Early Dating Worksheet (First 90 Days)
The useful decisions in dating get made in the first three months, and they get made by whoever you are at the time. If your pattern is anxious that is someone already attached to a person they barely know; if avoidant, someone about to find a reason at exactly the point things become real; if fearful-avoidant, both of those in rotation.
So this worksheet is designed to be filled in early, ideally before you meet anyone you like, and consulted later when you cannot think straight. It is not a compatibility test and it will not tell you whether to keep seeing someone. It is a record made by the calm version of you, for the version that arrives around week six.
Who this worksheet is for
You keep ending up in the same kind of situation and would like to notice it happening this time, rather than in hindsight.
Download the free PDF ↓Free, printable, no email required. Prints on A4 or Letter.
Write it before, use it during
Fill in section 1 while you are not seeing anyone, or at least before it gets interesting. Non-negotiables written about a specific person are not non-negotiables, they are an argument with yourself about whether this one counts.
The observation log is deliberately behavioural. Note what happened and when, not what you think it meant. Interpretation is the part that goes wrong under attachment activation, and a log of events survives a mood in a way a log of feelings does not.
Do not show anyone this. It is not a scorecard to present at the three-month mark and it is not evidence for a case. It is a private record so that your assessment in week twelve is not made entirely out of week twelve.
One page per person. Reusing a page across people quietly turns into a comparison exercise, which is a different and less useful activity.
The four sections
Sections 1 and 4 are written once. Sections 2 and 3 are per person. The PDF has three blank observation pages.
1. Non-negotiables, written cold
Five things, decided when nobody is in front of you.
Not preferences and not a wish list — five things whose absence would end it, written flatly. Most people find this harder than expected, and the difficulty is informative: if you cannot name five, you will accept whatever appears, and if all five are about their qualities rather than about how you are treated, the list will not protect you from anything. Include at least two that are about behaviour toward you rather than attributes of them.
Prompts
- ●Five non-negotiables, written today:
- ●Which two are about how I am treated rather than who they are?
- ●Which one have I abandoned before, and what was the reasoning at the time?
- ●What would I need to see to know a non-negotiable had been breached?
2. The observation log, weeks 1–12
Events with dates. Four lines a week, no more.
Once a week, four short lines: what they did that you liked, what they did that you did not, whether plans were made and kept, and how the week felt on a scale you keep consistent. That is it. Twelve weeks of this produces something no amount of thinking about it can — a record of behaviour over time, which is the only thing that distinguishes a person from an impression. Consistency, not intensity, is the variable to watch, and it is invisible without a log.
Prompts
- ●Week __: something they did that I liked:
- ●Something I did not like, stated as an event:
- ●Plans made and kept, made and changed, not made:
- ●How the week felt, 1–10, same scale each time:
3. Your pattern’s early-dating trap
The mistake you specifically are likely to make.
Anxious: attaching to potential, then reading inconsistency as a challenge rather than as information — the tell is that the intensity increases when they become less available. Avoidant: the third-month cooling, which arrives disguised as having noticed something about them; the tell is that the fault appeared at the same time as the closeness. Fearful-avoidant: the accelerate-then-vanish sequence, usually right after a good weekend. Secure: leaving too slowly out of fairness. Write down which one you are watching for and what it looked like last time.
Prompts
- ●My trap, in one sentence:
- ●What it looked like in the last two situations I was in:
- ●The earliest observable sign of it, from those examples:
- ●What I want to do differently at that sign, specifically:
4. The three-month checkpoint
Read the log before you answer anything.
At twelve weeks, read the log first and then answer four questions — in that order, because answering from memory retrieves a mood rather than a record. Are the non-negotiables intact? Is the pattern of behaviour consistent, regardless of how good the peaks were? Am I calmer than at week four or more vigilant? And the one people skip: what have I stopped doing since this started? Not liking the answers is a legitimate outcome, and so is deciding to continue with them written down.
Prompts
- ●Non-negotiables — intact, bent, or breached?
- ●Consistency across twelve weeks, from the log rather than from memory:
- ●Calmer or more vigilant than week 4?
- ●What have I stopped doing since this started?
5. What I am not going to do
Two lines that save the next three months.
Write the two behaviours you already know you are going to be tempted into — checking when they were last online, drafting the long clarifying message, cancelling on friends to stay free, going quiet to see whether they notice. Naming them in advance is not a promise; it converts them from things that happen into things you catch. Keep this page with the log so that finding yourself doing one of them means reaching for the sheet rather than for the phone.
Prompts
- ●Behaviour one I am not going to do:
- ●Behaviour two:
- ●What I will do instead when the urge shows up:
- ●Who I can send a message to that is not them:
What this cannot tell you
No worksheet identifies the right person, and a log of twelve weeks is twelve weeks — plenty of situations look consistent for a quarter and are not. What the log genuinely does is stop the retrospective rewrite in which everything was obviously fine or obviously doomed, and give your three-month self something that was not written by your six-week self.
