Abandonment Issues in Relationships: How Abandonment Enters Adult Relationship Dynamics

Abandonment issues in relationships can be a challenging reality. As you interact with others, you’re often not responding necessarily to what’s before you, but you’re bringing your trove of past life experiences into the moment. Those past experiences shape how you perceive the present and how you interact with others.

The life experiences we have imprint themselves on us in ways we don’t always discern clearly. A bad childhood experience with bees can lead to discomfort or a deep-seated fear of them or other buzzing insects. A tragedy attached to the holiday season can make that time of year bittersweet for many years to come. We are the sum of our many parts, including these experiences that shape us and how we live and move in God’s good world.

When considering your relationships, how much of the way you relate to others is shaped by your past? You can bring patterns of relating to others that were formed in past relationships into your present ones, making it hard for your loved ones to understand your responses to them. It may also happen that your old and settled patterns of relating to others can get disrupted when you have new experiences that challenge the old understanding.

It is important to be able to discern the abandonment issues you have, to know how they can affect you, and to find ways to overcome them.

Abandonment: A Painful Experience

When you build a relationship with someone, you are knitting your lives together. The delicate threads of trust built over time as you experience life together are what help you to know others and to feel known by them. These threads can be broken by an array of experiences that can leave you with deep-seated fears of loss, rejection, or abandonment.

Even when a relationship breaks down because the other person has died, that loss can result in feelings of abandonment. The relationship was here one day and then gone the next. The fear is that the same can happen in other relationships, and when a person carries that fear into other relationships, it can lead them to behave in ways that damage those relationships and undermine their own well-being.

Several experiences can bring about the fear of abandonment. These include when a person has experienced the trauma of neglect by a parent or caregiver. Having one’s needs ignored can lead to the feeling that no one cares. If a parent or caregiver dies or is otherwise physically absent, that can also lead to abandonment issues in future relationships.

When you’ve experienced loss or something that feels like rejection, you can carry that with you into other relationships. Some people become hesitant to trust easily or to allow themselves to be vulnerable toward others. Others may trust, but they do so with fear that loss is just around the corner, simply waiting to happen. This affects how someone shows up in their relationships.

Abandonment in Adulthood

It’s not just adverse past or childhood experiences that can trigger abandonment issues. There are things you can go through as an adult that can result in new patterns of relating to others. You may have grown up with healthy relationships, a robust support system that helped you feel secure, able to trust others, and be vulnerable, and you carry the assurance that if you communicate your needs clearly, they can be met. Things can, and do, change.

We are on a journey of maturing and becoming who the Lord desires us to be in Christ. Along the way, we can experience things that shake our foundations. Even if you don’t have abandonment issues stemming from childhood experiences, life can throw a curveball your way when you’re older, triggering abandonment issues that affect your relationships from that point on.

Several experiences can trigger abandonment issues in adulthood, even if none were present before. Some of these experiences include going through an unexpected or painful breakup or divorce. This can trigger fears that close bonds can be broken at any time. The same thing can occur if a person experiences a deep betrayal of trust, such as infidelity by a spouse or romantic partner.

Other experiences include death or separation from a loved one. These may not be the result of anyone’s deliberate actions, but they can still register as abandonment. Undergoing physical, emotional, or psychological trauma can also contribute to abandonment issues by disrupting one’s sense of safety in their world.

When a person is emotionally unavailable or neglectful, they may not pay attention to your needs, they could be vague about their commitment to you and the relationship, or they might pull away and not invest themselves in the relationship. If you’re in a relationship with someone and you experience emotional neglect or the other person is otherwise emotionally unavailable, that can also trigger fears of abandonment.

Going through these experiences can awaken fears of abandonment, rejection, or loss. It can make a person more attuned or sensitive to things that could be perceived as rejection or abandonment, and this, in turn, affects how they relate to others.

Abandonment Issues in Relationships: What to Look Out for

What would you look for to discern whether you or your partner has abandonment issues? There are several ways abandonment issues make themselves known in how people relate to others. They include some of the following:

Trust Issues Having difficulty trusting others due to a fear of betrayal or abandonment is one way abandonment issues manifest themselves. It may be hard to be vulnerable, become close to others, or make moves to know and be known deeply for fear of getting hurt. Struggling with trust and having a fear of intimacy are some significant ways abandonment issues show up.

Being Clingy Another way abandonment issues show up is when a person is clingy or needy. They may be excessively attached to others, and that can often result in demands for reassurance that everything is okay.

Fear of loss makes them hold on tightly to overcome what may happen. One unfortunate result of this is holding onto abusive relationships that one should let go of.

A person may also experience deep anxiety or panic when their partner is distant or otherwise unavailable.

Hypervigilance Fear of abandonment can make a person become sensitive to anything that might be a sign of abandonment or rejection. If a partner doesn’t text or call back, if they delay a response, if they can’t make it for an event, if they don’t react in an expected way this may lead to feeling like the relationship is over.

When a person is hypervigilant, they may also overreact to any perceived slights or signs of abandonment.

Self–sabotage If you’re afraid of getting hurt, one possible response is to try and get ahead of it. You can do this by either pushing your partner away so that you don’t get too close, or you can deliberately sabotage the relationship so that it doesn’t progress or deepen. Strategies like being unavailable or emotionally withdrawn, testing a partner’s loyalty, or picking fights to justify feelings of abandonment can come into play.

Difficulty With Boundaries A person with abandonment issues may struggle to have healthy boundaries with others. This may look like the inability to say “No” to others, leading to overextending themselves or being in unhealthy relationship situations. It may also manifest as being demanding of others or intruding into their personal space.

These are just some of the ways abandonment issues manifest, and they can cause significant strain on relationships. They can also make it hard to build a relationship, as that requires intimacy and trust. When a person is distant, demanding, or overly attached, it can hinder the growth of a healthy relationship. It is possible to work through these issues to nurture healthy relationships.

Working Through Abandonment Issues in Relationships

The underlying fears that feed abandonment issues can be addressed to start building healthier relationships with others. Intentionality is key, not only in nurturing self-awareness but also in taking steps toward growth and healing. Some steps to take as you work through abandonment issues include:

Be self-reflective Take the time to notice any patterns or triggers that initiate certain behaviors. Pay attention to how past experiences may have affected how you conduct yourself in current relationships.

Use healthy communication Learn how to communicate your needs and emotions effectively, without being manipulative or harming others in the process. It takes time to learn how to be assertive and yet gracious.

Nurture secure relationships Surround yourself with supportive, reliable people. It’s possible to rewire your brain and expectations of relationships by having many positive interactions with healthy and secure relationships.

Grow your emotional intelligence Your emotional intelligence is about being able to recognize your own and others’ emotions, the ability to regulate your emotions, and your expression of them. It’s possible to learn how to manage your relationship anxiety, using techniques like mindfulness or relaxation techniques to self-soothe.

Reframe negative thoughts Instead of letting your thoughts run amok, you can challenge negative and unhelpful self-talk and grow in your ability to reframe your fears of abandonment.

Seek help Find a Christian counselor who can help you identify the experiences that led to your fears of abandonment. With help, you can unpack the underlying causes, develop healthier coping strategies, and nurture greater security and confidence in your relationships.

To learn more about how a Christian counselor can help you address abandonment issues and to schedule an appointment, contact our office today.