People have issues. They might pull a masquerade to hide it, but there are chances that your partner might be having a hard time catching some shut eye time because of you. You could be having serious abandonment issues, which might be affecting your life in more ways than you can imagine. It is a broad spectrum used to depict a wide range of issues in which people shy away from committing to a relationship entirely due to a haunting fear of abandonment. It can certainly alienate you from your loved ones, making you believe that you are the creator of your catastrophe.
If you’d like to come out of your fear of abandonment, then start acknowledging it. We have come up with a step-wise guide that can help you deal with your abandonment issues, but before you take that journey, you first need to understand how disastrous your issues can be. Chances are that they might be affecting your love life in the most unimaginable ways. Your fear might be stopping you from settling down and have a long-lasting and thoughtful idea of love. You can’t let your fear control your entire life. Open your eyes and face your issues, because they already could be wreaking havoc in the following ways.
Suggested read: Why I have trust issues and how I deal with them
How abandonment issues affect relationships
1. Isolating yourself
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Your fear of abandonment can affect your love life in some of the most destructive ways. It will make you believe that you will never find someone to love. After getting your heart broken or suffering from a dreadful scenario in the past, you would start believing it. You would feel like a walking funeral of all those words that were never spoken by you. Your tongue would be your tombstone as you would push everyone away with it.
You will soon isolate yourself, without letting anyone else come in. Your heart would be sealed and not even love would be able to make you feel better. Soon, you will be isolated from the entire world. I know, it sounds too dark and depressing, but it might happen to you in the long run if you won’t overcome your fear.
2. Impulsive decisions
You are supposed to make some thoughtful decisions over the course of your relationship. Some of them could be really hard and you might have to sacrifice a thing or two for the one your love. When you have abandonment issues, you would take every decision hastily. Your impulsive decision-making habit might put you in a lot of trouble, making you regret it in the wrong run.
3. Having a fickle mind
Not only would you find it hard to take a decision, sticking to a certain thing would be a herculean task for you as well. You would keep thinking of the road not taken. The series of “what ifs” and “buts” will haunt you for days. Sometimes, you would feel confident and safe in someone’s company, but the next moment, you would feel suffocated. Your fear would cloud your judgment and you would lose your moral compass. You would stop knowing what you want in a relationship, which will lead to a dead end.
4. Emotional disconnection
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The more your partner would try to make an effort, the farther you would push them. There would be a part of you that would like to stay with them, but your fear will soon overtake your mind and soul. You would start getting emotionally disconnected from everyone.
Even if you try hard to reach the core and understand the cause of your fear, you would realize that you are a house on fire. You won’t like to burn the people around you and the fear of causing more collateral damage on the way will make you disconnect from everyone. Chances are that you would start getting disconnected from yourself, which would leave you in an utter state of limbo.
5. Overreaction
Even the most irrelevant things will start irritating you. You would feel frustrated all the time as you would have this giant black hole inside you, pulling all your energy into it. You would become a pessimist and will start overreacting to the most ordinary things. Soon, you would fall in a vicious circle and won’t find a way out.
6. Not accepting the truth
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Since your fear would be blindfolding you, you would only see the kind of things your fear wants you to see. You won’t be able to see the bigger picture and let your fear be your eyes. Your vision and sense of sensitivity would be compromised. You won’t accept your flaws or the harsh truth. Instead of acknowledging the good in others, you would only see their flaws. You would only look for imperfection and won’t look for anything beyond your partner’s flaws.
7. Fear of commitment
Needless to say, people suffering from abandonment issues would find it hard to settle. Every time your partner would take a step ahead in your relationship, you will get a cold foot. You would find it hard to be with them in the long run. Whenever you convince yourself that you are ready to take the next step, your fear would make you revisit your past. It will destroy your love life and will make you repeat the same pattern all over again.
8. Relationship hopping
Gradually, your fear of commitment will make you hop from one relationship to another. It will become a pattern – you will get attached to someone, but the moment they would take the relationship to another level, you would move ten steps back and end the relationship. You would somehow make yourself believe that it is the right thing to do, and would ignore your partner entirely. You would simply hop to another relationship, trying to “cure” yourself, when there would be nothing left in you to cure.
9. Lack of trust
Even when your partner would let you know how much they love you, you won’t believe it. Trust is the foundation of any relationship and without it you can’t really cherish your partner’s company. It won’t be possible for either one of you to have a long-lasting future.
Even the smallest of things would make you question your partner’s intentions. Your abandonment issues will make you create this whole world around you, which won’t be real. When you would keep questioning your partner over and over again, they would gradually give up on you, propagating your fear to another extent.
10. Fear of happiness
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Gradually, you would start believing that you are not meant to experience something as beautiful as love. As you would blame yourself for every wrong choice or a catastrophic event, you would start resisting happiness. Your fear would make you feel guilty, pushing you away from your chance of happiness.
Being isolated and devoid of love, you would start believing it. You would let your fear write your story that would end in nothing but darkness.
11. You would destroy others
Often, you would leave your partner without even saying a goodbye. You won’t get a closure, which would make it hard for you to commence another relationship as well. You would destroy others in the most unspeakable way and the guilt might stay with you for the years to come.
As you would think of all those good memories that you have spent with your partner, you would realize your mistake, but there would be nothing left to do. Your actions would leave them damaged, making it hard for them to trust others as well.
12. You would never accept yourself
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Filled with guilt and remorse, you will never seek redemption. You might forgive others easily for their behavior, but you won’t forgive yourself your whole life. You won’t accept who you are. Your abandonment issues would make you concentrate only on your imperfections.
When you can’t accept who you are, then hoping for someone else to love you is certainly impossible. You would stop seeking love, or even happiness. You will stop being who you are. Finally, your fear would overtake everything, until you become your fear. It would be your entity – the whole of it, and then there would be no coming back.
Suggested read: 7 powerful trust-building exercises for couples
If not dealt with wisely, abandonment issues can certainly change the entire course of your life. It is not just your love life or your relationships that would get affected by your fear, but it might also change you entirely. The change certainly won’t be good and you might end up regretting it for the rest of your life.
It is high time you understand the implications of not dealing with your fear of abandonment. You can’t go back in time and undo your mistake, but you have your tomorrow. You have your entire future waiting for you, and it wants you to cherish love and happiness. How long will it take for you to realize that the only person who is stopping you from your happiness is yourself? Learn how abandonment issues affect relationships and deal with it.
It is time you open your eyes and face yourself with your fears and your doubts. Take it one step at a time and if needed, seek some help. You deserve a long-lasting love, and with some dedication, you can get everything. You can have it all!
Featured image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
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