Attachment working models and relationship quality in dating couples

Couples with one secure partner and one insecure partner (i.e., anxious or avoidant people) are most vulnerable to breakups and divorce.Secure people can detect when a relationship isn’t working properly, and sense when their partners’ insecure personality is causing difficulties (e.g., when their partner gets upset often because of trivial things, or resists emotional intimacy).

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Like you wrote, he's avoidant and I am anxious.

Nonverbal accuracy increased over time for all message types and husbands were more accurate than wives at decoding positive messages.

Accuracy did not predict later relationship satisfaction, but satisfaction predicted later accuracy, mainly for. Attachment dimensions also predicted later accuracy, with Anxiety over abandonment being more related to accuracy for husbands, and Comfort with closeness being more related to accuracy for wives.

For example, when a secure person is upset, he/she feels comfortable turning to his/her partner for emotional comfort and accepts that they are each dependent on each other for assistance as problems arise.

No one is immune to stresses and strains in life, but secure partners provide a buffer to deal with bumps in the road, by communicating more constructively and helping each other maintain emotional stability.

Insecure people seek out partners that confirm their expectations for how relationships work, even if those expectations are misguided or based on gender stereotypes, and they feed off each other’s negativity.

They believe that their insecure partners are exhibiting behavior that is to be expected in any normal relationship, even if it is dysfunctional.

It’s true that an individual’s attachment style, when considered alone, does not strongly predict break-up.

However, pairs of people with opposing or incompatible attachment styles are more likely to break up than couples with compatible attachment styles.