Anxious attachment in beginning of dating: calming strategies

Hello all! Happy New Year

I know I have an anxious attachment style, and I've been dating a guy for a few weeks now. It's been a long time since I really had feelings for someone, and since then, I have built up a satisfying life for myself, and I have goals that I am excited about etc. But I still feel anxiety about the guy I am dating. I've been away for a week on Christmas vacation, and I am hypersensitive to the smallest change I notice in his enthusiasm when he texts me. For some reason, I fear that he's one of those guys that comes on really strong and loses interest or gets scared and runs... although he was previously in a long-term relationship, so I don't think that fear is necessarily rational. I also haven't seen any red flags.
I read a book on attachment styles and know that the best thing is to just be upfront about my need for reassurance, but I fear that it's far too early and that having this conversation at this stage would be too intense. I don't know what to do. I thought I had done a lot of work on all these issues: self esteem, choosing safe partners etc. I know that my anxieties are irrational, but I really fear that I will have let him get my hopes up enough to just be really dissappinted. How do I calm myself down? Rationalizing things in my head never seems to work.

 

Thanks,

That's the ironic part about it all. I'm in university studying something that I am passionate about and will be doing my practicum abroad this summer. Then next year after I finish school, my goal is to move abroad for a few years. The guy I am dating told me he would like to live in Australia one day, so I think our life goals are certainly not incompatible. And I know that if it doesn't work out, I have an exciting life to go back to. I think I just get attached all the same. I think I had forgot what it felt like to give and receive affection and to be intimate with someone. I think I have a major craving for connection and affection. I forgot how good it feels, and regardless of everything exciting happening in my life, I think I would be pretty crushed if he ended it. I think I'm just having a hard time believing that a guy who has shown me a lot of interest will be consistent with that or become more interested. In the past, they've always lost interest once they saw the remote possibility of things getting serious or else their issues make them unable to continue. Although this guy hadn't always shown me the same level of interest in his texts while I've been gone, there aren't any red flags and he's already been in a serious relationship, so I don't see any objective reason to believe that he's the type to chase and then lose interest.

The book is called Attached: the science of adult attachment by Amir Levine and Rachel SF Heller.

 

Thanks for your reply
Things are going pretty well. I stopped fretting about text messages once I realized that even if he's not super affectionate at one moment, he always texts me something affectionate later. I saw him last night, we watched a movie last night, though and I was super clingy. I really held him tight and was constantly giving him kisses on the cheek and on his neck. He didn't really respond so much, I think because he was lacking sleep and was super tired. This morning, I asked him if I was too much last night and made him feel smothered and he just told me that I worried too much. So I think the next time I see him, I'll have to tell him about my attachment style and my needs. I'm afraid that I will royally turn him off or that I will scare him away somehow. Any advice on how to phrase it so I don't come across as super needy and pathetic?

 

No. In actual fact, the signs would suggest that he IS into me. I just fear that once I tell him about my needs, that he'll be turned off :-/

 

You may be right. We've been dating a month, of which I was gone 2 weeks during the holidays though. So it hasn't been that long, even if we did continue texting a lot while I was gone.

Perhaps I could just check with him again to make sure that my being so cuddly didn't turn him off, just to ask for that reassurance. It would probably be a good time to articulate that the way I was the other night was a pretty genuine manifestation of who I am in intimacy and that I am someone who desires a lot of closeness.

Upon reflection, I think the only guys that that has turned off have been those who had fears of intimacy.

So perhaps I'm just feeling self-conscious about something that isn't really a flaw as long as I communicate my needs effectively.