h2>Dating : ‘Love Maps’ Are a Gamechanger When You Have an Anxious Attachment Style
How to develops maps of your partner’s inner world to ease your anxiety.
When my therapist told me that my worries and anxieties about my romantic relationship were stemming from my anxious preoccupied attachment style, I was surprised, to say the least. At that moment, I felt a conflicting mix of shock, discomfort, and relief.
Shock because I was not prepared for that. Even though I am studying psychology and try to stay away from self-diagnosis, I assumed that I had a possible personality disorder that was leading to an intense fear of rejection.
Discomfort because I was given the name of the issue that was persistently destroying my closed relationships. I was not sure if I was ready to handle the truth yet.
Relief because I had a name for the monster. Finally, all the worries, fears, and desperation in relationships made sense.
Since that day, I have read extensively about the anxious preoccupied attachment style. In my efforts to ease my anxiety and maintain a healthy, and functioning relationship, I have practiced several strategies that have actually worked very well for me in relationships, both romantic and platonic.
Recently, I came across the concept of ‘Love Maps’ as given by Dr. John Mordecai Gottman, an American psychologist who has written the popular book, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.”
Gottman describes Love Maps as “that part of your brain where you store all the relevant information about your partner’s life.” In simpler words, it refers to asking and remembering all the important aspects, both small and big of your partner’s life journey.
Having Love Maps mean that you are aware of your partner’s dreams, quirks, pet peeves, formative events and the same is true for them.
Love Maps are considered to the very base of the Sound Relationship House. Before you move onto the higher levels of creating shared meaning and learning to turn towards each other, there is a need for a solid foundation in the form of Love Maps to hold the relationship firmly.
Dr. Gottman writes in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work “if you don’t start off with a deep knowledge of each other, it’s easy for your marriage to lose its way when your lives shift so suddenly and dramatically.”
