A Take on TCKs and Attachment
This month has me thinking about relationships and predictably, February 14th had me thinking specifically about romantic ones. This year I don’t have a significant other and therefore am not expecting roses or chocolates. And that’s ok. I’m in a season of (re)discovering self-love. I need that worthiness and respect fundamentally addressed and secured before I invite another into partnership. I have been reflecting on relationship development as a Third Culture Kid and have five truths I wish someone had told me in my early twenties as a TCK navigating romantic relationships. We need to repeat these truths purposefully, intentionally, and repetitively to ensure the health of our relationships—both for romantic and platonic ones.
Attachment is core to healthy relationships.
John Bowlby’s work on Attachment Theory explains that learning and developing attachment in childhood shapes how an individual attaches to others in adulthood. There are not only different attachment styles but also style combinations that shape how you may feel stable, secure, and safe in relationships.
I have an avoidant attachment style and I attribute this to some degree from my relationship patterns in my TCK upbringing.
I have noticed that when it comes to any relationship, I feel loved, secure, and confident to an extent and then I lock up and avoid deeper conversations and connections fearing that either I will move or the other will move and that our relationship could become distant and even nonexistent. It’s been a protective mechanism to keep my heart safe from relationship heartbreak.
But as I’ve looked at Attachment Theory more closely, I find that cultivating healthy attachment involves taking a step back to look at how I was nurtured and validated in my upbringing by others. In adulthood, it involves establishing boundaries and practicing emotionally connected responses in relationships. In order for me to feel secure in a relationship, I need others to articulate and demonstrate care over a consistent period of time, whether they are near or far location-wise.
Attachment shapes how you create healthy relationships.
Communication styles and love languages play a great role in relationship attachment. For some extroverted and verbal processors, the opening conversation line “I’ve been thinking about…” often implies that they want to talk about whatever is on their mind now. In contrast, for introverted and internal processors, “I’ve been thinking about…” is a statement that they are referring to something they’ve been processing for the past six months or so and want to discuss now. Securing healthy attachment means exploring how and when to communicate and being patient with different processing needs.
One of my counselors told me, “Megan, when you get married, your partner is going to need to allow you the space to let you say whatever is on your mind.”
I love that insight because it confirms how I tend to process aloud and sometimes what seems to be an end of a conversation is really just me shifting to finish processing internally. In the past, I have experienced that when language barriers or cultural barriers have added another challenging layer in communicating, I shut down and wonder how to get out of it without losing my temper or completely walking away. Both of which reflect my “flight mode” reactions when relationships are too risky to me.
Attachment is about raising your self-awareness about how you reason, react, and view sequence and survival in relationships. Fundamentally, there’s always a reason behind what we do and it takes looking at our thinking patterns that shape our human behavior in attachment.
Attachment can be scary.
In my bedroom, I have a framed painting print of a colorful alley. Grafittied on one of the walls is ‘Love is always a risk’. This image and expression evoke many emotions in me. Makes me think about the times I’ve opened up my heart to romantic love. It’s risky. Sometimes I’ve stayed to fight for the relationship, but more than once I’ve flighted.
Having operated in flight mode in romantic relationships, I’ve built walls of security to protect myself from taking vulnerable risks in them. To love someone means to allow them to peek over those walls and gently and graciously help you de-brick it as they listen to why and how that brick was placed there in the first place. I advocate that the de-bricking process begin with a professional like a counselor or therapist who can methodically assess and support the dismantling of protective measures that were erected from relationship fear and perhaps even some wounding in childhood attachment.
For me, attachment at times has been scary, especially when I haven’t been secure in who I am in my own identity.
Sometimes it was easier and safer to feel numb than to risk the pain of being loved and to love and then risk it being gone (perhaps forever). In different seasons of my life, not having attachment or belonging to a place or community or to a family in consistent and predictable ways has made giving myself freedom to settle with a person in a romantic partnership challenging. My perspective of what’s next for me took precedent on how to grow the relationship deeper together. I am able to identify relationships in which I’ve cut short because I needed to be in control; because not being in control ultimately meant for me: hurt. I regret not having a conversation about what I was feeling or even thinking of cutting off those relationships with those individuals. It was easier to get on an airplane and just leave. Slowly, I am reconciling and being forgiven for actions I made out of fear, pain, and hurt. It was easier to cause pain than to feel it in the short run, but it is me who has had the deeper hurt in the long run.
Attachment can be not scary.
Attaching to a romantic partner in adulthood requires looking at the fears which inhibit developing trust and reciprocal disclosure in the relationship. The fear of rejection is one I still wrestle with because of times in childhood when I was left out of peer gatherings or felt I didn’t belong because of looking different, sounding different, and simply being different being a foreigner and Third Culture Kid. The wounds have led to attachment issues in adulthood that I’m still reframing from “limiting” to “launching” in terms of relationship management.
Healthy relationships grow and shift as your experiences develop.
Healthy attachment is extending the space and grace for each other to process in these transitions, how they need to process and to invite sometimes older, wiser, and trained professionals such as counselors, therapists, and community leaders to listen in and offer their wisdom.
Society, culture, subcultures, and upbringing all have tremendous impact on our beliefs about others and when it comes to developing trust in a romantic relationship. Taking intentional time to press into what is true love and respect may look like repeatedly saying “I love you” or other expressions of affection, or repeated actions of service, gift-giving, or quality time to build that trust. Attachments that were broken in childhood can be redeemed and restored and healed relationally and experientially (not simply cognitively) in adulthood.
Attachment begins with evaluation.
Perhaps too often TCKs are quick to end relationships after either we or someone we know has moved. If we haven’t practiced the pattern of repairing relationships and saying healthy goodbyes in these kinds of transitions, we may have an avoidant attachment style.
When it comes to developing any kind of relationship, I advocate for TCKs to take considerable time to evaluate their own personal identity anchors that are core to their values and worldview. What is unmovable? What remains consistent in spite of changes in place or community? Having a secure understanding of self in skills, knowledge, ability, and worth will ultimately shape healthy boundaries when it comes to investing in any kind of relationship. Also, making a list of how you self-protect and determining if those ways serve you well in your relationships can shed light on how you attach in healthy ways to others.
When it comes to romantic partnership, self-awareness needs to be the first step in how you acknowledge and practice vulnerability, love, and understanding in personal identity and belonging—to both people and to places.
Richard Rohr says, “Pain that is not transformed is transmitted”. This is important to consider when it comes to processing any unresolved grief from a TCK upbringing.
I also encourage that TCKs take the time to observe the character of their significant other, how they contribute to the world, and how they make choices. In addition, how do they connect to family, friends, and the broader community? Observe if their actions match their verbal intentions and commitments over time. Don’t rush in.
As I conclude, I leave an open love note to my future romantic partner: I ask that you be patient with me as I continue to navigate my own vulnerability with your desire to cherish me. Be a trustworthy person as I balance my need for differentiation with your desire to connect. Sometimes I can’t trust, so be strong in those moments. Sometimes I still struggle with my grief and wounds from previous relationships, both from my TCK childhood and ATCK relationship transitions. Be patient with me. Sometimes I will just need to vent and I need you to be my safe person in those moments. Finally, please remember that the complexity of my TCK journey takes time to hear and to understand, so let’s commit to spending time hearing and holding each other’s life stories as we travel to new spaces and places together.