How to cope with your abandonment issues so they don't ruin your love life.
And I got some experts to weigh in with the juicy bits.
Hey babe,
Shall we talk trauma today? Oh, the wounds we all have, amiright?
We’re all human beings, and we all have baggage. We are a spectacular clusterfuck of relationships, traumas, fears, passions, hopes, dreams, and coping mechanisms. However, we don’t need to allow our baggage to ruin our lives. We have more control over the healing process than we think.
Let’s get to the nuts and bolts of a particular kind of deep-seated anxiety many of us have: the fear of abandonment. The fear of abandonment can prove quite sinister when it comes to many aspects of life, but it wreaks particular havoc on our romantic and/or sexual partnerships.
It can really get into the bones of a romantic partnership because these relationships are where we have the most to lose, and they are where we are at our most vulnerable. When we are afraid of being left, we “may be overly controlling, distrustful, snooping, start fights easily, or detach easily. [We] may cheat or fear being cheated on. The versions are endless,” Cyndi Darnell, sex therapist and author of Sex When You Don’t Feel Like It: The Truth About Mismatched Libido and Rediscovering Desire, told me in an interview. “Sometimes our fears become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our destructive behavior [can] drive partners away.”
Now, with all that being said, abandonment issues do serve a purpose. They are a psychological response designed to protect you. Your brain and the nervous system simply have a hard time discerning which relationships and situations are safe and which are unsafe. These things don’t exist in a vacuum, folks. Even the most stressful of anxieties can have a kernel of necessity at their core.
The question then becomes: How do we deal with our abandonment issues so that they don’t damage our relationships?
What Abandonment Issues Are and Where They Come From
Abandonment issues are just what they sound like: They are a fear of being abandoned. They are “self-protective behaviors employed to prevent a person from feeling the painful emotions connected to real or feared abandonment (or rejection),” Kate Balestrieri, Psy.D., CSAT-S, a licensed psychologist and certified sex therapist told me over email.
As mentioned, abandonment issues are a protection mechanism that develops over time in order to protect you from difficult emotions. Because nobody actually wants to cope with emotions that make us feel shitty.
After speaking to Jordan Dixon, a clinical sex and relationship psychotherapist, she told me that these anxieties around abandonment stem from traumas in our past that centered around abandonment.
When we feel the emotions connected to those memories, they aren’t just memories—we actually relive the same emotions we had during that past event. Intimate partnership comes with stressors, and relationships are difficult. These inevitable discomforts in the present are something “close enough to what happened in the past that it can often trigger the past. There’s a superimposition of the past and the present,” she says. Our basic instincts take over, and our nervous system quite literally thinks if we’re abandoned, we might die.
Yep, this stuff is very deep.
How to Know if This Is Something You Struggle With
You might already know this is an issue for you—which could be why you decided to read this article. Or maybe you know something is wrong, but aren’t sure exactly what it is that is causing distress. Oftentimes, we know there is a problem but find we lack the insight to pick apart what that problem might be.
The thing is, pretty much everyone has abandonment issues. They are a normal part of being human. Darnell tells us, “We are wired for connection, and we need each other. Fearing being abandoned is a primal response, and we will all experience this in some way at various stages in our lives.”
There are very few people who haven’t been left and experienced abandonment in some way. It’s just that some cope better than others. This is not a value judgment, it’s a statement about human nature: We’re all built a little bit differently. We all have certain strengths and certain struggles.
How Abandonment Issues Manifest in Romantic Partnerships
Fear of abandonment can cause a lot of issues with partners because these relationships are the ones in which we have the most to lose. And, of course, this applies to sexual relationships as well, whether they include a romantic element or not. Intimacy creates a need for opening your heart, and when you’ve been hurt before, this can trigger panic.
While the wounds of abandonment can manifest in different ways, Balestrieri says they can often look like this for those who struggle: “They may self-abandon, people-please, or over-prioritize the needs of others while devaluing their own needs, to remain free of conflict or any tension that might evoke anger, disapproval, rejection, or any other end to the safety felt (or imagined) in the relationship. People with abandonment fears may be less discerning in their relationships, willing to tolerate a lot of behavior or mistreatment to avoid being or feeling alone.”
This may sound a bit confusing because it obviously is a massive amount of differing behaviors, but they have one thing in common: They mean we tend to self-sabotage both ourselves and our relationships to avoid getting hurt.
Working Through Abandonment Issues to Limit Damage to Relationships
The easiest way to work through issues surrounding abandonment is doing work on yourself to help manage your emotions and anxieties. They aren’t just going to go away by forcing them under the surface. This isn’t how healing works. We need to face the beast and learn the best ways to manage it.
Therapy is essential here. Where abandonment wounds run deep, we need the insight of a therapist to help us ground ourselves. “Emotional regulation takes time to learn—and finding support for this is crucial,” Darnell explains. You need to learn to “recognize when you are activated and remove yourself from the other person to stop yourself saying or doing things you [will] regret.”
Learning to recognize between the real and the perceived is a big part of this work. “There is a big difference between feeling uncomfortable and being harmed,” Darnell says. “Just because you are challenged emotionally doesn’t mean you are being harmed.”
It’s about figuring out if you’re actually being abandoned by the other person or if you feel like you’re being abandoned by the other person. Most of the time, it’s the latter. “When people are more mindful, they can more quickly get ahead of the fears that may arise in relationships, and more effectively regulate the big feelings that can accompany them,” Dixon adds.
Your Partner Can Help You With Your Healing Journey
Your partner is there to support you. That is what good partners do. But they are not responsible for your triggers. They can (and should) be a supportive base, but your reactions belong to you. Take responsibility for what is happening to you, and tell them when you are activated.
“Ask them to understand if you need a little time out, but return to the discussion later,” Darnell says. It’s important that you make them aware of what you’re experiencing, while also understanding that this is your partner, not your therapist.
Learning what each of you experiences as triggers can help you better understand and connect to each other. Dixon suggests reading books about attachment styles together, such as Wired for Love and We Do by Stan Tatkin, Psy.D., MFT. These “can help you navigate vulnerable conversations with a shared vocabulary and goal of strengthening your relationship,” Dixon says.
What’s more, working with a couples therapist can be super beneficial as well. Check out the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT, in the U.S.) or College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT, in the U.K.) directories to find a qualified couples therapist who can help you work through your issues as a united team.
The thing is, you might feel abandonment again for real. You might get hurt again. You might find yourself opening up to someone and being let down. This is life. Even the difficult breakups, the not-so-great relationships, and the less-than-ideal decisions we make are learning lessons. Each one is a building block to a greater sense of self-actualization.
We have to be brave enough to leap, learn, and heal in order to taste the intensity of a life well-lived.
This week’s mantras:
I can heal.
I can grow.
I deserve love.
I will love myself.
I love you. Have a great week!
XOXO Auntie Gigi
This newsletter originally appeared on TheBody.
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That’s it for me this week, pals. I love you. You are a beautiful unicorn baby and you are so strong and have the ability to heal. You’ve got this.
