“I’m scared that you are going to leave me”

Something you are more likely to hear an anxious partner say.

Or if you believed the incessant media conditioning, you might even think this is the domain of woman.

The fear of being left.
Abandonment…

i.e. Insecurity

However, this fear runs deep in anyone and everyone who exhibits any degree of insecure attachment (not just the anxious ones).

It’s a primary wound.

As a result, most of our relational defence patterns (all of the weird and dysfunctional behaviours we exhibit in relationships) have been developed to manage this wound.

From avoidance to criticism… neediness to tantrums… silent treatment to rage.

The thing is, once you care about someone.
Like really care about them.
Your attachment system comes online, whether you want it to or not.

And now everything becomes poised to make sure you don’t ever feel that pain again.

And so we fight and run and hide and cling and cry.
Even when everything inside is screaming that it’s time to leave.
That it’s not them.
It’s not a match.
Too incompatible.
Your thoughts pointing out all their faults.
Or perhaps telling you that you’d die without them.

… it’s all just an attempt to never be abandoned again (even if it means abandoning them first).

That pain runs so deep.

Which is why that if we ever want to grow beyond the tired fight or flight cycles, or the endless string of serial monogamy and the heartbreak of yet another relationship that couldn’t make it, we need to feel it, heal it and grow beyond this abandonment wound.

This is what it means to be Secure.

When you can see the roots of your own reactions, and soothe the little voices crying out inside. When you can speak to your partner in a way that melts them into healing, even in the middle of a fight. When you find that the joy of being in connection far outweighs any pain.

No matter how hurt we have been.
No matter how deep the wound.
No matter how many times we’ve ‘failed’ at this thing called love.

I know, truly know, that it’s possible to heal.

You know it too.

Damien Boh