long-term commitment
They’re often labeled as "nonchalant," but the real term is emotionally detached.
The Avoidant’s Favorite Excuses
Avoidants are masters of justification when it comes to avoiding deep connections. Some of their most common lines?
💬 "I need to focus on my career first."
💬 "You deserve someone better."
💬 "I feel suffocated."
💬 "I’m not looking for anything serious."
💬 "I don’t like being rushed, and this relationship is making me feel that way."
How Avoidants Use Manipulation in Relationships
While avoidants often pride themselves on being independent and emotionally self-sufficient, their fear of intimacy can lead to subtle forms of manipulation—whether intentional or not. Unlike anxious or disorganized attachment styles, who may use emotional intensity to gain control, avoidants tend to manipulate through distance, detachment, and deflection.
🔹Emotional Withholding – Avoidants create an emotional gap by keeping their partner at arm’s length. They may show affection inconsistently, making their partner feel like they must "earn" love and attention.
🔹 Dismissiveness & Deflection – When faced with emotional conversations, avoidants may downplay their partner’s concerns, act indifferent, or change the subject to avoid vulnerability. Example: "Why are we even talking about this? It’s not a big deal."
🔹Creating an Illusion of Independence – Avoidants may use phrases like "I don’t need anyone," or "I’m just not the relationship type," to justify keeping their distance. They frame detachment as a strength when, in reality, it’s a defense mechanism to protect themselves from emotional exposure.
🔹Ghosting or Sudden Withdrawal – Rather than addressing conflict or emotional discomfort, avoidants may shut down, disappear for a while, or even end relationships abruptly without much explanation.
At their core, avoidants aren’t incapable of love—they just struggle with the vulnerability it requires. Opening up feels risky because it means exposing their true emotions, fears, and insecurities. For many, especially men, this can feel like putting their masculinity, ego, or personal struggles in someone else’s hands, leaving them afraid of being misunderstood or ridiculed .
Disorganized Attachment: The Fearful-Avoidant
Disorganized attachment—also known as fearful-avoidant attachment—is a unique blend of anxious and avoidant tendencies. It often develops in children who experience neglect, inconsistent caregiving, and unresolved family trauma, much like those with anxious or avoidant attachment. However, what makes this style stand out is its unpredictability. It’s the rarest of the insecure attachment styles and is often linked to specific childhood traumas.
People with this attachment style live in a contradiction: they crave deep, intimate connections but simultaneously fear them. It’s a constant push-and-pull—one moment, they long for closeness, and the next, they’re terrified by it.
Dating with Disorganized Attachment
Remember when I mentioned that anxious and avoidant individuals create a push-pull dynamic because of their opposite behaviors? Well, someone with disorganized attachment does both—all on their own. This makes them emotionally unpredictable and, at times, exhausting to be in a relationship with. Their behaviors often include:
🔹 Sending mixed signals
🔹 Battling negative self-perception
🔹 Self-sabotaging relationships
🔹 Experiencing intense emotional swings
What Triggers a Fearful-Avoidant?
At the root of this attachment style is a deep fear of abandonment. Any hint of rejection or disappointment can set off intense emotional reactions. Even small things—like a delayed text reply, a request for reassurance, or a partner seeming distant—can be perceived as signs of impending abandonment. This often leads to a heightened need for control in relationships.
How Does This Attachment Style Manipulate?
Each insecure attachment style has its own form of manipulation (which, let’s be real, isn’t always intentional). For disorganized attachment, the biggest one is mood shifts and unpredictability—keeping their partner emotionally on edge. Their fear of losing control leads to erratic behavior, making it hard for both them and their partner to establish stability.
Secure Attachment
Last but definitely not least, we have secure attachment—often considered the healthiest attachment style. While it’s absolutely possible to develop a secure attachment, let’s be real—no one is fully secure all the time. Life happens, relationships bring challenges, and at times, we all experience moments of anxious, avoidant, or disorganized tendencies. That’s just part of being human.
