Recent research published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides evidence that our early relationship blueprints shape our risk of developing an addiction to our romantic partners through two specific psychological processes. The findings suggest that the ability to remain psychologically flexible and regulate emotions serves as a bridge between a person’s attachment style and their likelihood of experiencing compulsive, unhealthy relationship dynamics.
People bring deep-seated emotional blueprints into their adult romantic relationships. These blueprints, known in psychology as attachment styles, develop during early childhood interactions with primary caregivers. The resulting attachment styles function as internal working models that guide a person’s expectations, emotional responses, and coping strategies when they become close to others.
A secure attachment style tends to emerge when caregivers are consistently responsive, leading to a sense of emotional safety and an ability to balance intimacy with independence. An anxious attachment style often stems from unpredictable or inconsistent caregiving. This pattern usually results in a persistent fear of abandonment, emotional volatility, and a constant need for reassurance from a partner.
An avoidant attachment style typically develops when caregivers are emotionally distant or rejecting. This prompts an individual to prioritize extreme self-reliance and avoid emotional closeness. While these styles guide how people navigate intimacy, they do not automatically dictate relationship success or failure.
Scientists recognize that some individuals develop a pattern known as addiction in romantic relationships. This condition involves an intense, overwhelming preoccupation with a partner that goes beyond typical romantic affection. The behavior mirrors elements of behavioral addictions, including experiencing extreme distress or withdrawal symptoms when separated from a partner.
“In romantic relationships, when the drive to maintain closeness becomes rigid and compulsive, it can shift toward boundary violations and relationship addiction, undermining well-being,” said study authors Berfin Seven, a psychological counselor at Sinop University, and Osman Hatun, an associate professor at Marmara University in Türkiye. “While attachment styles are known to influence these dynamics, we wanted to address a crucial gap: how these childhood-rooted attachment vulnerabilities translate into romantic relationship addiction (ARR) in adulthood.”
To understand how attachment styles might 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 a person’s capacity to stay open to difficult thoughts and feelings while acting in ways that align with their personal values.
In a romantic context, this means tolerating relationship discomfort, like an argument or a moment of uncertainty, without resorting to destructive or impulsive behaviors. The second mechanism is emotion regulation, which involves the ability to identify, understand, and manage emotional reactions. People who experience difficulties in emotion regulation often struggle to accept negative feelings and find it hard to calm themselves down.
The researchers proposed a specific sequence to explain unhealthy relationship dependencies, predicting that a person’s attachment style influences their psychological flexibility, which then affects their ability to regulate emotions. “We examined psychological flexibility and emotion regulation difficulties as sequential, cognitive-affective mediators to map this pathway,” the authors noted. “Additionally, we wanted to test the cross-cultural robustness of these models in a non-Western population (Türkiye), which acts as a ‘cultural bridge’ between individualistic and collectivist values, helping move psychology research beyond purely WEIRD samples.”
WEIRD refers to research populations that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. To explore these concepts in a different cultural context, the scientists recruited 522 adults from Türkiye through online community groups and social media platforms. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 55 years old, with an average age of about 29.
The group consisted of 359 females and 163 males from various educational backgrounds. At the time of the study, all participants were currently involved in a romantic relationship. About two-thirds of the sample reported being in a dating relationship, while the remaining one-third reported being married.
Participants completed an online survey containing four specific psychological questionnaires. The researchers embedded attention checks within the survey to catch random or careless responding. To measure relationship blueprints, the survey used the Three-Dimensional Attachment Style Scale, which scores a person’s tendencies toward secure, anxious, and avoidant patterns.
The scientists measured psychological flexibility using the Psychological Flexibility in Romantic Relationships Scale. This questionnaire asks participants to rate how well they accept different emotions and evaluate problems within their specific relationship. To assess how well participants managed their feelings, the study utilized the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-8.
Finally, the researchers used the Addiction in Romantic Relationships Scale to measure compulsive relational behaviors. This assessment looks for signs of extreme devotion, withdrawal symptoms during separation, and obsessive thoughts about the partner. Using a statistical technique called serial mediation path analysis, they found a specific chain of psychological events connecting attachment styles to relationship addiction.
