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Old Dec 28, 2005, 10:41 AM
parsifal parsifal is offline
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Member Since: Feb 2005
Posts: 77
Maybe I shouldn't have - maybe I"ve been thinking too much about this - but I took the Romantic Attachment Quiz on Dr. Grohol's site. My results said I'm "Intense and Preoccupied." While the initial part doesn't necessarily sound accurate, the second part definitely does:

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You have described yourself as preoccupied in your attachments. This suggests that you have more intense interpersonal relations than many people do, that in your romantic relations you sometimes feel really quite close, and at other times you feel almost estranged and cut-off. You probably have a hard time asserting yourself in a way that makes you feel you are really in control of your emotions. You may find that you often feel let down and as if you are giving much more than you get in your romances.

It's possible that your partners feel as if you don't really know who they are, even though you feel you are very intimate with them. You probably have a higher level of emotional arousal than most other people, both positive and negative, and this gets expressed in your romantic relationships. You may find it hard to be without a lover, and yet find that when you have a lover, the intensity puts a strain on the relationship.

Being preoccupied in romance is a matter of degree. A good lover thinks of the beloved often and holds the beloved in her or his thoughts. Mindfulness is a virtue and being mindful of one's lover is highly regarded and a tremendous asset in close relationships. But there's a difference between mindfulness and preoccupation. If you feel that perhaps you have been too preoccupied in love, it may be time for you to consider professional help. Being overly preoccupied in love is a condition that can often be successfully addressed in psychotherapy.

Remember that attachment styles exist in degrees, and in this test, the degree to which a style is true for you will make a difference in your interpretation. Everyone has to have some style or another, and the features of any one style only become maladaptive when they exist in the extreme.

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Especially the part about my partner not feeling like I know her. This all makes me feel very anxious I'm willing to work on this, but I don't want to lose my girlfriend. She's gone right now (and I'm feeling abandoned since I haven't heard from her, but she may just trying to be on her own -- she's volunteering in New Orleans), so I can't talk with her about it. What should I do until then? Do you have any other advice?