Recent research is Journal of social and personal relationships This provides evidence that our early relationship blueprints shape our risk of developing dependence on romantic partners through two specific psychological processes. The findings suggest that the ability to remain psychologically flexible and regulate emotions acts as a bridge between a person’s attachment style and the likelihood of experiencing compulsive and unhealthy relationship dynamics.
People bring deeply ingrained emotional blueprints to their adult romantic relationships. These blueprints, known in psychology as attachment styles, develop during early childhood interactions with primary caregivers. The resulting attachment style serves as an internal working model that guides expectations, emotional responses, and coping strategies when a person becomes close to others.
When caregivers are consistent, they tend to create a secure attachment style, leading to a sense of emotional security and the ability to balance intimacy and independence. An insecure attachment style often results from unpredictable or inconsistent caregiving. This pattern usually results in a persistent fear of abandonment, emotional instability, and a constant need for reassurance from a partner.
Avoidant attachment style typically develops when caregivers become emotionally distant or rejecting. This leads individuals to prioritize extreme independence and avoid emotional intimacy. These styles guide how people navigate intimacy, but they do not automatically determine the success or failure of a relationship.
Scientists have recognized that some people develop a pattern known as addiction in romantic relationships. This condition involves an intense and overwhelming attachment to a partner that goes beyond typical romantic attachment. This behavior reflects elements of behavioral addiction, such as experiencing extreme pain and withdrawal symptoms when separated from a partner.
“In romantic relationships, when the urge to maintain intimacy becomes stubborn and obsessive, it can turn into boundary violations and relationship addiction, which can undermine well-being,” said study authors Barfin Seven, a psychological counselor at Sinop University, and Osman Hatun, an associate professor at Marmara University in Turkiye. “While attachment styles are known to influence these dynamics, we wanted to address a critical gap in how attachment vulnerabilities rooted in childhood lead to love addiction (ARR) in adulthood.”
To understand how attachment styles lead to this dependency, researchers examined two internal coping mechanisms. The first mechanism is psychological flexibility, a concept rooted in acceptance and mindfulness-based therapies. Psychological flexibility refers to the ability to remain open to difficult thoughts and feelings while acting in a way that is consistent with one’s personal values.
In a romantic context, this means tolerating relationship discomfort, such as arguments or anxious moments, without resorting to destructive or impulsive behavior. The second mechanism is emotion regulation, which involves the ability to identify, understand, and manage emotional responses. People who have difficulty regulating their emotions often have a hard time accepting negative emotions and have difficulty calming down.
The researchers proposed a specific order of explanation for unhealthy relationship dependence and predicted that a person’s attachment style influences their psychological flexibility, which in turn affects their ability to regulate their emotions. “We examined psychological flexibility and emotion regulation difficulties as continuous cognitive-emotional mediators to map this pathway,” the authors said. “Furthermore, we wanted to test the cross-cultural robustness of these models in a non-Western population (Turkier), which serves as a ‘cultural bridge’ between individualistic and collectivistic values and helps advance psychological research beyond purely queer samples.”
WEIRD refers to research populations that are Western, educated, industrialized, wealthy, and democratic. To explore these concepts in different cultural contexts, the scientists recruited 522 adults from Turkiye through online community groups and social media platforms. The ages of the participants ranged from 18 to 55, with an average age of approximately 29.
The group consisted of 359 women and 163 men with various educational backgrounds. At the time of the study, all participants were currently in a romantic relationship. Approximately two-thirds of the sample reported being in a relationship, and the remaining one-third reported being married.
Participants completed an online survey that included four specific psychological questionnaires. The researchers embedded attention checks within the survey to detect random or careless responses. To measure relationship blueprints, this study used a three-dimensional attachment style scale that scores a person’s propensity for patterns of security, anxiety, and avoidance.
Scientists measured psychological flexibility using the Psychological Flexibility Scale in Romantic Relationships. This survey asks participants to rate the extent to which they accept different emotions and evaluate issues within a particular relationship. To assess how well participants were able to manage their emotions, this study utilized the Emotion Regulation Difficulties Scale-8.
Finally, the researchers used the Addiction in Romantic Relationships Scale to measure compulsive relationship behaviors. This evaluation looks for signs of extreme devotion, withdrawal symptoms during separation, or obsession with your partner. Using a statistical method called sequentially mediated path analysis, they discovered a specific chain of psychological events that link attachment styles and relationship addiction.
