“The worst and saddest feelings one can go through is not being lonely, but abandoned and forgotten by the one you would have never abandoned or forgotten.” Unknown
“I’ll be there for you when the rain starts to pour...” This is a line from the theme song of the show Friends. Isn’t that what friends are for? Our relationships should provide mutual support, love, help us grow. Perhaps most importantly to keep us afloat when a crisis washes over us. We expect this to be especially true of our romantic partners.
“Abandonment is our first fear. It is a primal fear-a fear universal to the human experience. As infants we lay screaming in our cribs, terrified that when our mothers left the room they were never coming back” (Susan Anderson C.S.W.). Feeling safe and loved are at the roots of our ability to move forward in life and grow to be the best we can be. This is so powerful that children in orphanages who are not receiving enough love, touch and nurturing will stop growing and sometimes even die.
We are clear on what constitutes physical abandonment; she doesn’t show up to watch us play hockey, he works late and doesn’t make it to your sisters for supper. There is also emotional abandonment and that is a little murkier to define. It is when our needs are not being met. It is when a plan we worked out together is not being followed. It can also be when our wants are not being met, given they are not unreasonable and we have shared them with our partner.
Over the course of a relationship, you are going to face a myriad of small stressors, but you are also likely to encounter major illness, trauma, and/or grief. Even things we might not see as a bad thing, like a job promotion, can change the dynamics in a relationship and cause tension. You need to be reasonably certain that the ups and downs you go through over a lifetime are things that you will face side by side.
We usually don’t question that security and support are in place until we find ourselves all alone, facing a pack of hungry wolves...but by then it’s too late. Before committing to someone, we should look for signs they will be there when you really need them. Maybe more importantly, signs that they won’t... Will they be standing beside you fighting the good fight when all hell breaks loose or will they be taking a nap?
Going through a crisis or tragedy can be eye opening. They say a crisis is where people show their true colours. It is hard to know if someone will be there for you when all you have experienced together is calm waters and smooth sailing. We need to feel safe and secure in our relationships, but sometimes this feeling is just an illusion. Look for small ways that you are being abandoned. Does he forget your birthday or claim he has not been told things when, in fact, he was not listening?
Carol Bruess Ph.D states, “According to surveys, some forty percent of people know the pain of being lonely in relationship...every lonely marriage has one thing in common: at least one spouse feels abandoned emotionally.”
Are they emotionally unavailable? Is that why they are abandoning you? People who are emotionally unavailable may have the best of intentions to commit to someone they love yet put up walls so that there is never any true emotionally intimacy. They may say and do the right things, but there is always some distance so you can never get really close to them.
When you feel abandoned in your relationship, it can lead down many pathways that aren’t healthy. Some will become clingy, some will stray, but whatever the way it manifests, there is a loss of stability. Rejection results in a lack of trust and eventually a loss of connection. I have mentioned the clue of failure before, the red flag people saw in early on that foretold that the relationship was doomed. Being abandoned in small ways may very well be such a sign – that maybe they really aren’t that into you and will run at the first sign of trouble or conflict. Perhaps they aren’t able to get really close to anyone because they unconsciously have put up such thick walls that nothing can penetrate.
Look to the family of your beloved for clues as to whether they will abandon you in small ways. Do they support each other? Do they support you? Have they had healthy relationships modelled? Were they abandoned as an infant and perhaps don’t understand what real connection is like? Were they in a committed relationship and were cheated on or dumped and have yet to heal?
On television shows, I see people under threat of attack walking through a dark forest side by side. What happens then is someone comes up behind them and gets the upper hand. In marriage, we envision walking off into the sunset side by side and living happily ever after. We would be far better walking through our life together back to back so we can see perils coming. As my daughter says, “Teamwork makes the dream work”.
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