Social: what is a Fantasy Bond? + Attachment Styles

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The following article is directed towards romantic relationships, however I hope that this information can shed insight even if it is not pertinent to your life. Fantasy Bonds are rooted in the early parent-child relationship. Replies below include information on Attachment Styles (how we relate to people).

Many people think of fantasy bonds as real love and this might help you observe behaviors in other people as well as yourself, and take steps towards handing your pains and lack of forgiveness over to God that He might heal you, or forgiving and moving past and praying for others who may have hurt you with their fantasy bonds. Fantasy Bonds occur when a person is more in love with the idea of another person or the idea of closeness than the actual person and actual closeness.

Fantasy Bonds are the cause of a lot of relationships falling apart and are the cause of a lot of very shallow relationships.

This is only one of several articles on Fantasy Bonds at PsychAlive. This article was entitled How Do I Know If I'm in a Fantasy Bond? There are two other pages of article titles, page 1 and page 2.

However, if we can identify the patterns of behavior we act out in place of real acts of love, we can better understand whether we are in a fantasy bond with our partners. The following are some means of identifying these behaviors. Once we identify them, we can better understand the nature of our relationship: why did we choose who we chose and are they the highest level choice for us? We can then begin to examine the source of our defenses against intimacy, challenge destructive behaviors and enjoy a closer, more meaningful relationship.

What is a Fantasy Bond?

The fantasy bond exists when the reality of a deep, loving feeling is replaced by a more robotic form of going through the motions of an intimate relationship. Many factors including childhood experiences, the repeating of past patterns and a fear of being alone can drive people to a fantasy bond.

As children, one of the primary ways that we adapted during those times when we were hurting or lonely was to form an imagination that we were loved. In a sense, we fantasized that we were with someone who loved us and would never leave us. This adaptation, the fantasy bond, happens at such an early age that it is basically an unconscious process. Nonetheless, it is still operating in most of us even though we have grown up and are no longer suffering from the pains of childhood.

Today it shows up in our close relationships. When love between two people grows deeper, it becomes more frightening. In the beginning, we enjoy being in love but as the relationship becomes more intimate and more important to us, we start to feel vulnerable. Not only are we then far more susceptible to loss and hurt, but we are now being seen as truly lovable by someone else. This new identity might challenge an old self-image, which although we might not like, has become comfortable to us over the years. In an effort to preserve this identity and protect ourselves from potentially painful outcomes, people are often willing to sacrifice a meaningful relationship in favor of a more routine, less vulnerable existence. This is the point at which we often revert to the fantasy bond. In the place of our real feelings of love, we substitute a fantasy of being in love. We have gone from being vulnerable and relating with another person to being safely involved in an inward process that excludes anyone else.

So, how can you tell if you have a fantasy bond? It’s difficult because it is largely an unconscious process. But the fantasy bond brings about specific changes in a relationship, so you and your partner can be alert to those changes and identify them as symptoms that indicate you have formed a fantasy bond.

For one thing, symptoms of a fantasy bond often begin to appear following significant events that indicate the seriousness of a relationship. Living together, marriage and starting a family all signify a commitment that is an expression of two people’s love for each other. It is the depth of the love that is being expressed with these events that often causes us to retreat and form a fantasy bond. So even though you would expect to be thrilled by such wonderful changes in your life, this is a good time to be on the look out for signs of a fantasy bond.

Symptoms that indicate that form has replaced the substance of real relating and closeness in your relationship

In a fantasy bond, fantasy takes the place of reality. Props that support the fantasy of closeness take the place of real relating. The form of a relationship is substituted for the substance of a relationship. Look for ways that you are using props to support your fantasy bond. Look for ways that form has replaced the substance of real relating and closeness in your relationship.

Utilizing everyday routines as symbols of closeness

Everyday routines can easily be used as props to support your fantasy bond. Are there certain activities that you and your partner originally enjoyed that have become routines that now only symbolize closeness? Do you go to movies together the same evening every week? Do you always go to the same restaurant when you go out to dinner? Do you go to bed at the same time every night?…with the same TV show on?

