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How to Tell If The Woman You’re Seeing Has an Avoidant, Codependent, or Anxious Attachment Dating Style

How to Tell If The Woman You’re Seeing Has an Avoidant, Codependent, or Anxious Attachment Dating Style

Quickly finding out a woman’s attachment style can save you a bunch of drama down the road.

There are three attachment styles you may want to avoid:

  • Avoidant
  • Codependent
  • Anxious

The attachment style of the person you want to date is a secure one.



The question we’ll be tackling today is, “how can you quickly identify a woman’s attachment style?

But first let’s dive into each attachment style.

Avoidant, Codependent, And Anxious Attachment Style Dating

Every attachment style is formed during one’s childhood.

As children are so impressionable and the brain is still incredibly malleable, it’s our childhood that plays the biggest role in determining our attachment style.

A child whose parents are always there for him or her, cheer them on, provide a safe child-rearing environment, value, and comfort them develop secure attachment styles.

Then, there’s the flip side; insecure attachment styles.

Children develop one of these unhealthy styles when they grow up in an environment that has produced trauma, abuse, or anxiety.

Luckily, most Americans have secure attachment styles (66%).

Anxious attachment style dating

What are these three insecure attachment styles?

Anxious Attachment Style

Anxious (also known as ambivalent) attachment style is characterized by low self-esteem, a strong fear of rejection, and clinginess.



Dating a woman with an anxious attachment style could mean dating someone that is overly clingy, texts you obsessively, and is excessively jealous.

Avoidant Attachment Style

An emotionally distant, intolerant, or fickle parent is likely to raise an avoidant child.

You may mistake someone with an avoidant style as one with a secure attachment style. That’s because at first they appear confident and independent. In reality, this is an act.

Avoidant people shy away from intimacy, struggle to build relationships, and often flee before things get serious.

Codependent Attachment Style

Codependent adults grew up around parents whose love wasn’t readily available. It was something one had to earn.

It’s for this reason codependent partners are people-pleasers that are always looking for validation in others.

It should be noted that one’s attachment style can be changed. Unhealthy attachment styles have the potential to change to healthy ones should these people be put themselves in an environment that fosters change.

Identifying Unhealthy Attachment Styles

Here are a few steps you can take to identify your romantic flame’s attachment style.

Make Your Preference Known

There’s a good chance you’re playing the numbers game and have signed up for a few dating apps. 

Should that be the case, put your preferences front and center.

Write that you’re looking for a woman with a “secure attachment style” in your bio.

This will polarize your audience so women who understand what this means will match with you more often. It also shows that you’re emotionally mature, thus making it more likely that you’ll match with someone equally as secure as yourself.



From there, you want to look at how she communicates.

Ask yourself these questions to determine what attachment style she has:

  • Does she ghost more than once after you’ve asked a question ending in a question mark?
  • Does she last-minute cancel without a good explanation?
  • If there’s a conflict of any kind is she gone immediately?

These are all signs of avoidant attachment.

Refusing To Deal With Conflict

Light disagreement and banter is something we as humans have to learn to deal with.

But not everyone is equally emotionally equipped to do so.

An example I saw of this recently in my coaching program was the reaction of a person after they told their romantic interest they were unvaccinated.

The response was something like “wow, how are they allowing you to play basketball without being vaccinated?”

The question was a curious one, not a judgmental one but the unvaccinated person sent an angry message back then unmatched and blocked without giving the other person any room to respond.

That’s a case of classic avoidant attachment.

You can bring this out in fledging relationships by broaching polarizing topics of conversation.

Avoidants just don’t want to deal with conflict and avoid it at all costs.



This doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong if a woman randomly unmatches and blocks you, though it can feel that way.

It’s just a sign that person can’t handle conflict.

Best accept their avoidant behavior now, let them fade into the abyss, and focus your sights on someone more promising.

Over Communication

There’s a classic conversation all men have.

It’s about when to call or text a woman after getting her phone number.

Those with an anxious attachment style don’t have this conversation.

They’re texting, calling, and messaging you on LinkedIn the morning after nabbing your number.

That’s because those with anxious attachment styles tend to communicate far too often.

They do so because they’re subconsciously seeking validation and are fearful that you’re not really interested in them anymore.

You see this a lot in DMs and messaging when you don’t respond back to someone fast enough for their liking, then they either get angry or outwardly anxious.

