Your attachment style is only half the story

Take it your way

There's no single "right" way to take the quiz as a couple. All three are genuinely equal starting points — pick whichever suits you.

Illustrative example — not an actual quiz question

Two people bring two attachment profiles into a relationship

Two people with the same primary attachment-style label can still have quite different profiles. Someone may show predominantly anxious tendencies alongside meaningful secure tendencies. Another person may lean primarily avoidant while also showing characteristics associated with other patterns.

This is why the couples experience considers two profiles — not simply matching two labels.

Relationships are more complicated than two labels

Knowing that one partner leans anxious and another leans avoidant can be useful context. It doesn't tell you everything about the relationship.

Attachment tendencies exist at different strengths and can overlap with each other. Two anxious-avoidant couples can experience quite different dynamics, because the fuller profile behind each label is rarely identical.

Where attachment differences can show up

Knowing your own attachment style can help explain how you respond to closeness, uncertainty, conflict and reassurance. But relationships involve two nervous systems and two sets of expectations — how you respond to your partner may depend as much on how their patterns interact with yours as on your own tendencies alone.

A simple example of an attachment cycle

Here's one pattern that can emerge when an anxious tendency meets an avoidant one. It's one possible dynamic, not a description of every anxious or avoidant person.

Learn more about each side of this pattern:

Anxious attachment style  ·  Avoidant attachment style  ·  Anxious and avoidant attachment in relationships

Attachment styles don't tell you whether a relationship will succeed

Searches for "attachment style compatibility" are common, and understandably so. But attachment theory doesn't support treating it as a verdict:

• Anxious + avoidant does not mean "incompatible".
• Secure + secure does not guarantee a healthy relationship.
• Attachment tendencies are only one influence on a relationship — behaviour, communication, emotional regulation, values, circumstances and relationship history all matter too.
• Attachment patterns can also change over time, and can look different from one relationship to the next.

Understanding a pattern gives you more choice in how you respond to it. It isn't a compatibility score, and it isn't astrology.

How can different attachment styles interact?

Each pairing tends to interact a little differently. These guides look at what tends to happen between two specific attachment patterns — not just what each style means on its own.

See how every combination interacts

Or start with a single attachment style

Together or separately — the answers are still your own

Whether you complete the quiz beside each other or at different times, each set of answers belongs to the person who answered them.

Your answers are about you

Whichever way you take it, you each answer for yourself. Neither of you needs to guess or predict the other's attachment style — you're simply describing your own experience.

In side-by-side mode, you both see the questions on the same screen and each record your own set of answers — your responses aren't hidden from each other in that mode. If you complete it separately, you can each answer in your own time, and a side-by-side comparison only appears once your partner has agreed to share their result with you. For the full picture of how your data is handled, see our Privacy Policy.