Utilizing role-determined behaviors as props in a fantasy bond

Many couples turn to role-determined behaviors as symbols of closeness in their relationship. These behaviors can be as simple and ordinary as the man opening the door for the woman or the woman tidying up after the man. They can include the man handling the practical affairs and the woman dealing with the emotional issues. They can go on to involve the man being the breadwinner and the woman being the caretaker. Do any of your behaviors relate more to the role of being in love than to actual loving behavior? Do any of your mate’s behaviors relate more to a role of being in love than to the actual act of being in love?

Utilizing customs and conventional responses as substitutes for real closeness

Society has provided us with many opportunities that we can use to strengthen the form of a relationship rather than the substance. Some examples of these are Christmas, Hanukkah, birthdays and anniversaries. These are occasions when we are called upon to offer symbols of our love, regardless of how we are feeling in our relationship at the moment. Are you using any of these conventional occasions as symbols of a relationship in the place of expressing real closeness at those times that you feel it? Is your partner using any of these conventional occasions as symbols of a relationship in the place of expressing real closeness at those times that you feel it?

Symptoms that indicate you and your partner are relating as a unit in a ‘Fantasy Bond’

Since the fantasy bond gives you the illusion that you and your partner are one, look for indications that you are relating as a unit, not as separate individuals.

Loss of independence

When two people fall in love, they experience themselves and each other as separate individuals with distinct identities, independent ideas, unique interests and different friends. The individuality of your partner is probably what drew you to them in the first place. The more you surrender that separate identity, the more that feeling of appreciation will dissipate. Have you given up any important interests since becoming involved in your relationship? Have you given up any meaningful friendships since becoming involved in your relationship?

Speaking as one person

One of the most obvious signs that a couple has merged their identities is when they speak as a unit. Do you and your partner speak as “we”? Do you complete each other’s sentences? Do you speak for each other? When someone is addressing your partner, do you step in and answer?

Routinized lovemaking

When a passionate relationship becomes less exciting and the lovemaking becomes routine, most people say that this is just what happens over time. But it isn’t; what has happened is that the partners have taken each other for granted. When two people develop a fantasy bond and view each other as extensions of themselves, they kill the excitement between them. Has your lovemaking become less passionate and mechanical? Has your lovemaking become routine? At the same time, in the same place, involving the same actions?

Symptoms that indicate you and your partner are relating less

Since the fantasy bond takes the place of genuine relating with your partner, look for indications that you are relating less than before. Even if you are spending the same amount of time together, has the quality of the time changed? How much of that time is spent actually sharing life, enjoying each other’s company and feeling close?

Less eye contact

Eye contact is an important form of relating with another person. One of the most compelling signs that two people are in love is the amount of eye contact they make. Are you and your partner making less and less eye contact over time? Do you look into each other’s eyes when you are talking or do you just talk at each other?

Deterioration in communication

Almost everyone who has fallen in love reports: “When we first met we stayed up all night talking…we had so much to talk about.” Has your communication with your partner deteriorated into small talk, superficial chit-chat or practical conversations? Has it been a long time since you have taken the time to speak personally to each other?

Less affection and more impersonal lovemaking

When two people fall in love they can hardly keep their hands off each other. They love being affectionate. This shows up in the playfulness of their casual contact as well as in the tenderness and intimacy of their lovemaking. Are you and your partner less affectionate? Are you as intimate and tender in your lovemaking as you used to be?

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Attachment Styles from PsychAlive

Attachment refers the particular way in which you relate to other people. Your style of attachment was formed at the very beginning of your life, during your first two years. Once established, it is a style that stays with you and plays out today in how you relate in intimate relationships and in how you parent your children. Understanding your style of attachment is helpful because it offers you insight into how you felt and developed in your childhood. It also clarifies ways that you are emotionally limited as an adult and what you need to change to improve your close relationships and your relationship with your own children.

The attachment style you developed as a child based on your relationship with a parent or early caretaker doesn’t have to define your ways of relating to those you love in your adult life. If you come to know your attachment style, you can uncover ways you are defending yourself from getting close and being emotionally connected and work toward forming an “earned secure attachment.” - How Your Attachment Style Impacts Your Relationship on PsychAlive

What is your attachment style? - quiz.

