Why Some People Struggle More in Relationships

In addition to being incredibly tough, relationships may also be enriching. Studies in psychology, sociology, and the actual world show why some people find it more difficult to establish and sustain healthy relationships and what practical solutions can be useful.

1. Attachment Styles: Our Emotional Blueprint

1.1. Understanding Attachment Theory

Bowlby and Ainsworth’s attachment theory is still a fundamental component of relationship science. Infants with secure, anxious, avoidant (and disorganised) attachment styles, which frequently continue into adulthood, were identified by Ainsworth’s Strange Situation. According to Hazan and Shaver, 56% of people are securely attached, 25% are avoidant, and 19% are apprehensive.

Ainsworth believed that roughly 70% of people are securely attached. According to Amir Levine and Rachel Heller’s Attached, about half of the people are secure, while the remaining half are apprehensive or avoidant. As demonstrated by Edward Tronick’s “Still Face” experiment, secure attachment does not entail a childhood free from trauma but rather constant emotional sensitivity and validation that is frequently formed through cycles of rupture and repair with carers.

1.2. Characteristics of Secure Attachment

A securely attached adult can express himself freely, maintain emotional control, and respond calmly to emotional crises. According to therapists, some of the main characteristics required in building strong and long-lasting relationships are intimate mutual growth and understanding through self-awareness and emotional acceptance without assuming blame for one’s actions.

1.3. Insecure Attachment on a Spectrum

According to psychologist Esther Ehrensaft, avoidant and anxious attachment styles are better understood as existing on a spectrum than as solid categories. People who identify with the avoidant attachment style grew up with unreliable caregiving, which made them learn and master the ability to repress any vulnerability, says Dr. Liza A. D’Esposito.

The characteristics of avoidant attachment can vary- there is fearful avoidant, which is someone who is characterized as distrusting, fearful of intimacy, and often bad experiences of abuse and trauma, and there is dismissive avoidant, which is when someone is distant, emotionally blank, and extremely self-sufficient due to experiences of neglect.

With anxious attachment style, children are constantly seeking reassurance and feel abandoned if they do not get it. In adulthood, anxious attachment is expressed by people-pleasing, hypervigilance, and over-personalising conflict, says therapist Mary Rimi. When anxious attachment relationships come to an end, they often blame themselves for everything, reinforcing their original fears. And what helps you navigate relationships with empathy and clarity is to identify what you learned about a person’s upbringing, understood needs (but equally important, how the individual processes their feelings) and their relationships with intimacy.

2. Childhood Environment & Parenting Styles

2.1. How Parenting Affects Attachment

The way caregivers interact with children shapes how children will engage in connecting with others in adulthood. Parenting styles: authoritative (warm and firm), authoritarian (rigid and less emotionally accessible parents), and permissive (lenient and mellow) are related to different attachment outcomes in the child. Authoritative parenting often leads to secure attachment, whereas authoritarian or permissive parenting can lead to anxiety and distrust, where other feelings and emotions become avoided.

2.2. Long-Term Effects of Neglect and Inconsistency

Neglect as well as inconsistent parenting habits (e.g., emotionally and physically unavailable parents, unpredictable parents, absent parents), parenting styles breed a sense of insecurity for the child, which translates to a fractured attachment. In as little as 24 months, the child may become distrustful of people, avoid emotional connection altogether or, again emotionally distant; they also internalise the identity of avoiding closeness as a threat to the relationship. Eventually, people who experienced insecure attachment as children may still find themselves struggling with commitment and vulnerability, leading to complications and anxiety with adult intimacy, sometimes bitterly and emotionally charged relationships.

3. Life Stressors & Coping Mechanisms

3.1. The Role of External Stressors

External stressors like work stress, financial concerns, or political views can really take a toll on relationships. But it isn’t really the stressor itself, but how a couple deals with it. Research has shown that couples actively support one another when managing stressful situations tend to report greater levels of emotional closeness and satisfaction, known as positive dyadic coping, where partners work on the problem together as a team.

3.2. The Danger of Avoidance and Value Conflicts

Even long-term relationships can be thrown into turmoil over conflicting values or beliefs, such as differing political worldviews. Research in the UK reported that partners who have differing political views are 38% more likely to break up, especially when these views are long-standing and unresolved. When partners avoid dealing with stress together or deny disagreements instead of proactively discussing grievances, partners become emotionally estranged by gradually drifting apart, experiencing feelings of isolation within their partnership.

