Codependency and Attachment Styles: Untangling the Patterns in Adult Relationships
Many of my clients wonder: “Am I codependent, or do I just have an insecure attachment style?” The truth is, these concepts overlap but are not identical. Understanding both can shed light on why relationships feel so difficult, and why leaving an unhealthy one can feel almost impossible.
The Four Attachment Styles
Attachment theory describes how early caregiving shapes our patterns in intimacy:
Secure Attachment: Comfortable with closeness, but also with independence. The caregiver provided an attachment that left you feeling comfortable in most connections, and you carry this with you as an adult.
Anxious Attachment: Fearful of abandonment, often hyper-attuned to a partner’s moods, constant checking in, lower regard of self, and higher regard of partner. This can become worse with infidelity incidents.
Avoidant Attachment: Discomfort with too much closeness, relying on independence and emotional distance. For some reason, the avoidant attachment style can attract the anxious one, which further perpetuates the anxiety. A distancer-pursuer pattern can be experienced.
Disorganized Attachment: A push-pull of wanting closeness while fearing it, often rooted in trauma related to physical abuse (“I love you, but now I am going to inflict pain”) or inconsistent caregiving.
Where Codependency Fits
Codependency is not an attachment style; it’s more of a coping strategy. According to CODA, codependency is not defined as a diagnosis or definition; rather, it is characterized by traits that make relationships difficult. Often, it shows up in people who grew up in homes with addiction, neglect, or emotional unavailability (like adult children of alcoholics, or those with mothers or caregivers who could not emotionally attach). Codependency might look like:
A type of over-functioning that can feel like subtle control. At first, it can feel nice to be “taken care of” until you realize that the other is mostly benefiting.
Difficulty recognizing or setting appropriate boundaries in self or/with others. There is minimal regard for a deep sense of self; rather, the focus is on the other.
The relationship feels addictive, whether it is sexual, emotional, or feeling needed or useful.
In many ways, codependency is an anxious attachment style in action, but it can also appear in disorganized patterns.
How It Affects Adult Relationships
As an adult, these patterns can leave you:
Feeling responsible for your partner’s happiness, you don’t want to see them fail or suffer.
Afraid to speak your truth in case it causes abandonment. Denial and minimization are often used.
Drawn to relationships that replay early childhood wounds. You question why you are continuing the relationship, as if it feels magnetic, karmic, or what some mistakenly refer to as “trauma bond.” (That term is actually used in the wrong way often.)
This is why codependent dynamics can feel so familiar and oddly comfortable; they create a sense of hunger for more, and not necessarily for what is healthy.
What If You Need to Leave?
Leaving a relationship shaped by codependency or insecure attachment can feel like breaking an addiction. You may know it’s not good for you, but the fear of being alone feels worse. Therapy can provide awareness, steps toward healing, and how to retrain the brain. Therapy for codependency involves:
Building awareness of your attachment patterns
Realizing and gaining clarity on values and boundaries
Learning to tolerate the discomfort of independence
Sometimes, working with a group to hear how others are doing it
Moving Toward Healing
Recovery from codependency is similar to addiction treatment. It doesn’t mean becoming perfectly “secure” or in control in all future relationships. It means learning to notice your patterns, honoring your values, and building relationships where both partners can thrive. If you’re considering leaving a relationship, remember: choosing your own wholeness is not selfish. It’s necessary for continued self-awareness and growth on the path to integration.
If you see yourself in this, you don’t have to navigate it alone. I’d be honored to help. Contact me today!
Codependency vs. Attachment Styles in Adult Relationships
