Signs You or Your Partner Has A Pervasive Fear Of Abandonment
How can you tell if you or your partner is suffering from a fear of abandonment?
How do you know if your partner has a fear of abandonment and gets triggered by you when you do not respond to their call or forget something important to them? If your partner seems to be constantly starting fights with you to resolve minor conflicts or it seems to feel like they are controlling what you do, they could be protecting themselves from feelings of abandonment.
Constant fighting or complaints can be a protest or bid for attention as a frantic effort to avoid the feelings of separation anxiety. But it can have the opposite effect when a partner feels attacked or criticised and misreads the cue. If you pull away or separate from a partner, it could increase the sense of panic and fear that distresses the nervous system, causing them to become fixated on the relationship to seek reassurance to calm the nervous system.
Many who show signs of having a fear of abandonment are simply misunderstood for this reason, so they end up feeling more abandoned and act-out to try to draw their partner closer in ways that can further push them away, subconsciously.
In my clinic, I have observed that the profound fear of abandonment can significantly impair interpersonal relationships and psychological functioning. When individuals experience intense anxiety about being rejected or left by significant others, they may engage in behaviors that hinder the very relationships they are desperately seeking to preserve.
If a child feels loved only when they get into a fight to be heard, then fighting or getting upset can become a learned behavioral pattern in adult relationships to deal with the fear. It is based on a survival need to be loved, and so it is easy to adapt by avoiding the fear of abandonment and become wired to protect themselves this way.
Abandonment fears typically originate in early attachment experiences, as conceptualized by John Bowlby’s attachment theory. Bowlby identified “protest behaviors” in children experiencing separation anxiety from caregivers—emotional responses such as meltdowns become ways to elicit attention and care. These early patterns often persist into adulthood as part of insecure attachment.
Individuals lacking what psychoanalyst James Masterson termed “object constancy” may experience what he described as “abandonment depression”—characterized by panic, anxiety, emptiness, and profound distress when faced with perceived rejection or separation.
If you notice these 20 signs it means you or your partner struggles with a fear of abandonment
Monitoring a partner - The constant need to check up on a partner when physically separated and the need to keep tabs on their behaviour ( for no reason).
Reassurance-seeking behaviors - Persistent need for validation and affirmation
Relationship Instability - A pattern of intensity in the relatinship which either burns out or ends abruptly, while quickly moving on to the next person.
Overreacting to situations - Tendency to read into things that are not there or perceive minor conflicts as the end of a relationship
Constant need to fix things - Excessive efforts to resolve even minor disagreements and finding things wrong to fix
Preoccupied with the relationship or being clingy - Intense emotional investment in a partner, not being able to handle space and getting hooked too soon.
Coercive control - Threatening to take the kids or making a partner feel unable to leave financially as an attempt to prevent them leaving
Overreacting to situations - Overreacting to perceived abandonment without any real evidence
Protest behaviors - Emotional responses to draw a person closer to prevent separation
Testing the relationship - Testing a partner to prove their love, such as threatening to leave to put a partner through hoops to see how much effort they will put in the relationship.
Self-sabotaging relationship patterns - Preemptively ending relationships to avoid being rejected. Destroying a relationship to avoid abandonment
Holding onto dysfunctional relationships - Difficulty setting boundaries or ending abusive relationships. Staying in a relationship to avoid feelings of abandonment. Holding onto an ex by ruminating about the relationship
People Pleasing - Sacrificing authentic self-expression to maintain attachment. Pleasing others to avoid a person leaving
Feelings of insecurity or mistrust - Chronic sense of being unworthy or feelings of being replaced
Guilt trips - Maybe it feels there will be consequences or punishment if you don’t do what your partner wants.
Separation anxiety - Feelings emptiness, anxiety or distress when away from a person during brief, normal separations.
Paranoia and Jealousy - Obsessional and intrusive thoughts of a partner finding someone else or cheating without no evidence
Anticipatory rejection expectations - Looking for possible signs of rejection or finding potential things that might go wrong as proof that a partner will leave
Codependency - Living in each others prockets and needing constant contact all the time, unable to function without the other.
Limerence - Being infatuated with someone who is unavaliable to avoid the fear of being rejected from having an actual relationship.
Neurobiological Underpinnings of Abandonment Wounds - When any perceived sign of abandonment in the relationship activates the fear centre
Research shows that abandonment fears activate the brain’s threat-response system, particularly the amygdala, triggering hypervigilance for potential rejection cues. This neurological hypersensitivity can manifest as cognitive distortions, emotional dysregulation, and maladaptive interpersonal behaviors.
When activated, these fear circuits can override rational cognitive processes, explaining why intellectually understanding one’s abandonment issues often proves insufficient for behavioral change without targeted therapeutic intervention.
Evidence-Based Treatment Approaches in Dealing with Abandonment Symptoms
Psychodynamic Interventions
Psychodynamic therapy addresses unconscious patterns stemming from early attachment experiences. By exploring developmental origins of abandonment anxiety, clients can gain insight into current relationship dynamics and begin the process of emotional restructuring. The Masterson approach works with those who are separation senstive or rejection sensitive including those with anxious attachment, borderline and those are avoidant.
Cognitive-Behavioral Strategies
Cognitive-behavioral techniques help clients identify and challenge catastrophic thoughts about abandonment. Through systematic exposure to abandonment-related fears and cognitive restructuring, individuals can develop more adaptive thought patterns and behavioral responses.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
For clients with severe abandonment fears, particularly those with borderline personality disorder, DBT offers specialized skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness that directly address abandonment sensitivity.
Schema Therapy
This integrative approach targets early maladaptive schemas, including abandonment schemas, through cognitive, experiential, and behavioral techniques. Schema therapy helps clients recognize how early life experiences shape current perceptions and behaviors.
There are many platforms to find a therapist to deal with abandonment issues
Breaking the Cycle of Abandonment
Abandonment issues, while deeply rooted in early attachment experiences, respond well to targeted therapeutic interventions. By recognizing the signs of abandonment anxiety and implementing evidence-based treatment strategies, mental health professionals can help clients develop more secure attachment patterns and healthier relationships.
When clients learn to manage abandonment fears effectively, they can break self-defeating relationship cycles and develop the capacity for secure, fulfilling connections characterized by interdependence rather than anxious attachment. In my therapy practice, I help clients to work through abandonment feelings so they can feel more secure in their relationships and feel secure in their sense of self. So they learn how to deal with their emotional triggers to calm their nervous system while being able to respond in a way that gets their need for attachment met. I also work with partners and help them connect in ways that do not ignite the abandonment wound but learn how to decode it and respond in ways that bridge the connection. This can mean helping an avoidant partner access their own feelings so they can understand the anxiously attached partner.