Secure attachment is often developed in childhood rather than adulthood. While some children do grow up securely attached—thanks to caregivers who provided consistent validation and emotional support—it’s something many people actively work toward later in life.
So, what does security look like? A securely attached child may show distress when their caregiver leaves but can self-regulate because they trust their caregiver will return. In adulthood, secure attachment doesn’t mean you’re unaffected by negative experiences—it simply means you’re better equipped to cope with them. Secure individuals see things at face value, communicate their needs clearly, and confront relationship challenges head-on rather than avoiding or overreacting to them.
Islamic Psychology & Secure Attachment: A Faith-Based Perspective
In Islamic psychology, emotional security and healthy attachment are deeply tied to tawakkul (trust in Allah), emotional regulation, and self-awareness. A securely attached person isn’t just someone who handles relationships well; they are someone who is grounded in their faith, emotionally resilient, and able to give and receive love in a way that aligns with sincerity and ihsan (excellence).
Tawakkul & Emotional Security
Secure attachment is, at its core, a trust in the self, in others, and ultimately in Allah. When someone has tawakkul, they understand that relationships are a means, not an end—they do their part, but they also surrender the outcome to Allah.
"And whoever relies upon Allah – then He is sufficient for him." (Quran 65:3)
People with secure attachment trust in the process of relationships. They don’t fear abandonment in an unhealthy way because they recognize that what is written for them will reach them, and what isn’t meant for them will pass. This sense of spiritual security allows them to love without control, to give without fear, and to receive love without paranoia.
Balance Between Love & Boundaries
Islamic teachings emphasize moderation and balance in all aspects of life, including relationships. Secure attachment reflects this balance—being able to love deeply while maintaining healthy boundaries.
"And We have made you a justly balanced nation…" (Quran 2:143)
A securely attached person understands that love is not possession. They approach relationships with sincerity and mutual respect, neither clinging out of fear (anxious attachment) nor distancing out of avoidance (avoidant attachment). Instead, they foster compassion, trust, and emotional responsibility.
Emotional Regulation & Nafs (The Self)
In Islamic psychology, emotional regulation is closely tied to the purification of the nafs (self). The Quran and hadith repeatedly emphasize the importance of controlling emotions, responding with wisdom, and acting with ihsan (excellence).
“Successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul (Quran 91:15)
and doomed is the one who corrupts it!” (Quran 91:16)
Secure attachment thrives when a person has learned how to regulate their emotions—to communicate rather than react, to seek solutions rather than escape, and to understand their emotions rather than be controlled by them.
“The strong is not the one who overcomes others by strength, but the one who controls himself while in anger.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 6114)
The Prophet ﷺ as the Model of Secure Attachment
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (Peace be Upon Him) exemplified secure attachment in every relationship he had—with his spouses, his companions, and even his enemies. He was emotionally available, yet firm in his values. He expressed love openly but never in a way that created dependence.
One of the most beautiful examples is his relationship with Khadijah (RA). Their marriage was built on trust, emotional safety, and mutual support. The Prophet ﷺ openly expressed his love for her and never diminished her role in his life—even after her passing, he continued to honor her memory. When we think about secure attachment, we should reflect on how our faith encourages us to love with sincerity, to give with kindness, and to trust in Allah’s plan rather than control outcomes.
Final Thoughts
To truly develop a secure attachment, one must cultivate a sincere and intentional relationship with Allah (SWT) while avoiding anything that weakens that connection. It’s one thing to understand your attachment style, go to therapy, and do the inner work to heal from past relationships. But without a relationship with Allah (SWT), can you truly know yourself?
In the beginning, I asked you to look within before jumping to conclusions about someone else. Because at the core of it all—before love, before attachment, before choosing the "right" partner—the most important relationship you will ever have is the one between you and your Creator. Only when you understand that can you fully recognize the partner who truly complements you.
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