what she perceived to be his countless flaws. Only after they broke up,
and she no longer felt threatened by the high level of intimacy, did her
defense strategies lift. She was then able to get in touch with the
underlying feelings of attachment that were there all along and to
accurately assess Bob’s pluses.

CAUTION: READ THE SIGNS

Imagine if you were a parent and couldn’t for the life of you read your
infant’s cues. You wouldn’t be able to tell whether your child was hungry
or tired, wanting to be held or wanting to be left alone, wet or sick. How
difficult life would be for both of you. Your child would have to work so
much harder—and cry so much longer—to be understood.
Having an avoidant attachment style can often make you feel like
that parent. You’re not strong at translating the many verbal and
nonverbal signals you receive during everyday interactions into a
coherent understanding of your lover’s mental state. The problem is
that, along with your self-reliant attitude, you also train yourself not to
care about how the person closest to you is feeling. You figure that this
is not your task; that they need to take care of their own emotional well-
being. This lack of understanding leads partners of avoidants to
complain about not receiving enough emotional support. It also leads
to less connectedness, warmth, and satisfaction in the relationship.
Dr. Jeffry Simpson, professor of psychology at the University of
Minnesota, studies how adult attachment orientations are associated
with relationship functioning and well-being, particularly when partners
are distressed. He also researches empathic accuracy—the condition
under which people tend to be accurate or inaccurate in gauging their
partner’s feelings. In a study conducted together with Steve Rholes
from Texas A & M University, they set up an experiment to examine
whether people with different attachment styles differed in their abilities
to infer their partners’ thoughts. They asked individuals to rate the
attractiveness and sexual appeal of opposite-sex images in the
presence of their partners. They then asked them to assess their