How Race and Attachment Impact Relationships

Racial trauma shapes attachment styles too. This is something that you never hear brought up in the dialogue about attachment styles. For many BIPOC couples, the cause of an anxious or avoidant attachment style isn’t just childhood or romantic relationships. They are also formed through generational trauma, systemic injustice, and navigating a world where safety isn’t guaranteed.

How Does Racial Trauma Shape Attachment?

Attachment styles are formed at a young age through interactions with your parents and/or caregivers. Secure and healthy attachment is formed through safe, consistent, and emotionally attuned interactions with caregivers. But safety in childhood is not always guaranteed, especially if you’ve experienced racism, colonialism, or intergenerational trauma.

If you grew up watching your parents work overtime, suppressing their emotions, or implying you need to ’stay strong’ or ‘toughen up’ to survive, this may have resulted in avoidance attachment style or tendencies to act as emotional protection. Or you experienced inconsistent emotional support from caregivers because of the difficulties they faced like immigration trauma, police surveillance, or systemic stress. Anxious attachment can be the outcome from instability.

If you learned growing up that reducing parts of your identity or code-switching allowed you to fit in with your peers, you might find yourself struggling to feel accepted and understood in relationships. This can result in a chronic fear of rejection, or a stone wall formed between you and those around you.

These responses don’t mean you’re broken, it's just how you learned to adapt. In our virtual couples therapy sessions, we often see how these survival strategies shape how people show up in their relationships. While it served you growing up when it needed to, now you might find it's keeping you from feeling safe and secure in your current relationship.

The Intersection of Cultural Norms and Emotional Needs

For many who grew up in BIPOC communities you may have found yourself prioritizing family reputation and suppressing emotions. This is influenced by cultural norms and while it may have prevented short term conflict, there is an internal conflict that's been building.

This can cause an excess of issues and difficulties in romantic relationships, like being able to connect vulnerably with your partner. Maybe one partner is “too emotional” while the other has “shut down”, conflict feels threatening or emotional needs are suppressed.

A lot of times couples come in claiming to have “communication problems” when at the heart of it, it's a clash between attachment wounds and survival strategies. These are formed through real experiences with racialized stress.

Healing in Culturally Attuned Space

Attachment wounds can heal, and therapy that recognizes and respects your cultural identity is the best place to begin healing.

Throughout the process you can expect to unpack your racial identity, and experiences of racialized trauma. These experiences tend to manifest in emotional habits and relationship dynamics in unhealthy ways. With the help of our experienced psychotherapists, we can affirm and validate your identity and work towards better communication and safer love.

We also help with recognizing how survival strategies appear in relationships, learning how to express needs without feeling guilt or shame, and rebuilding trust. While the journey ahead isn’t easy, we can help simplify it by offering virtual couples therapy so your culturally attuned space can be cultivated where you feel most comfortable.

Building Security from the Comfort of Your Home

Secure relationships or having a secure attachment style isn’t reserved for people with perfect childhoods or ideal circumstances. They’re built with time and effort, in spaces that allow you to be seen. Being safe and supported allows you to be fully yourself.

These spaces can be built for you and your parents with the help of experienced psychotherapists, so you don’t have to heal these attachment wounds all on your own.

At Healing Voices Psychotherapy, we offer culturally attuned therapy for BIPOC couples. Please reach out to us to book your first free 15-minute consultation to begin your journey of healing.