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help clarify this, I will discuss how people with the different insecure patterns of attachment balance autonomy and closeness. As you read the following sections, think about how they apply to you, your partner, and your relationship.
    Preoccupied: Grasping for Closeness
    Some children perceive their parents as inconsistently available. It could be because the parents are unavoidably focused on pressing life situations or on their own emotional needs. The child’s inherent sensitivity is also a factor. Whatever the reason, children who come to question whether their parents are available are extremely upset even by the thought of their parents not being there for them. This is characteristic of a preoccupied attachment style.
    Driven by their attachment needs, such children do whatever they can to get their parents’ attention—and, as adults, to get their partner’s attention. These
protests
, as John Bowlby (1961), the originator of attachment theory, called them, are a hyperactivating strategy. That is, anxious people “hyperactivate” their attachment system as their cries for attention become more strident, making them more upset and often causing conflict in their relationships. For instance, they might demand that their partner help them in various ways, try to maintain constant contact, or become easily jealous and possessive.

    People with preoccupied attachment needs focus intensely on keeping others close, at the expense of their own interests and sometimes even their values. This leaves them empty, without an experience of themselves that they feel good about. Instead, they look to someone else, such as a parent, friend, or spouse, for approval and guidance on what interests to pursue and how to respond to various circumstances. They are also often motivated by external, image-oriented goals (such as financial wealth) as a way to receive approval. Unfortunately, this search for external approval keeps them forever performing, which gets in the way of their feeling truly accepted by an attachment figure. Thus, they are frequently left without the sense of closeness they crave and without a positive sense of themselves, and are incapable of pursuing their own interests.
    Dismissing: Making It on Your Own
    While some children are preoccupied with trying to get and keep their parents’ attention, others give up trying to connect. As Bowlby (1961) explained, after a child’s protests go repeatedly unanswered, or are mostly responded to harshly, the child experiences despair. Then, when he finally gives up all hope of being reassured and protected, he detaches—attempting to deactivate his attachment system by shutting down his emotions and his need for a caregiver—and becomes extremely self-reliant. As an adult, he is unlikely to experience the closeness that comes with romantic relationships. This characterizes the dismissing style of attachment.
    If your partner tends toward a dismissing style, you might feel confused when he distances himself, rather than softening, in response to your reaching out in a supportive way. The reason for this reaction is that he will not risk being let down later; so he retreats and may become even more distant. Similarly, when you are upset with your partner, he is likely to appear emotionally disengaged and unbothered. In all likelihood, however, he fears being rejected.
    Dismissive people lose out on two fronts. Unable to act on their desire for connection, they are neither truly autonomous nor capable of feeling close to a partner.
    Fearful: Lost in Relationships
    Some children grow up with parents who have their own strong attachment issues: they experience their parents as sometimes emotionally available, sometimes scared, and sometimes even scary. This variation is confusing and frightening, and these children are unable to find a way to consistently meet their attachment needs. They don’t find solace in either deactivating (trying to go it alone) or hyperactivating