When Love Feels Unsafe - Do I have a fear of abandonment?
Understanding the Fear of Abandonment: What It Is and How It Affects Us
Many of us fear being left alone or losing someone we deeply care about, but for individuals with a fear of abandonment, they can feel anxious about the other partner or friend leaving in a persistent and constant way.
What Is the Abandonment Schema?
The Abandonment/Instability Schema is the deep belief or expectation that the people you depend on will not be there for you in a consistent, reliable way. You might feel that your relationships are fragile, temporary, or destined to end — leading to chronic anxiety, insecurity, and intense emotional reactions.
This schema is not just about a fear of being alone; it's about the feeling of being emotionally unsafe in close relationships. Even in healthy, stable relationships, individuals with this schema may experience distressing thoughts like:
“They’re going to leave me.”
“I’m too much for them; they'll get tired of me.”
“People always abandon me eventually.”
Common Causes of the Abandonment Schema
This schema usually develops early in life. Some common contributing factors include:
Loss or separation in childhood: This may include divorce, death of a parent, or extended separations due to work, illness, or neglect.
Emotionally unavailable caregivers: When caregivers are inconsistent, withdrawn, or emotionally unpredictable, a child may develop deep anxiety about others leaving or being unreliable.
Parental mental illness or addiction: Children in these environments often experience unpredictability, instability, and emotional chaos.
Frequent changes in caregivers or homes: Such as foster care placements or boarding school transitions.
These early experiences shape core beliefs that the world and relationships are unsafe or unstable.
How and When the Schema Gets Triggered
The Abandonment Schema is often activated in adult relationships — particularly romantic ones — but it can also show up in friendships, family dynamics, and even at work. Common triggers include:
1. Partner Becoming Less Available
Example: Your partner becomes busy at work and doesn’t reply to texts as quickly as usual. Instead of viewing this as situational, your mind spirals into fear — “They’re pulling away... maybe they don’t love me anymore.”
2. Conflict in a Relationship
Example: You have a minor disagreement with a friend or partner, and immediately you feel panic, convinced that the relationship is over or that you're about to be rejected or abandoned.
3. Separation or Change
Example: Your child starts school, your partner goes on a short trip, or a close friend moves away. Even temporary distance can bring a sense of grief or dread, far greater than the situation seems to warrant.
4. Intimacy or Vulnerability
Example: You begin to feel close to someone emotionally, but instead of feeling safe, you become anxious — fearing that once they truly see you, they’ll leave.
How It Impacts Relationships
Living with the Abandonment Schema can lead to:
An attempt to control the other person to feel less anxious (e.g. reassurance seeking, reading texts, constantly investigating the other partner)
Clinginess or over-dependence in relationships
Intense jealousy
Difficulty trusting people’s intentions
Emotionally lashing out to push the other person
Emotional withdrawal as a form of self-protection
Sabotaging relationships before the other person has a chance to leave (e.g. cheating on partner or crossing boundaries)
Over time, the very behaviours meant to prevent abandonment (e.g., being overly controlling, anxious, or distant) can lead to relationship breakdown and reinforce people leaving.
Healing the Abandonment Schema
The good news is that schemas can be healed through therapy, especially attachment focused approaches such as Schema Therapy or Psychodynamic approaches.
Clients can begin to work through their difficult emotions through:
Building awareness: recognising and naming the fear and anxiety
Understanding the fear and its origins and triggers
Developing a healthier voice challenges the old narrative
Reduce behaviours that ruptures relationships
Learn to tolerate vulnerability and build secure connections
In therapy, we also explore unmet emotional needs from childhood and offer corrective emotional experiences that support long-term change.