Secure Personality

People who formed secure attachments in childhood have secure attachment patterns in adulthood. They have a strong sense of themselves and they desire close associations with others. They basically have a positive view of themselves, their partners and their relationships. Their lives are balanced: they are both secure in their independence and in their close relationships.

Dismissive Personality

Those who had avoidant attachments in childhood most likely have dismissive attachment patterns as adults. These people tend to be loners; they regard relationships and emotions as being relatively unimportant. They are cerebral and suppress their feelings. Their typical response to conflict and stressful situations is to avoid them by distancing themselves. These people’s lives are not balanced: they are inward and isolated, and emotionally removed from themselves and others.

Preoccupied Personality

Children who have an ambivalent/anxious attachment often grow up to have preoccupied attachment patterns. As adults, they are self-critical and insecure. They seek approval and reassurance from others, yet this never relieves their self-doubt. In their relationships, deep-seated feelings that they are going to be rejected make them worried and not trusting. This drives them to act clingy and overly dependent with their partner. These people’s lives are not balanced: their insecurity leaves them turned against themselves and emotionally desperate in their relationships.

Fearful-Avoidant Personality

People who grew up with disorganized attachments often develop fearful-avoidant patterns of attachment. Since, as children, they detached from their feelings during times of trauma, as adults, they continue to be somewhat detached from themselves. They desire relationships and are comfortable in them until they develop emotionally close. At this point, the feelings that were repressed in childhood begin to resurface and, with no awareness of them being from the past, they are experienced in the present. The person is no longer in life today but rather, is suddenly re-living an old trauma. These people’s lives are not balanced: they do not have a coherent sense of themselves nor do they have a clear connection with others.

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Early Attachment Patterns

Young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver in order for their social and emotional development to occur normally. Without this attachment, they will suffer serious psychological and social impairment. During the first two years, how the parents or caregivers respond to their infants establishes the types of patterns of attachment their children form. These patterns will go on to guide the child’s feelings, thoughts and expectations as an adult in future relationships.

Secure Attachment

Ideally, from the time infants are six months to two years of age, they form an emotional attachment to an adult who is attuned to them, that is, who is sensitive and responsive in their interactions with them. It is vital that this attachment figure remain a consistent caregiver throughout this period in a child’s life. During the second year, children begin to use the adult as a secure base from which to explore the world and become more independent. A child in this type of relationship is securely attached.

The attachment style you developed as a child based on your relationship with a parent or early caretaker doesn’t have to define your ways of relating to those you love in your adult life. If you come to know your attachment style, you can uncover ways you are defending yourself from getting close and being emotionally connected and work toward forming an “earned secure attachment.”

Avoidant Attachment

There are adults who are emotionally unavailable and, as a result, they are insensitive to and unaware of the needs of their children. They have little or no response when a child is hurting or distressed. These parents discourage crying and encourage independence. Often their children quickly develop into “little adults” who take care of themselves. These children pull away from needing anything from anyone else and are self-contained. They have formed an avoidant attachment with a misattuned parent.

Ambivalent/Anxious Attachment

Some adults are inconsistently attuned to their children. At times their responses are appropriate and nurturing but at other times they are intrusive and insensitive. Children with this kind of parenting are confused and insecure, not knowing what type of treatment to expect. They often feel suspicious and distrustful of their parent but at the same time they act clingy and desperate. These children have an ambivalent/anxious attachment with their unpredictable parent.

Disorganized Attachment

When a parent or caregiver is abusive to a child, the child experiences the physical and emotional cruelty and frightening behavior as being life-threatening. This child is caught in a terrible dilemma: her survival instincts are telling her to flee to safety but safety is the very person who is terrifying her. The attachment figure is the source of the child’s distress. In these situations, children typically disassociate from their selves. They detach from what is happening to them and what they are experiencing is blocked from their consciousness. Children in this conflicted state have disorganized attachments with their fearsome parental figures.

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How Your Attachment Style Impacts Your Relationships on PsychAlive

Secure Attachment – Securely attached adults tend to be more satisfied in their relationships. Children with a secure attachment see their parent as a secure base from which they can venture out and independently to explore the world. A secure adult has a similar relationship with their romantic partner, feeling secure and connected, while allowing themselves and their partner to move freely.

