What’s More Important, Your Love Language Or Your Attachment Style?

All great relationships are built on mutual understanding. And thanks to the magic of personality quizzes, getting into the person your dating’s headspace has never been easier. 

Want to know why your partner will happily drive you to the airport at 3am yet never say “I love you”?  Why they jump to fix your computer but never seem to ask you about your day? Tests like the Seven Love Styles can help. The Love Styles test is all about decoding how you and your partner like to give and receive affection. Knowing  your love styles can be a powerful tool in understanding and improving your relationship, helping you communicate your needs and desires more effectively.

But while understanding love styles is important, there’s another factor that plays a crucial role in relationships: attachment style. Attachment theory, developed by psychologist John Bowlby, describes how our early childhood experiences shape the way we form intimate connections with others. This can have a profound impact on how we behave in romantic relationships.

But which one is more important? Can one’s love language or attachment style have a greater impact on the success of a relationship? And is there any overlap between the two?

Well, drumroll please…because we’re about to answer these questions and more. 

Attachment Styles: Your Underlying Operating System

Attachment theory suggests that our attachment style is formed in early childhood through the interactions we have with our primary caregivers. These early experiences shape our beliefs about ourselves and others, influence how we handle emotions and conflicts, and ultimately impact the way we form relationships.

We then carry these beliefs and behaviors with us into adulthood.

Just like love styles, attachment styles come in different flavors:

• Secure attachment: People with a secure attachment style have a healthy approach to relationships. They know how to resolve conflicts, regulate their feelings and listen to others. They’re statistically the most likely to have happy, long-term relationships. 
• Anxious attachment: For the anxiously attached person, relationships are an emotional rollercoaster. They fear their partner might leave them, and this anxiety can lead to all sorts of reassurance-seeking behaviors like neediness, manipulation or clinginess. 
• Avoidant attachment: People who type as avoidant are the proverbial lone wolves. They find intimate relationships suffocating and overwhelming, and letting people in feels like a major challenge for them. Preferring to keep their guard up, they often push their partners away, cancel plans and deflect emotional conversations. 
• Disorganized attachment: People with a disorganized attachment style demonstrate a combination of both anxious and avoidant behaviors. They crave intimacy but are also terrified of getting hurt, resulting in confusing hot-and-cold behavior.  

How Your Attachment Style Influences Your Relationships

Looking through the different attachment styles, you can instantly grasp just how much they impact the health and longevity of romantic relationships. 

Dating someone who always thinks you’re going to leave them is exhausting. Their constant need for reassurance and validation can be draining, and it’s not uncommon for these relationships to lack healthy boundaries which can lead to resentment towards one another. 

On the other hand, being with someone who runs away as soon as the relationship starts to deepen can also take its toll. Constantly having your feelings ignored can leave you feeling neglected, lonely and frustrated.

Knowing your attachment style (and that of your partner) can help you recognize patterns in your relationship and understand why certain behaviors or conflicts arise. That’s not to say you should dump someone based on their attachment style, but it can help you navigate the relationship with more empathy and understanding. For example, if you know the person you're seeing struggles with anxiety in relationships, you can make an extra effort to show up consistently and communicate your love and commitment to them.

Also, anybody can move from ‘anxious’ or ‘avoidant’ to a more secure form of attachment with patience and perseverance. That’s exactly why it’s so useful for you and the person you're dating to know your types. 

Love Styles: Intimacy Decoded

Attachment styles reveal how people think and feel about relationships at a high level. Love Styles, on the other hand, reveal exactly how they like to give and receive love. It's not about the love itself, but rather how it is expressed.

There are seven Love Styles in total. Here’s a quick overview. 

• Activity: People with the Activity Love Style feel loved when their partner shares in activities and hobbies together, creating new memories through shared experiences.
• Appreciation: People with the Appreciation Love Style feel valued when their partner gives them praise and compliments, noticing their personal qualities and little triumphs.
• Emotional: People with the Emotional Love Style feel loved when their partner connects with and supports them through tough emotions, providing caring support during vulnerable times.
• Financial: People with the Financial Love Style feel valued when their partner shows generosity with finances to bring them joy, using resources to help and delight them.
• Intellectual: People with the Intellectual Love Style feel loved when their partner values their intelligence and respects their opinions, engaging in thoughtful discussions.
• Physical: People with the Physical Love Style feel cared for through touch and physical intimacy, including hugs, hand-holding, and other forms of physical affection.
• Practical: People with the Practical Love Style feel valued when their partner helps with chores and everyday tasks, going above and beyond to lighten their load.

Do You and Your Partner Need to Have Compatible Love Styles?

While with attachment styles, the aim is for both of you to become more ‘secure’, it’s a different ball game when it comes to Love Styles. 

No one style is better than the other. And compatibility doesn’t matter all that much either.

Sure, if you and your partner both have the same one, meeting each other’s needs will come a little more naturally. But don’t fret if your Love Styles are totally different – you can still have a fantastic relationship. 

The key is to communicate, learn what each other needs, and then work on  meeting those needs. If you have a different Love Style, it may take more effort and intentionality to make sure both of you feel loved and valued. But the result can be an even stronger and more satisfying relationship.

After all, compromise is one of the secret ingredients to a happy, long-term relationship. 

Is There an Overlap Between Attachment Style and Love Style?

There could be. Research from Wittenberg University shows that people with the avoidant attachment style are less likely to appreciate the physical touch and words of affirmation love languages - roughly equivalent to the Physical and Appreciation Love Styles - perhaps because these overt shows of affection make them feel smothered. 

Similarly, people with the anxious attachment are more likely to crave appreciation and emotional intimacy –  the Emotional and Appreciation Love Styles - which makes sense, given that they’re prone to reassurance seeking. 

As far as we know, there's no research to show what might happen to a person's Love Style if they  become more secure in their attachment, but it's possible that their Love Style may shift as well. 

So, if you and your partner are working on how you approach intimacy, it's worth keeping an eye on how your Love Styles morph over time.  It could be an indication of how you're also growing and evolving in your attachment styles.