Underlying causes of fear of abandonment
Fear of abandonment is a type of psychological fear that appears mostly in romantic relationships and can undermine the relationship, negatively affect its course, make it an unhealthy relationship, and drag even a good process into negativity.
The individual who thinks that he/she will be abandoned by his/her partner even though there are no grounds proving the fear they experience, always has sentences such as "I will definitely be abandoned one day", "I will be alone", "He/she will die and I will be alone", "He/she will find someone else and leave me" in the back of his/her mind during the day.
The fear of abandonment, which undermines even a healthy relationship, leads to unhappiness and overwhelms both the individual and the person with whom he/she is in a relationship, may have its roots in your childhood. If you had a childhood with what can be defined as a broken family, i.e. a childhood in which your parents were going through a divorce process, or if you experienced the loss of a parent at an early age, these situations may have been embedded in your current life as a fear of abandonment.
Moreover, if your parents worked in shifts or were away from home due to business trips, this may also have contributed to your fear. On the other hand, if you spent time away from your family during your childhood, either in a dormitory or in another city, this distance may have had a negative impact on you. An illness or hospitalization of a family member, frequent changes of home or city, moving, etc. can also cause fear of abandonment.
The person who experiences fear of loss thinks that relationships are not healthy and not attachable. Moreover, he/she suffers from love pangs even while living in the relationship. He/she thinks as if his/her partner will leave him/her at any moment. He/she thinks that he/she is abandoned even at the slightest separation. When the person calls his/her partner and cannot reach him/her, thoughts such as "He/she is definitely seeing someone else", "He/she is keeping me in the background", "He/she has definitely left me", "He/she has cooled off from me" come to mind. However, there may indeed be other reasons why the person cannot answer the phone. In such cases, the person experiencing fear of abandonment thinks only about the reasons related to him/herself.
In fact, the person believes that he/she will be abandoned so much that he/she unconsciously does his/her best to make this thought come true. It makes it easier to be abandoned by starting a fight even in the slightest separation. The person behaves selfishly and without empathy and accuses the other person of selfishness. If the other party has a healthy perspective, he/she may decide to end the relationship with words such as "We can't do it with you", "I can't stand it anymore", "It won't happen with you".
With this decision of the other party, the person thinks that he/she is right and loses faith in the relationship. This time, the person switches to self-consolation mode and tries to suppress their true feelings and turn them into feelings of pleasure. They see other people, send messages to their ex, shop excessively, binge eat, have casual romantic relationships, start substance abuse.
They think that if they don't do these behaviors, they won't be able to bear the pain. However, it is important to remember that the intensity of any emotion cannot last forever.
