Why do I always fall for the same type of person? How attachment styles shape relationships

After learning about the different attachment styles, many people ask themselves a question:

“Why do I always end up falling for the same type of person?”

The answer doesn’t lie only in who we choose as a partner, but also in how our attachment styles interact.

A couple’s compatibility depends on many factors: shared values, life stage, the way they communicate, their ability to handle conflict and, among them, attachment style too. 

This last one doesn’t on its own determine whether a relationship succeeds or fails, but it can influence the dynamics that emerge when two people form a bond.

When a person with anxious attachment meets one with avoidant attachment

This is probably one of the combinations that causes the most suffering among the people we see in therapy.

The person with anxious attachment needs closeness to feel safe. When they sense distance, fear or uncertainty, they seek more contact, more explanations and more signs of affection.

The person with avoidant attachment, by contrast, tends to need space when the relationship becomes too intimate. The more pressured they feel, the more they need to pull away.

Without realising it, both begin to feed the other’s fear.

The more one pursues, the more the other runs. And the more one runs, the more the other needs to pursue.

It’s the well-known “cat and mouse” dynamic.

Neither of them wants to hurt the other person. Both are trying to protect themselves from the pain their attachment wounds cause them.

Why does it hook us so strongly?

Many people are surprised to discover that the relationships that made them suffer the most are also the ones they find hardest to forget.

This doesn’t mean they were the relationships with the most love.

It means they were relationships with a strong alternation between moments of uncertainty and moments of intense connection.

Imagine a couple who, after several days of emotional distance and a big argument, end up making up and sharing a very intimate, passionate encounter.

In that moment, the body feels enormous relief. After hours or days of fearing the loss of the relationship, stress drops and the brain releases substances linked to wellbeing and bonding, such as dopamine, oxytocin and endogenous opioids. That combination creates an intense feeling of calm, pleasure and connection.

The brain then learns a very powerful association: after great suffering comes an enormous emotional reward.

In psychology this is related to intermittent reinforcement, a mechanism through which unpredictable rewards produce especially intense learning.

Because affection and calm appear irregularly, the person keeps investing in the relationship, hoping to feel that relief again.

Many people confuse the intensity of making up with the intensity of love. But it isn’t always love that keeps a relationship going; sometimes it’s the relief I feel when, at last, it stops hurting and I can connect again.

So... why can a healthy relationship seem boring?

This is one of the questions that most puzzles people when they start a relationship with someone who is emotionally available.

When we have spent a long time in relationships marked by uncertainty, distance or the fear of losing the other person, our nervous system gets used to running in a state of heightened activation.

That’s why a stable, predictable relationship can feel, at first, strangely calm. Some people even describe it as “boring”.

Not because love or connection is really missing.

But because, for the first time, the bond stops keeping the alarm system constantly switched on.

Our brain is used to associating emotional intensity with love and needs time to learn that safety can also be deeply satisfying.

Over time, many people discover that what they read as boredom was, in fact, calm.

And learning to enjoy that calm is also part of the healing process.

What about other combinations?

Two people with secure attachment tend to build relationships with trust, communication and the ability to repair conflicts without constantly putting the bond at risk.

Two people with avoidant attachment may have very independent relationships with few apparent conflicts. However, if both avoid expressing their emotional needs, the relationship can end up distant and lacking intimacy.

Two people with anxious attachment may create very intense and affectionate relationships, but they also run the risk of living with a strong fear of losing each other if they don’t learn to regulate that anxiety.

There are also many couples made up of one person with secure attachment and another with insecure attachment. In these cases, the relationship can become an opportunity for growth if both partners understand their patterns and are willing to build new ways of relating.

More than the attachment style itself, what really makes the difference is how aware each person is of their own patterns and how willing they are to work on them.

The good news

We’re not condemned to keep repeating the same kind of relationship.

Knowing our attachment style helps us understand why certain people attract us, which wounds are triggered within the relationship and what we need to build more secure bonds.

Good compatibility doesn’t depend only on attachment style. Shared values, the way you communicate, your life stage and both people’s ability to build a secure relationship also play a part.

We’re not looking for a perfect partner.

We’re looking for a relationship in which both people are willing to understand their wounds, take their share of responsibility and build, little by little, a more secure bond.

In the next and final article in this series, we’ll look at whether it’s really possible to change our attachment style and what role relationships and therapy play in that process.