Another aspect of attachment is dvesha , which means avoidance or hatred. To Buddha, hatred was every bit as much an attachment as clinging. Only by giving those things which cause us pain permanence and substance do we give them the power to hurt us more. We wind up fearing, not that which can harm us, but our fears themselves. A third aspect of attachment is avidya , meaning ignorance.
Existential psychology has some similar concepts here, as well.
We are, you could say, whirlwinds who wish they were rocks. We try to turn our loved ones into things by demanding that they not change, or we try to change them into perfect partners, not realizing that a statue, though it may live forever, has no love to give us. We even cling to unhappy lives because change is too frightening. Finally, existential psychology also discusses its version of ignorance. They have such staying power because built in to them is a catch-22, a circular argument, that says that evidence or reasoning that threatens the belief system is, ipso facto, incorrect.