Secure attachment was associated with higher levels of psychological flexibility. In turn, this increased flexibility was linked to fewer difficulties in regulating emotions. With better emotion regulation, securely attached individuals showed a significantly lower risk of developing an addiction to their romantic relationship.
An anxious attachment style set off a very different psychological chain reaction. Anxious attachment was linked to lower psychological flexibility, meaning these individuals struggled more to tolerate difficult thoughts and feelings. This lower flexibility was then associated with greater difficulties in managing and regulating negative emotions, increasing the likelihood of experiencing relationship addiction.
Interestingly, the researchers did not find a direct link between an avoidant attachment style and relationship addiction. “We were particularly interested to find that avoidant attachment was not significantly associated with romantic relationship addiction,” the researchers explained. “While it is an insecure attachment style, avoidant individuals’ typical discomfort with closeness, emotional suppression, and strong preference for self-reliance seem to naturally deter them from the compulsive, preoccupied, and dependency-based behaviors that characterize relationship addiction.”
The findings suggest that anxiously attached individuals might rely on their partner as an external tool to manage their own distress, which can escalate into a compulsive dependency. “The main takeaway is that romantic relationship addiction is not simply about ‘loving too much’: it is often a dependency-based coping mechanism used to manage internal distress,” the authors said. “Our study shows that individuals with a secure attachment base develop higher psychological flexibility and better emotional regulation, which naturally protects them from relationship addiction.”
“Conversely, those with anxious attachment are more vulnerable to relationship addiction because they tend to have lower psychological flexibility and greater difficulty managing their emotions independently,” they added. “Ultimately, building healthier relationships requires us to work on our own psychological flexibility (staying open to difficult thoughts/emotions and acting on our values) and emotional regulation, rather than relying solely on our partner as an external self-soothing tool.”
While attachment styles form early in life, the specific skills needed to overcome relationship addiction can be learned and improved. “In our models, secure and anxious attachment, alongside our mediators, explained 20% and 23% of the variance in romantic relationship addiction, respectively,” the authors explained. “While adult attachment styles are relatively stable and hard to change, the practical significance lies in our mediators: psychological flexibility and difficulties in emotion regulation.”
“These are malleable cognitive-affective 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 individuals break free from compulsive relationship dynamics by strengthening these specific skills.”
The findings also provide support for the idea that these emotional mechanisms operate similarly across different global populations. “We believe that testing these models in non-Western contexts is critical,” the authors said. “By showing that our serial mediation model remains robust in Türkiye, our findings suggest that the cognitive-affective pathways from attachment insecurity to relationship addiction are fundamental psychological processes that transcend Western cultural boundaries.”
A potential misunderstanding of the study is the assumption that deep love or passion is inherently problematic. “A common misinterpretation we would like to preempt is pathologizing intense passion or deep emotional investment in a relationship as an ‘addiction’,” the researchers warned. “Healthy devotion involves flexibility and mutual support, whereas relationship addiction is characterized by loss of control, compulsive maintenance despite harm, and significant daily impairment.”
The research does come with certain limitations, including its reliance on self-reported online surveys. The study uses a cross-sectional design, meaning all data was collected at a single point in time. “As a caveat, our study is cross-sectional, meaning the data was collected at a single point in time,” the authors noted. “Therefore, we cannot establish direct cause-and-effect relationships. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm the temporal order of these pathways.”
The sample was also heavily female and consisted entirely of volunteers, which might not represent the general population perfectly. Future research will aim to track these psychological changes over time to better establish how relationships evolve. “Moving forward, we aim to conduct longitudinal and experimental studies to clarify the causal directions of these relationships,” the researchers said.
“We also hope to develop and test brief, attachment-informed skills-based prevention programs, incorporating ACT-based tools and emotion regulation strategies, to see if they can effectively reduce relationship dependency in community and educational settings,” they concluded. “Additionally, we want to transition to dyadic research designs that collect data from both partners to capture relationship-level dynamics.”
The study, “The Pathway From Attachment Styles to Addiction in Romantic Relationships: The Mediating Roles of Psychological Flexibility and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation,” was authored by Osman Hatun and Berfin Seven.
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