relationship attachment and detachment

It’s interesting and paradoxical that Sue Johnson’s work uses the word “attachment” to describe the emotional bond we crave, when I am also reading in Buddhist-inspired writing about the need to be free of attachments. The apparent contradiction may be mostly about semantics, or the need for deeper understanding of possibilities. The attachment I offer and need from my husband comes from a desire to live integrated with my bigger-than-self or no-self, the part of me that is interconnected with everything, integrated with this personality and body and history that is me. So deep attachment is about surrender and commitment and the intention to “be there” for the partner and feel secure that the partner will “hold me tight” when required. But it is also about deep trust in the web, a knowing confidence that my partner is as deeply embedded in the web as I am, and that the strength and beauty and love and pain of our relationship is part of the web that we all move along. So there is liberation in that realization, a meeting of fluid souls that change through time. And in that liberation, the attachment grows deeper and more joyful and less fearful and more conscious of how precious and unique our moments of connection are. Connection is perhaps another word for this kind of attachment, and yet I can see why “attachment” is a good word in couples’ therapy, with its associations of nurturing and security. And I completely surrender to the need for creating this kind of attachment on all levels in our relationship. But using the word “connection” to describe this kind of loving bond helps me separate it from the kind of attachment we’re also working to free ourselves from – the attachment that comes from needing another in order to prop up the ego, to feel illusory safety and permanence in a world that is full of suffering and change. I believe that if we can look at that kind of attachment – the beliefs about our relationship that are ego-inspired rather than arising from presence – and choose to let those attachments go, we can bring even more fearlessness and fervour into our experience.