Attachment theory is explained and how to be safe

For Lizzie, relationships always seemed to end the same way. “I meet on the second or third day and find something wrong with them.”

When things start to get real, the relationship she longs for suddenly feels uncomfortable and even dangerous. And she drags it.

For years she couldn’t explain why – until she came across attachment theory.

And it was a description of what he called fear-removal – one of the four attachment styles – that felt strange.

Describes a person who wants intimacy, but worries that people in their lives will eventually dump or abandon them.

“It was like finding a missing piece of a puzzle I’d been trying to solve for years,” Lizzie says.

She is not alone. Attachment theory exploded into the public consciousness.

#AttachmentTheory videos on Tik Tok have garnered hundreds of millions of views.

And it’s used to explain everything from Marianne and Connell’s relationship in popular culture Book and TV series regular people To the lyrics of Sam Fender and Olivia Dean Record breaking number one track Rein Me In.

“The first time I listened to it, I started crying,” says Lizzie.

For her, the song conveys a sense of empathy for both sides: the unbearable fear of love, and the confusion of being abandoned by a partner.