They might text or call many times in a row to get in touch with you.



They might act suspicious or jealous when you’re not readily available to chat.

When this happens, I recommend telling them “you’re scaring me” as this tends to snap them back into reality so they realize that their behavior is unacceptable.

With anxious attachment you’ll also see people falling in love too fast.

They might make grandiose statements about how perfect you are or how they’ve never felt this way before.

If things are moving too quickly, it’s likely a sign of anxious attachment or codependency. Could also be the love-bombing phase that shows up in narcissistic relationships.

Love-Bombing

Love-bombing is just the newest neologism in the ever-growing lexicon of contemporary dating.

It happens when one partner inundates the other with gestures of love. 

I’m talking delivering flowers to their work, candlelit dinners on a Tuesday, buying them that new iPhone — and you’ve only been dating for a couple of months.

Your new partner might just be nice or they may have a narcissistic/codependent personality.

Here are a few signs to look for.

  • Excessive flattery
  • Isolation from friends and family
  • Gifts, gifts, gifts
  • Control freak

There have always been people that turn up the heat too quickly. However, this may be trendier than ever as the pandemic has suppressed our dating lives for so long. Once we’re finally out of our bubbles it can become easy to inundate new flings with affection.

Either way, when things move too fast too soon, it’s a sign to pump the breaks and slow things down.

Look For Conflict

The best way to filter out both incompatibles and women with insecure attachment styles is to bring up polarizing topics.



Your goal here isn’t of course to make them agree with your point of view.

Rather it’s to swiftly identify their attachment style, nothing more.

As far as what questions to ask, I suppose you could try and spark a subtle conflict and see how she reacts.

Find a polarizing topic like mask usage or vaccines or politics and see if you disagree on something.

Pay close attention to her response and see if she can keep an open mind even though she may disagree.

If you think this is too combative perhaps you could ask a question like “Do you have any family members with totally different political views than you?” Then dig into whether or not she’s able to maintain the relationship or whether she just writes them off.

Pop The Question

Ask her…

“How long does it take you to fall in love.”

If she says she’s never been in love, she’s likely avoidant.

If she says that she falls in love at first sight, she has an anxious or codependent attachment style.

Either way alarm bells should be ringing.

WARNING! Take these comments and signs a grain of salt.

Noticing a flag with a reddish hue isn’t a cue to fake a family emergency and bounce.



Consider the context and tone of her gestures and comments. Only when you see a pattern should you run for the hills.

Codependent Issues

Codependency often pops up alongside substance-abuse disorders.

If she’s a recovering alcoholic or drug addict, it is more likely that she’ll be codependent as well.

You can also get a good idea of how she attaches to things if she has a pet.

If she can’t be away from her dog or cat, she’s likely codependent with them and will probably be the same in a relationship.

That said, codependency is fairly common in relationships with over 90% of Americans occasionally showing codependent tendencies.

While some tendencies are okay, overly codependent individuals generally struggle with substance abuse, are attracted to “projects,” have addictive personalities, and are emotionally unstable.

It doesn’t mean things won’t work out if you’re dating a codependent person.

You just need to work hard at maintaining your independence and having boundaries.

Here are a few other signs you’re dating someone with a codependent attachment style:

  • Resent boundaries
  • Bending over backward to appease a partner
  • Rarely expresses needs in a relationship
  • Acting helpless
  • Defends poor life choices of others

Practice Reading The Signs

Reading the signs is going to take practice.

Practice that you can get in two different ways.

Either in the field on a date and/or within the safe confines of a coaching program.

And after 10 years of helping men find love, we here at emlovz feel our coaching program is the best.



When you enroll in our Dating Decoded course you receive lifetime access to an online curriculum that teaches you all there is to know about attachment styles and how to identify them in a partner.

The course also includes lifetime membership to our:

  • 2x Weekly LIVE Coaching Calls (For 1-on-1 support)
  • Access to Our Private Community (where you can get coaching in between our weekly coaching calls)
  • Mock Dates

Our coaching program doesn’t merely teach you how to identify women with anxious, codependent, or avoidant attachment styles, but for many men it transforms their dating life — taking them from very single — to in a happy, healthy, and loving relationship, that lasts.

To learn if the program is right for you book a 1-on-1 introductory call today.

It’s during this call we’ll learn about your dating goals and determine if the program is a fit for you.

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