Angry Attachment
The concept of angry attachment is built on top of the concept of insecure attachment. Insecure attachment causes most actions toward a partner to be strongly influenced by the fear of abandonment. Insecure attachment has two subtypes 1) avoidant or dismissing and 2) anxious or ambivalent.
Angry attachment seems to include a strong increase in the insecurity aspects of attachment whether the underlying subtype is avoidant or anxious. It also includes great anxiety over being abandoned for a different sexual interest. The origin of angry attachment may be inconsistency by the mother, who at times is very loving or even indulgent or inappropriately close, and at times is uninterested or rejecting. It is very possible that this inconsistency can be caused by a women having to deal with abuse from her partner.
A researcher Donald Dutton felt that angry attachment was an aspect of almost all domestic violence. Signs of angry attachment in men are:
- Strong distrust of female sexuality. ‘Jokes’ belittling women’s sexuality.
- Use of the four words, “wh*re, sl*t, b*tch, c*nt”, usually all together, especially during or just before a physical assault
- Extreme and, to outsiders, illogical jealousy. Attempts to keep the partner from socializing with other men.
- Increase in violence and conflict when the partner is pregnant or taking care of an infant. Most women that are eventually killed by their partner are killed either when they are ending the relationship or pregnant.
- Doubting that a women’s child is his even with little reason to doubt.
- Not accepting that a partner has ended or can end the relationship, and so considering her seeing other men as “cheating.”
- Cheating himself on the female partner.
Angry attachment is seen almost uniformly in primary aggressors with either a cyclical or over-controlled style. It is also not uncommonly present with psychopathically-styled primary aggressors.