Secure people are a special breed and so many anxious and fearful avoidant people look up to them for inspiration, because of the secure person’s sense of internal resourcefulness.
In this article, we’re going to learn how secure people handle breakups so that you can model the secure person’s security enhancing thought patterns.
Keep in mind that securely attached people aren’t perfect people, but they are more likely to be able to regulate their emotions after a breakup and comfortably grieve the breakup if needed (including not moving on too fast or going on the rebound).
Related: What Is Disorganized Attachment Style? 9 Common Signs & How to Heal.
There are three main security enhancing mental and emotional processes that secure people possess that allows them to process the breakup and move forward in a healthy way.
Let’s discover what these three processes are.
Recommended reading: Breakups: How Anxious Attachment Styles Cope & Behave.
First of all, secure people don’t usually break up with someone unless they’re serious about it.
They aren’t about the stupid break up games because the games resonate more with insecurely attached people who can’t manage the fight or flight responses within themselves.
Securely attached people don’t need to threaten the relationship or feign a breakup in order to feel safe and regulated.
They came from a background where relationships and bonding are generally felt as stable, reliable and trustworthy.
(Once trust has been gained of course. Most secure people are smart enough to not just trust anyone).
And because their inner template of attachment registers close relationships as safe and reliable, they’re more likely to approach relationships as if they expect them to last.
Therefore, why would there be a need to break up? Unless the damage done in the relationship is irreversible or the trust has been ruined, there’s no need.
Moving onto the second point…
Secure people are sensitive to relationships that make them feel less secure. Their blueprint for relationships is that close relationships are a source of joy, shared resources and safety.
For example, when dealing with an avoidant, the secure person would eventually notice how the avoidant sees the relationship as a zero sum game.
When they notice that, they’ll either try to help the avoidant come closer and bond to them, or they’ll notice that that’s an impossible feat, and just walk away with grace.
It all depends on how long they’re been trying with the avoidant and whether they’ve gotten the message that it’s futile or not.
Even if the person they’re dating or in a relationships with isn’t an avoidantly attached person, and they just aren’t the ‘right one’ for the secure person, they’re much happier and more able to leave.
Because they know it’s not right. They know they don’t need to cling onto the something that isn’t meant to be.
MORE: How To Let Go Of An Avoidant Man When You’re Anxious (+ Advice If You’re Secure).
Of course not all secure people are the same. Some will walk away faster than others, because everyone learns their lesson or has their epiphany at different rates.
If you’d like to get a score for how secure you are and find out where you sit on my personalised attachment spectrum, take my free attachment quiz. I’ve embedded it below:
Fact: 54% of all women have insecure attachment styles and it affects their relationships daily. Answer the next 10 questions to discover what your attachment style is.
1. When it comes to relating to people in general…
I believe people are generally dependable and kind
I get attached to people easily and they often let me down
I don’t believe I can truly trust anyone
People will always come and go
2. To me, the word intimacy intuitively feels
3. In my relationship, I tend to constantly…
Worry that my partner will stop loving me one day
Feel repelled when my partner gets too intimate and close to me
Want to learn more about my partner without fear of judgment
Find faults in my partner
4. In my partner’s absence, I…
Look forward to seeing him again
Feel anxious and don’t know what to do
Feel incomplete
Feel free
5. In my most ideal relationship… (choose the one you feel strongest about.)
We would have our own lives & wouldn’t have to depend on each other
I would receive constant love and attention
We would be deeply connected above all else
To feel safe, I would want to have more control in the relationship
6. If a man that I was interested in started to banter with me…
I’d effortlessly banter back
I’d freeze and not know what to say
I’d redirect the conversation because banter is childish
7. If I suspect that my partner has been cheating on me…
I would rather not know about it
I’d ask them about it until they confess
I’d investigate it & find out as much as I can without coming to conclusions
I’d instantly get stressed out of my mind and become angry
8. When it comes to sex… I’d rather have
Casual sex with uncommitted partners
Intimate sex with a committed partner
I’d rather avoid sex.
