Adverse Childhood Experiences and Abandonment Issues in Relationships

Childhood is meant to be a time of exploration, growth, and fun as a child finds their way in the world. Unfortunately, that isn’t every child’s story. Children struggle and go through tough hardships such as abandonment issues in relationships just like adults. Those experiences can affect their development, how they form bonds, and how they relate to other people.

Abandonment Issues in Relationships

The term “attachment style” refers to how a person is able to form emotional bonds with others, and the kinds of expectations they carry with them into those relationships. There are four main attachment styles, which are: secure, avoidant-dismissive, anxious or ambivalent, and disorganized attachment styles. These styles describe the ways people interact with others and behave in relationships. Valencia Christian Counseling can help individuals explore their attachment styles and develop healthier relationship patterns.

When a person experiences consistent care, they are more confident that their needs will be met. This will typically lead to a secure form of attachment. This type of attachment leads to expectations that others will be responsive to their needs, and they can feel safe with others. If this sense of confidence is forged during a critical development period such as infancy, childhood, and adolescence, it will have a lasting impact.

Abandonment issues vary, but they all typically stem from not having one’s needs met consistently or being subjected to unhealthy patterns of behavior during the formative years. These may cause a person to be wary of others, to struggle with closeness with loved ones, to be unwilling to be vulnerable in sharing thoughts and feelings with others, and preemptively sabotage relationships to avoid being abandoned.

A person with an insecure attachment style may have a hard time trusting their partner, and they may be clingy and require constant reassurance that they are loved. Their fear of being abandoned or losing a loved one may result in staying in a toxic relationship when it’s wiser to leave it.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Relationships

A person’s early life experiences can have a profound impact on their ability to form lasting, vulnerable, intimate relationships with others. When a person has adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), that can lead to insecure attachment, difficulties in forming healthy relationships with others, low self-worth, and feelings of abandonment. Examples of ACEs include:

Emotional neglect

This describes when a child is ignored, dismissed, or does not receive validation from a parent or caregiver.

Physical neglect

When deprived of basic needs like food, shelter, or safety, or having these needs met only sporadically, a person can develop abandonment issues.

Parental substance abuse or mental illness

Growing up with a parent who struggles with addiction or mental illness can create a feeling of abandonment. Often the child has to take on responsibility as a caregiver to the parent.

Divorce or separation

Experiencing parental separation or divorce can also contribute to feelings of abandonment.

Incarceration of a parent

Having a parent in prison or jail, which makes them effectively absent, can lead to feelings of abandonment.

Domestic violence and abuse

Witnessing or experiencing physical or emotional abuse can also lead to insecure attachment, as it undermines one’s sense of safety.

Abandonment by a parent

A child being left alone by a parent for stretches of time without support might mean certain needs such as affection and care are not being met effectively. The abandonment may also be in the form of a parent leaving and never coming back.

Foster care or adoption

Being placed in foster care or getting adopted may contribute to a sense of being rejected by the birth parent or primary caregiver.

Facing bullying or rejection by peers

Experiencing chronic bullying or social rejection can undermine a child’s sense of worth, and lead to feelings of abandonment.

Chronic illness or disability

Living with a chronic illness or disability when you don’t have adequate support can lead to a lack of connection and sense of isolation from others.

Loss of a loved one

Experiencing the death of a parent, sibling, or other close family member can also leave a child feeling abandoned.

Overcoming Abandonment Issues in Relationships

Abandonment issues affect the individual and their relationships in many ways. The effects of these ACEs can be overcome, and it’s possible to heal and develop resilience for healthier relationships. When you’ve recognized and acknowledged what’s happening, you must speak to your partner to let them know what you’re struggling with. Communication is key as you seek to understand how abandonment issues affect you and your relationships.

With help from a counselor, you can explore the root causes of your fear, learning along the way how to manage your anxieties and fears. You can learn to discern the patterns in your life, learning new patterns as you accept and heal from past trauma.

The journey toward healing requires you to feel and extend compassion toward yourself so that you are not judging or shaming yourself, but rather accepting yourself and building your self-esteem.

If you fear abandonment, and if it’s affected your relationships, don’t hesitate to contact our offices today. Christian Counselors at Valencia Christian Counseling will set up an appointment with a counselor who will help you feel less anxious at the thought of losing a loved one. They will journey with you to form healthier attachments and communication in your relationships.