Secure adults offer support when their partner feels distressed. They also go to their partner for comfort when they themselves feel troubled. Their relationship tends to be honest, open and equal, with both people feeling independent, yet loving toward each other. Securely attached couples don’t tend to engage in what my father, psychologist Robert Firestone, describes as a “Fantasy Bond,” an illusion of connection that provides a false sense of safety. In a fantasy bond, a couple foregoes real acts of love for a more routine, emotionally cut-off form of relating.

Anxious Preoccupied Attachment – Unlike securely attached couples, people with an anxious attachment tend to be desperate to form a fantasy bond. Instead of feeling real love or trust toward their partner, they often feel emotional hunger. They’re frequently looking to their partner to rescue or complete them. Although they’re seeking a sense of safety and security by clinging to their partner, they take actions that push their partner away.

Even though anxiously attached individuals act desperate or insecure, more often than not, their behavior exasperates their own fears. When they feel unsure of their partner’s feelings and unsafe in their relationship, they often become clingy, demanding or possessive toward their partner. They may also interpret independent actions by their partner as affirmation of their fears. For example, if their partner starts socializing more with friends, they may think, “See? He doesn’t really love me. This means he is going to leave me. I was right not to trust him.”

Dismissive Avoidant Attachment – People with a dismissive avoidant attachment have the tendency to emotionally distance themselves from their partner. They may seek isolation and feel “pseudo-independent,” taking on the role of parenting themselves. They often come off as focused on themselves and may be overly attending to their creature comforts. Pseudo-independence is an illusion, as every human being needs connection. Nevertheless, people with a dismissive avoidant attachment tend to lead more inward lives, both denying the importance of loved ones and detaching easily from them. They are often psychologically defended and have the ability to shut down emotionally. Even in heated or emotional situations, they are able to turn off their feelings and not react. For example, if their partner is distressed and threatens to leave them, they would respond by saying, “I don’t care.”

Fearful Avoidant Attachment – A person with a fearful avoidant attachment lives in an ambivalent state of being afraid of being both too close to or too distant from others. They attempt to keep their feelings at bay but are unable to; they can’t just avoid their anxiety or run away from their feelings. Instead, they are overwhelmed by their reactions and often experience emotional storms. They tend to be mixed up or unpredictable in their moods. They see their relationships from the working model that you need to go towards others to get your needs met, but if you get close to others, they will hurt you. In other words, the person they want to go to for safety is the same person they are frightened to be close to. As a result, they have no organized strategy for getting their needs met by others.

As adults, these individuals tend to find themselves in rocky or dramatic relationships, with many highs and lows. They often have fears of being abandoned but also struggle with being intimate. They may cling to their partner when they feel rejected, then feel trapped when they are close. Oftentimes, the timing seems to be off between them and their partner. A person with fearful avoidant attachment may even wind up in an abusive relationship.

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The past is not in the past if we have not integrated the memory. The memory center of our brain includes Explicit and Implicit Memory. Explicit memory is the awareness of the facts and reality of an event as it happened in the past. However, implicit memory involves the activation of our sensations, feelings, perceptions, bodily actions, mental models at the time of the event (generalized frame of understanding experience), as well as our priming to react (nervous system ready to respond to similar experience). Implicit memory enters our nervous system without our even being aware of it. It is the first layer of memory processing, and is all we have until the age of 18 months. To integrate an implicit memory into the conscious, factual past of explicit memory requires an area of the limbic/emotional brain called the hippocampus.

Understanding Our Style of Relating When Triggered, read more...

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Research has shown that it is not necessarily how bad someone’s childhood was that impacts attachment between parent and child, but how much they’ve been able to make sense out of and feel the full pain of their past, creating a coherent narrative. The better able someone is to resolve trauma and conflict from their early lives, the better able they will be to form a secure attachment with their child. - PsychAlive, Disorganized Attachment

This shows one of the many dangers of denial and how denial is destructive in our own lives and the lives of those around us. People often deny that they underwent a traumatic event or that a specific person that they needed to take care of them failed in their duties to provide care, and therefore cannot integrate the event, leading to a downward spiral of disconnection.