[How About This Book] Why Do I Feel More Anxious the More I Love?

There are people who repeatedly get hurt in relationships without any clear reason. They usually meet similar types of people, and the relationship ends with a breakup notice from the other party. Why is that? The author, a couple specialist psychotherapist, points out insecure attachment in the book Why Do I Feel More Anxious the More I Love? (Bookie).

Insecure attachment types are more common around us than we think. According to the romantic attachment theory published in the 1980s, more than half of people belong to insecure attachment types. 25% were anxious type, and 19% were avoidant type. The author explains that over the decades, the proportion of insecure attachment has further increased.

Among them, the anxious attachment type is characterized by relationship (romantic) addiction. “They endlessly wander looking for a relationship that will prove they are worthy of love, but due to fear and anxiety, they greedily seek constant reassurance, only to end up abandoned as they most feared.” The author points out, “Unconsciously, they attract people who ‘need’ them and mistake that for being ‘loved.’”

This leads to a vicious cycle. Worrying repeatedly about being abandoned, they become obsessive, sending dozens of messages or secretly checking the partner’s phone, which pushes the partner away. The author explains, “Beneath all these behaviors lies a desperate desire and fear to hold on to the other person’s time and attention.”

On the other hand, the avoidant type also depends on the partner but keeps distance to protect themselves. This is to hide their vulnerability that becomes apparent as intimacy grows.

The problem is that these two types are highly likely to be attracted to each other. The author says, “Avoidant types are attracted to anxious types who desperately want intimacy, which they try to avoid at all costs. Meanwhile, anxious types desperately crave the stability that avoidant types cannot provide.”

Fortunately, insecure attachment can be changed. It involves modifying the neural circuits formed in childhood attachment relationships with caregivers through a process called ‘self-filling.’ The author recommends attachment recovery exercises where one experiences and fills with the love and care they did not receive in childhood.

Self-filling begins with finding the core wounds. The first step is embracing emotions?accepting all pain, fear, and feelings arising from wounds without judgment. Usually, avoidant types fear facing their own emotions, and anxious types neglect their own feelings by focusing on the partner’s emotions and needs, so the author advises caution regarding this point.

Once you acknowledge your inner feelings, the next step is to give yourself the safety, recognition, comfort, and coexistence that you did not receive when you first felt those emotions as a child. The author, who personally experienced anxious attachment, presents step-by-step exercises through various cases.

This book offers logical and academic evidence, diagnosis of phenomena, and solutions not only for romantic relationships but also for those who repeatedly endure the same wounds in human relationships.

Why Do I Feel More Anxious the More I Love? | Jessica Baum, translated by Choi Dain | 368 pages | 18,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.