It also cannot tell you their attachment style, and trying to work it out from twelve lines a week is a good way to spend the quarter analysing rather than dating. Watch consistency instead; it is observable, and it matters more.
Which trap page applies to you?
Section 3 is the part that does the work, and it needs you to have picked the right one.
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Worksheets for the other styles
- Anxious Attachment worksheet — You re-read messages looking for tone changes, feel panic when replies slow down, or find yourself doing things to get reassurance that you later wish you had not done.
- Avoidant Attachment worksheet — You need space when things get close, go quiet under conflict, find faults in partners as intimacy grows, or feel relief when plans get cancelled.
- Fearful-Avoidant Attachment worksheet — You crave closeness then feel trapped by it, end relationships you wanted, or feel like two different people depending on the week.
- Secure Attachment worksheet — You came out secure and want to know what to keep doing, or you are building earned security and want the target described in behaviour rather than adjectives.
Worksheets by situation
- The 8-week anxious attachment healing plan — You already know you have an anxious pattern, you have read the explanations, and what you are missing is an order of operations you can actually follow.
- Attachment triggers worksheet — You keep having the same fight, or you react strongly to things that seem small afterwards and want to know what specifically is firing.
- Attachment journal prompts — You want to write about your patterns but either end up spiralling or end up staring at a blank page wondering what you are supposed to say.
- Couples attachment worksheet — You are having the same argument repeatedly, in the same shape, and both of you can predict it from the first two sentences.
- Attachment styles handout for therapists — You are a therapist, counsellor, coach or student who wants a printable attachment handout for clients, or a client who would like the plain-language version to read between sessions.
- Healing avoidant attachment (8-week workbook) — You have read the explanations of avoidant attachment, recognised yourself, and still have no idea what to actually do on a Tuesday evening when your partner wants to talk.
- Healing fearful-avoidant attachment (workbook) — You want closeness intensely and then find it unbearable, sometimes within the same day, and you have stopped trusting your own read on what you want.
- Printable attachment style self-assessment — You want to work this out on paper rather than on a screen, or you are a practitioner who wants something printable to go through with a client.
- One-page attachment styles comparison chart — You keep re-reading four separate descriptions and losing track of which one you were comparing, or you want something a partner will actually look at.
- Deactivation plan (what to do while it is happening) — You shut down and cannot talk when it matters most, or you are living with someone who does and the silence is doing more damage than the argument did.
- No contact plan (a structured 30 days) — You have decided on a period of no contact and keep breaking it in small ways you then have to argue yourself out of feeling bad about.
- Breakup recovery plan (30 days, by pattern) — The relationship has ended and you are going over it constantly, or not going over it at all in a way that is starting to worry you.
- Pursue-withdraw cycle breaker — One of you chases the conversation and one of you needs it to stop, and you have both explained this to each other many times without anything changing.
- Boundaries worksheet (setting and holding them) — You have read about boundaries, agreed with all of it, and still cannot work out what to actually say on Thursday evening.
- Conflict repair worksheet (after an argument) — You resolve arguments by waiting until they stop mattering, and you have noticed the list of subjects you both avoid getting longer.
- Self-soothing plan (written before you need it) — You know what you are supposed to do when the panic arrives and you have never once done it in the moment.
- Family of origin timeline worksheet — You recognise your pattern and want to understand where it came from without turning it into a case against your parents.
- Weekly practice tracker (photocopy and reuse) — You have done the reading and some of the exercises and have no idea whether any of it is working.
- Setback plan (for the bad week after a good month) — You have made real progress before and lost it, and the losing is what stops you starting again.
- Between-session therapy homework sheets — Therapists and counsellors who want structured attachment homework, and clients who want to bring something concrete to the next session.
- Printable conversation cards (cut out and use) — You want to talk about how you each handle closeness and every attempt to start it has felt like opening a case.
- Needs inventory and non-negotiables — You know something is missing and everything you come up with sounds either too small to mention or too much to ask.
- Attachment at work worksheet — A short message from your manager can take your whole afternoon, or you handle everything alone until it is too late to ask.
- Parenting worksheet (your pattern, their security) — You have recognised your own attachment pattern and would rather not hand it on, and you are not sure which of your reactions are about them.
- Texting worksheet (the waiting, not their replies) — A delayed reply can take your evening, or you leave people waiting for days and have never really looked at why.
- Monthly relationship check-in (a repeatable ritual) — Things are broadly fine and you would like them to stay that way, or you have noticed that everything gets raised at once during arguments.
- Friendship worksheet (the non-romantic version) — Your friendships keep fading without anything happening, or you are always the one who arranges things and have started to resent it.
Or go back to all free attachment worksheets, including the one-page cheat sheet covering all four styles.
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