9. If I share my deepest feelings and thoughts
Perhaps no one would care
Perhaps people may no longer love me
Perhaps I can resonate with the deepest feelings of others
I would never share my deepest feelings
10. If someone I’m dating suddenly becomes cold and distant…
I feel indifferent, even relieved as they’ll need less from me.
I feel like perhaps I’ve done something wrong or perhaps they’ve found someone new
I feel like I need to delve deeper into what is happening without feeling sorry for myself.
I feel angry and vengeful.
We are analysing your personal attachment style results right now and preparing a comprehensive summary. On a side note, it is important to understand attachment styles as a sliding scale rather than a fixed set of categories. Here are the reason why…
1. Your attachment style is not fixed but rather plastic, meaning you can over time heal an insecure attachment style, just as you can create more insecurity in your attachment style if you hang around toxic people in your life. Having a sliding scale offers you a solid direction to move towards.
2. Attachment styles should be considered as secure or insecure attachment styles with levels of severity when it comes to insecure attachment. This helps you understand how your own attachment styles developed in the first place and what direction you need to take in order to heal from attachment style traumas. (We’ll explain this further in the first email you’ll get from us.)
3. Almost everyone with an insecure attachment style has multiple categories and patterns within that insecure attachment, (of course to differing degrees).
In other words, you don’t just have a pure anxious attachment style. That may be the predominant pattern in your nervous system, but there is also avoidant in there too when you’re nervous system is overloaded and sick of being anxious all the time. This is why it’s more important to see this framework as a sliding scale and not just a mere set of categories.
So your personal attachment style will fit along the scale you see below.
In order to get your personal attachment style score, please enter your best email address so that we can securely send this to you. (As well as give you $3,765 worth of coaching bonuses to help you cultivate secure attachment within yourself!)
And yes, we'll treat your email like it was our firstborn.
The secure person is much more able to walk away and stay away because they have a rock solid sense of identity.
This solid sense of identity allows them to be genuinely self reliant, not like the compulsive self reliance that the avoidant models, which is fake inner security stemming from neglect.
See, you and I can only walk way from a breakup without running back to the toxic relationship in days, if we genuinely have a strong positive identity.
Fortunately for the secure person, their amazing caregivers inferred that autonomy onto them through love and devotion.
Through just wanting the best for them and through doing the best for them, their mother or father found a way to help their child adopt resilient thought patterns.
But unfortunately for the anxiously attached, the fearful avoidants or avoidants, they weren’t so lucky.
So an anxious or fearful avoidant person would need to develop that sense of autonomy through one thing only. Developing a positive sense of identity.
When you have a rock solid identity, you are able to let go without feeling like your life and your sanity are going to disappear before your eyes. Because you trust yourself to find a way. You’re truly resilient.
So here’s a thought exercise to help you develop a positive sense of identity:
“What have I already given, to someone or something, even a pet that was significant or has helped them?”
Really ask yourself that question and take the time to answer it properly. Don’t gloss over it. Actually answer it!
As someone who has had to heal my anxious attachment for 20 years, this was one of the most helpful questions I ever asked myself that fast-tracked my healing.
And I learned this question from non other than my securely attached husband (who also works alongside me coaching people in healing insecure attachment).
How Secure People Deal With Anxious People.
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Renee is the founder of The Feminine Woman & co-founder of Shen Wade Media where we teach women how to show up as a high value high status woman whom easily inspires a deep sense of emotional commitment from her chosen man. She graduated with a bachelor of Law and bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and psychology. She has been a dating and relationship coach for women in the past 15 years and together with her husband D. Shen at Commitment Triggers blog, they have positively influenced the lives of over 20 million women through their articles and videos as well as 10’s of thousands through paid programs through the Shen Wade Media platform.
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