- View yourself as responsible for your partner’s well-being.
- Wear your heart on your sleeve—be courageous and honest in
your interactions. - Maintain focus on the problem at hand.
- Don’t make generalizations during conflict.
- Douse the flame before it becomes a forest fire—attend to
your partner’s upsets before they escalate.
It sometimes may be helpful to go over the inventory with an attachment-
designated person (ADP), such as a family member, a close friend, or a
therapist. Being able to turn to someone who is familiar with your patterns
when your system goes into overdrive and your judgment is clouded by
activation/deactivation can give you a new and different perspective. Your
ADP can remind you of your destructive attachment tendencies and help
you move toward a more secure emotional head space before you act out
and hurt the relationship.
If you’ve completed the relationship inventory you have identified your
working model and the ways in which it may interfere with your happiness
and productivity. You’ve probably spotted the recurrent patterns in your
relationships and the way in which you and your partners (past or present)
tick each other off. You can even summarize these for yourself.
My Working Model—Summarizing the InventoryCan you identify particular situations that are prone to activate (if you are
anxious) or deactivate (if you are avoidant) your attachment system across
relationships?
Can you detect ways in which an inefficient working model has prevented
you from achieving more security?