How to Handle Abandonment Trauma in Marriage

🎧 Listen to this article

Abandonment trauma is something that wounds us at a young age and often it takes much of our adult lives to understand its impact. As children, we are unable to intellectually process an event like a parent leaving us in a divorce, or a caretaker who was emotionally unavailable to us when we needed them. But just because we couldn’t process these events does not mean they did not affect us.

One day, a few years into a marriage, we might find ourselves feeling jealous, afraid, or uncertain about our spouse or the state of our marriage. Being a married adult does not mean that we are without the effects of trauma, and time does not heal all wounds. Making a lifelong commitment is often the very thing that causes the abandonment wound to twinge in pain.

Being emotionally vulnerable and intimate with someone always comes with a risk of hurting them or being hurt yourself. So how do we navigate abandonment issues in marriage? Is it possible to completely heal and move on, or do we simply have to cope for the rest of our married lives?

What is abandonment trauma?

Children have a great need for security and tend to trust their loved ones wholeheartedly. However, adult lives are often messy and unpredictable. When the person they love and trust the most is not present for them, either emotionally or literally, they begin to learn that they cannot trust everyone. A sense of abandonment may happen from many different experiences, and some of them might not appear to be that traumatic at the time they happen.

What inflicts the abandonment wound is a broken sense of security, and trust that ends up feeling misplaced.

Traumatic events like divorce, the death of a loved one, the loss of a support system such as what happens in the event of moving to a new place, or having caretakers who never fulfilled our need for affection, acceptance, or affirmation are all common sources of abandonment trauma.

Depending on the individual, even simple childhood experiences may cause a deep feeling of abandonment, like being lost in a supermarket or being forgotten at school on even one occasion. Our brains sometimes hold onto these experiences and replay them for reasons we can’t understand.

The way we are treated in childhood affects us as teens and adults, resulting in us feeling anxious, insecure, mistrusting, or overly involved in relationships as adults. The way we connect with people is called our attachment style, and it partially explains why we act the way we do in almost all of our adult relationships, even marriage. In this way, abandonment issues affect us throughout childhood, teenage years, and our adult lives.

Abandonment issues and attachment styles.

Attachment theory is a useful tool for getting to the heart of our intimacy issues. It is a complex and well-researched theory, but all we need to look at for this context is how the three main types work.

The three types of attachment styles are anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and secure attachment. While it is possible to have a secure attachment style and still occasionally battle a sense of abandonment, it is far more likely that abandonment trauma is seen in people with anxious or avoidant attachment styles.

People with an anxious attachment style are often afraid of being alone. They may come across as needy, clingy, or desperate. You might find them going from one long-term relationship to another, with very little time spent alone in between.

They need constant reassurance and might become emotional if they sense a distance creeping in or even a slight change in the relationship. The spouse with the anxious attachment style might be jealous, accusatory, or even emotionally manipulative when their abandonment trauma is triggered.

It is important to remember that we do not get to choose our attachment style. It is a result of the type of treatment we received from our caregivers as infants and young children. In the case of the anxious style, these were children whose caregivers gave mixed signals. One day they would be available, warm, and engaged, the next they were preoccupied, distant, and emotionally unavailable.

This type of treatment can easily instigate feelings of abandonment and over time cause trauma. The anxious spouse who receives this type of hot-and-cold treatment in a marriage is likely to become distressed as abandonment trauma kicks in.

There are many instances where a child had only their most basic needs met by their caregivers. They might have had a home to live in, clothes to wear, and food to eat, but they missed out on vital things like affection, praise, delight, and sufficient one-on-one time with their parents. This will likely result in them forming an avoidant attachment style.

Avoidant attachment means that they learn from a young age to dismiss or set aside their own needs to keep their loved ones close. They protect themselves from abandonment by not forming deep or meaningful connections that can be lost.

These children will grow into fiercely independent and self-sufficient adults. They might struggle to be vulnerable, to truthfully express their emotions, or even to share what they are thinking on any given topic.

The spouse who retreats, emotionally shuts down, or refuses to have a heart-to-heart conversation is likely afraid of the repercussions that will come from their honesty. They have subconsciously learned that their needs, wants, or opinions are not valuable and their default is to be alone and not dependent on others for anything.

How to handle abandonment trauma in marriage.

Trauma of any kind can affect us for decades of our lives. In marriage, we pledge to care for each other through everything, and we bear each other’s burdens. When abandonment trauma is triggered, it may cause imbalances and even shock to the marriage relationship.

We might find that our spouse is pulling away, that they are acting insecure and controlling, or simply unpredictable in their behavior. Maybe we are the ones with sensitivity to feelings of abandonment, and perhaps we find ourselves acting in ways that don’t quite make sense, almost like knee-jerk reactions.

Every marriage benefits from open dialogue and communication. A good place to start is by bringing the subject of abandonment trauma up with our spouses, whether we are the one who is experiencing it, or we suspect they are.

As someone’s spouse, we are usually pretty familiar with our partner’s background and childhood. We might have a good idea of where their fear or trauma stems from, but if not, this is a topic that you may start a conversation on. Giving space to our spouses to open up and talk about their childhood may be the beginning for them to process some important things.

Statistically, it is men who struggle most to express themselves and who might shut down when dealing with their emotions. This means that husbands with abandonment trauma will often struggle to broach subjects related to their wounded emotions, and we will need to know when to be patient and when to be firm with them.

Acknowledgment and understanding are the beginning of healing. Learning about each other’s pasts, and being honest with each other about our thoughts and feelings now might help us to understand the behavior that triggers the abandonment trauma within us.

This, of course, is just the start. There is a long process to healing from any childhood trauma, and that journey might be rocky and unpredictable. The benefit of working through these things in a marriage is that we are not alone in doing it.

It may be necessary for one spouse to get private counseling, or perhaps it would be beneficial to have some joint sessions. Time might not heal any wounds, but commitment, intentionality, and kindness go a long way to healing.

Where to start.

Perhaps you feel ready to see help from a counselor, either for yourself, on behalf of your spouse, or for both of you together. We can connect you with a professional counselor for either of you or a couples counselor if you would prefer. You may simply require a consultation to know what to do next, or this may be the beginning of healing for abandonment trauma. Either way, you are not alone and we are always available to help.