Secure attachment was associated with higher levels of psychological flexibility. This increased flexibility, in turn, led to less difficulty regulating emotions. By improving their emotional regulation, securely attached people were found to have a significantly lower risk of developing addiction to romantic relationships.
An insecure attachment style creates a completely different psychological chain reaction. Anxious attachment is associated with reduced psychological flexibility, meaning that these people have a harder time tolerating difficult thoughts and emotions. This reduced flexibility is accompanied by difficulty managing and regulating negative emotions and increases the likelihood of experiencing relationship addiction.
Interestingly, researchers found no direct link between avoidant attachment style and relationship addiction. “We were particularly interested in finding that avoidant attachment was not significantly associated with love addiction,” the researchers explained. “Although this is an insecure attachment style, the discomfort with intimacy, emotional repression, and strong desire for independence that characterize avoidant individuals seem to naturally discourage the compulsive, preoccupied, dependence-based behaviors that characterize relationship addiction.”
The findings suggest that anxiously attached individuals may rely on their partner as an external tool to manage their distress, which can escalate to compulsive dependence. “The main takeaway is that love addiction is not simply ‘loving too much,’ but is often an addiction-based coping mechanism used to manage internal pain,” the authors write. “Our research shows that people with secure attachment foundations develop higher psychological flexibility and better emotional regulation, which naturally protects them from relationship addiction.”
“Conversely, people with insecure attachment tend to have less psychological flexibility and difficulty managing their emotions independently, making them more susceptible to relationship addiction,” the researchers added. “Ultimately, healthier relationships require working on your own psychological flexibility (being open to difficult thoughts and feelings and acting on your values) and emotional regulation, rather than relying solely on your partner as a calming tool for your external self.”
Attachment styles are formed early in life, but the specific skills needed to overcome relationship addiction can be learned and improved. “In our model, secure attachment and insecure attachment, along with the mediator, explained 20% and 23% of the variance in relationship addiction, respectively,” the authors explained. “Although adult attachment styles are relatively stable and difficult to change, their practical importance lies in the mediators of psychological flexibility and difficulty with emotion regulation.”
“These are flexible cognitive-emotional processes,” the researchers continued. “This means that clinical interventions such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and targeted emotion regulation training can be highly effective in helping people break free from compulsive relationship dynamics by strengthening these specific skills.”
The findings also support the idea that these emotional mechanisms function similarly across different populations around the world. “We believe it is important to test these models in non-Western contexts,” the authors state. “By showing that our sequential mediation model remains robust in Turkiye, our findings suggest that the cognitive-affective pathway from attachment anxiety to relationship addiction is a fundamental psychological process that transcends the boundaries of Western culture.”
A potential misunderstanding of this research is the assumption that deep love and passion are inherently problematic. “A common misconception we want to prevent is to pathologize intense passion and deep emotional investment in a relationship as an ‘addiction,'” the researchers warned. “While healthy commitment includes flexibility and mutual support, relationship addiction is characterized by loss of control, compulsive maintenance despite harm, and significant daily impairment.”
This study has certain limitations, including its reliance on a self-reported online survey. This study used a cross-sectional design. This means that all data was collected at a single point in time. “Of note, our study was cross-sectional, meaning the data were collected at a single time point,” the authors said. “Therefore, we cannot establish a direct causal relationship. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm the temporal ordering of these pathways.”
Additionally, the sample had a large number of women and consisted entirely of volunteers, so it may not be completely representative of the general population. Future research will aim to track these psychological changes over time to better understand how relationships evolve. “Going forward, we aim to conduct long-term, experimental studies to clarify the causality of these relationships,” the researchers said.
“We also hope to develop and test a brief, attachment-informed, skills-based prevention program that incorporates ACT-based tools and emotion regulation strategies to see if it can effectively reduce relationship dependence in community and educational settings,” the researchers concluded. “Additionally, we would like to move toward a dyadic research design that collects data from both partners to capture relationship-level dynamics.”
The study, “The Path from Attachment Style to Addiction in Romantic Relationships: The Mediating Role of Psychological Flexibility and Difficulties in Emotional Regulation,” was authored by Osman Hatun and Barfin Seven.
