When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at DearShonVogue@gmail.com for your own chance at enlightenment.
Dear Shon,
In the spring my first romantic partner broke up with me. I entered a new relationship a few months later, surprising myself with how quickly I moved on. However, I find myself worrying every single day that my new partner will break up with me for the same reason my ex did, namely that I’m not exciting and challenging enough for them (my distillation of their more vague explanation).
My new partner knows what happened with my ex and knows that I’m scared of losing them, but I don’t want to tell them the full extent of my worries in case it leads them to realize that they don’t actually want to be with me.
I love my new partner so much and I’m terrified of losing them, terrified in a way I never was with my ex because I was completely oblivious to their doubts about the relationship. How can I get over my new anxious attachment style?
Sincerely,
Anxious
Dear Anxious
Modern dating is a minefield. For our grandparents, dating and courtship was a brief layover to marriage, and for most of our parents, dating was something that arose organically out of daily life—work, school, friends. Nowadays, our expectations are greater than they ever were before but there are less social conventions and rules around dating. This produces greater freedom but also a lot more anxiety. In response to these new forms of anxiety, I think that a lot of us look for frameworks and explanations to make sense of our fear and confusion.
Attachment theory is one such framework. Attachment theory comes to us from the work of British psychoanalyst and psychologist John Bowlby who focused on the proposition that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. Those children who don’t, Bowlby argued, may be left with an anxious attachment “style” that repeats through life in all close emotional relationships. It’s a theory that gained more mainstream traction after a pop psychology book called Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the Science of Adult Attachment Can Help You Find–and Keep–Love, written by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller became a bestseller. Now, you will hear a very simplified version of the theory doing the rounds on TikTok and group chats to help you diagnose the behavior of the guy who ghosted you (“classic avoidant”) or offered up as a horoscope for you to understand your own behavior (“I’m so anxiously attached”).
I would urge you to be a little wary of this cod psychology. You don’t mention your childhood. Perhaps there were significantly painful experiences with your caregivers such as a parent abandoning you, dying, or being neglectful. If so, therapy is a good idea, particularly if it looks at how this trauma is manifesting in your adult romantic relationships. But to me it sounds like you are feeling anxious because you had a horrible, painful experience, i.e. being dumped without warning and you got into a new relationship before you could process the pain enough for your self esteem to recover. I think pathologizing this too much isn’t helpful. You may not be chronically anxious or permanently damaged with a new “style” of attachment. You may just need a little time and reassurance in order to bounce back.
Talk to your partner. You need to face this fear. You can’t just hide your anxiety indefinitely because you think that’s what they want. If you can’t be vulnerable and share your concerns with them then they’re not the right person for you—we need to be accepted for who we are for a relationship to work long term. I noticed you have a very self-punishing narrative about the past breakup—that you were too boring—rather than a healthier one, which is that you and your ex just simply weren’t compatible. This story about the previous breakup needs to change for you to feel more secure. One technique that can be helpful is to think of a relationship as a third party, separate from the two people in it. A relationship can fail without either partner being a failure. Try to remember that one person not being the right fit isn’t a measurement of your worth and actually says nothing about your compatibility with your current partner.
I think you, like so many of us, need to be gentle with yourself and remember that love is deeply terrifying. Relationships are a choice by individuals to love each other and either can choose to bring that to an end at any time: As the philosopher Gillian Rose writes, “There is no democracy in any love relation: only mercy.” Sometimes, the endings of relationships are merciless. That’s a fact of life. Anxiety is, therefore, a natural and normal part of any decision to be vulnerable with another person in this way. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It means you’re human.
