Which of These Four Attachment Styles Is Yours?

Have you seen the show How I Met Your Mother? It's about a bunch of flawed but lovable New Yorkers trying to find (or hang onto) love as they go through life's changes, which range from silly to momentous. It’s a funny, feel-good, and sometimes poignant sitcom. 

But what I like most about it is that it’s a perfect showcase of human attachment styles.

Although How I Met Your Mother came to an end in 2014, it lives on digitally! In case you're in the middle of your first HIMYM marathon, I should warn you that this episode contains a few spoilers.

If you don’t know what attachment styles are, or haven’t ever seen the show, don’t worry. Once you hear about the characters and how they personify each attachment style, you’ll be sure to recognize yourself or people you know.

But first, what is attachment? Attachment is the bond we form with our first primary caregiver, usually a parent. It’s a universal human phenomenon that starts as early as in the womb, and the way we develop it eventually affects the way we find, keep, and end relationships.

There are four major styles of attachment that people form early in life and generally tend to keep into adulthood. These styles are:

• Secure
• Dismissive-avoidant
• Anxious-preoccupied
• Fearful-avoidant (a.k.a., disorganized)

To figure out what style of attachment you tend to have, there are quizzes you can take (like this one). They ask you to agree/disagree with statements like, “I easily develop emotional ties to others,” “If a partner pushes me to establish a commitment, I freak out inside,” and, “If I’m not in a relationship, I am nobody.” You can see that these items are probing the way we think of others and ourselves in the context of relationships and intimacy.  

So what attachment style do you think you have? Well, let’s see if you most closely relate to Ted, Barney, or someone else from How I Met Your Mother. In this first in a three-part series on attachment, we’ll let the beloved HIMYM characters guide us through the four major attachment styles:

1. Securely attached—Lily and Marshall

Lily and Marshall are the quintessential cute couple. They have quirky inside jokes; they have cute...

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