3.3. Change is Possible: Six Practical Solutions

Change is possible, even when early attachment difficulties occurred, parenting difficulties or life stressors make it difficult to develop or maintain close relationships. Relationships are not static. Relationships change because of your awareness, choices and actions. Below are six ideas based on literature and experienced therapists:

3. 1. Learn Your Attachment Style

Self-awareness is the first step. There are a number of validated tools, such as the ECR-R (Experiences in Close Relationships – Revised), to help you think about your relational experience. Consider your early attachment style – secure, anxious or avoidant or a varying combination. This understanding can help you discover automatic or reflexive responses and the learnings to develop more healthy behaviours.

3.2. Participate in Therapy or Counselling

Attachment-based therapy, emotionally focused therapy (EFT), or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help you with the process of: Processing unaddressed childhood wounds, creating emotional regulation, communicating and trusting in relationships.

3.3. Implement Vulnerability in small ways

Building emotional intimacy is not about disclosing everything all at once. According to Social Penetration Theory, deep trust can be developed in slow, gradual, and reciprocal ways. Think about sharing, for instance, a fear or a need. Requesting support, receiving support listening without judgment. This can give your nervous system the message that it is potentially safe and rewarding to open up. 

3.4. Compile Coping Together

Stress is part of life, and fun and rewarding too. When stress occurs as a couple, it can create emotional closeness in a meaningful way and help both of you feel equipped to deal with adversity as resilient partners. Participating in positive dyadic coping, or coping together by committing to talk about, acknowledge, and manage an experience of stress together, is significantly better, in terms of satisfaction and closeness with one’s partner, than other kinds of coping. Therefore, make time to discuss your daily life stress, engage in problem-solving, and support each other by validating each other’s emotional experience.

3.5. Keep the Relationship Dynamic

As couples become intertwined in each other’s lives, relationship satisfaction tends to decline as a function of their predictability and routine. So, how do we combat this predictability and routine? Explore new activities together (e.g. hobbies, travel, learning). Create common goals. This ties nicely into Self Expansion Theory, which posits that partners who expand their experience together tend to stay together while feeling more satisfied. 

3.6. Address Mental Health Before It Is a Concern

One can begin to see how colourful internal health issues, including undressed anxiety, undressed depression, undressed posttraumatic stress, or patient personality issues, may stymie the relationship if not managed or treated. Seek remedy, awareness or tone-soothing practices and be suitable to communicate your emotional health to your mate openly and honestly. fairly simple emotion regulation chops, including developing a deep breathing practice, reflective journaling and cognitive reframing of negative thoughts, can help reduce reactivity to conflict. 

Conclusion 

At times, relationships can be relatively hard, especially for those whose lives are insecure attachment or patient stressors. Although it can be gruelling, exploration has shown that it’s possible to change these patterns. Connections are not stationary; they develop and grow with mindfulness, intention and trouble. Understanding your attachment style will help you understand how you express your feelings, which will also be suitable to respond to in healthier ways rather than simply replying.

The ways our upbringing and the connections we formed during our nonage provide insight into when we developed trust issues, learned to fear vulnerability, or avoided closeness. Completely grasping how external stresses impact connection will appear as an outside reconnection with your mate, rather than an inward advancement; couples can break linked problems together rather than drifting piecemeal.

Deliberate vulnerability, general management, and emotional regulation tools can be used as a base to rebuild trust and consolidate closeness in the relationship. Chancing new ways to be together encourages growth in the relationship, and prevents both individualities from recession. Taking care of both your and your mate’s internal health through remedy, awareness, exchanges, etc., can help produce a solid foundation for strength and adaptability.

You don’t need a 10 out of 10 relationship to make a healthier relationship. An important factor is the amenability to learn, hear, and grow. To find fulfilment and secure and emotionally satisfying connections, all you need is compassion, curiosity, and thickness. Connections won’t be the quality they can be due to a lack of conflict, but they will be healthy when those involved deliberately choose to face that conflict, the type of conflict, or analogous conflict, with care and empathy.