Why Your Abandonment Issues Are Ruining Your Friendships — and What to Do About It

Picture this. You had some friends growing up but not any close-knit friendships that grew consistently over time. Now, as an adult, you are busy and don’t have as much time to make friends, but you know you’d benefit from the support. The friends you do have seem to be casual and don’t go deep, nor do they last longer than a year or two. What’s wrong? What could be causing your friendships to deteriorate or stagnate at a shallow level? Abandonment issues.

What is abandonment?

Abandonment is when a primary caregiver or someone you loved did not show up for you, emotionally, physically, or both. Several types of abandonment can actually stunt the development of your brain as a young child.

Some of these include the death of a loved one or primary caregiver, an emotionally absent parent, a parent who wasn’t able to provide your needs due to a chronic illness or substance abuse problem, or in some cases, divorce that led to a parent not being there for you when you needed them.

How to define abandonment issues

When a person struggles with abandonment issues, they often find it challenging to trust others. This can lead to a variety of relational patterns that cause conflict, stunt emotional vulnerability, and create a power dynamic in friendships that breeds jealousy, resentment, or codependency, all unhealthy patterns that can make a friendship toxic.

Friendships on a surface level

If you feel your friends don’t engage with you much about their emotions, it may be that they sense that you are fearful or that you won’t be able to handle their deep feelings, past regrets, or wounds. You may even have hurt them at some point, but they don’t feel they can talk to you about it because of your emotional distance.

Practically speaking, this could look like you are missing a connection with a friend who has figured you out in pretty specific, thoughtful ways after a few years. She remembers your favorite drink order and surprises you with coffee at an early-morning work meeting, recognizes when you are weary, and compliments you on your new earrings. She shares when she’s had a tough day and is often happy to hear about your desire for a new car or your love of cats.

However, she senses you begin to expect her to do, know, and listen to these things from you without you ever offering her anything in return. You don’t know what her favorites are, and you certainly can’t tell if her outfit is new. You also don’t share your feelings in a way that speaks to everyday challenges such as a tough relationship issue, a missed work deadline, or a struggle to make the budget work that month.

She may feel that she gives of herself much more than you do. This can be described as a one-sided friendship. It could also be that you don’t even notice the lack of emotional “give” on your part.

When your childhood needs were not met, your brain may not have developed the way God designed it to develop. For example, if you experienced any type of neglect, you may have trouble with anything pertaining to executive functioning skills. These skills enable you to plan, juggle competing priorities, and remember the most important pieces of information.

Executive functioning skills rely on working memory (remembering small pieces of information long enough to act), mental flexibility, and self-control. If you struggle with working memory, you might really have a tough time processing the information that your friend just shared about her dog being sick. You may have heard the dog’s name but forgotten it, or you skipped right over the information about her dog and heard the next thing she said.

This can be a challenge in any friendship because it makes it tough to remember the details that are important to a friend. Working memory is also closely tied to emotional responses. You may have heard that her dog was sick, she was late to work, and her boss surprised her with a promotion this week.

However, what you recall is that she got the promotion. It is the least emotionally complex information, so it was simple and easy to retain. The information about her dog being sick requires emotional reserves to process potentially devastating news. If the news causes you any kind of stress or reminds you of the death of one of your pets, you may lack the emotional fortitude to be present with your friend in her time of grief, worry or sorrow.

Fear of being found out

Another major challenge to a deepening friendship is when you don’t show your human side. If all your friend sees are the good days, they may not feel you’re the kind of friend with whom they can share low points in life.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not every friend in life has the same role. Some friends are those we go out with after work to shop or enjoy a meal, but they aren’t the ones with whom we share our darker days.

However, if none of your friends ever hear about things that trouble you, a struggle with anxiety or panic attacks, or the “grey cloud” that hung over your head for a few weeks straight, it might be a sign that abandonment issues are to blame. Your unwillingness to share vulnerably could be because when you did share your emotions with a trusted caregiver as a child, you were shut down or not taken seriously.

This “fear of being found out” is really just a fear of being devastated emotionally.

How to develop deep friendships

If you haven’t previously recognized that your family of origin caused some deep-seated abandonment issues, you are in good company. You are not alone. Many adults conclude that they can’t give what they’d like to give in a friendship because they don’t want to be hurt again. There is hope, though, for that to change.

If you have a friendship that is suffering because of your lack of trust, here are some steps to take.

First, try sharing with your friend what you’ve learned about abandonment issues, even if you only share a snippet from this article or another one you have read recently. You can even share it as a jumping-off point for a conversation about what you have been reading lately. Your friend may be surprised to learn that you’re self-aware, even if you can’t fix everything right now.

Second, ask your friend for some grace as you unlearn some old habits and patterns you didn’t know were there. Even if this means taking a break from seeing your friend for a while, they will likely respond well to knowing you’re working on yourself.

Third, take care of yourself by treating yourself with kindness. You can’t do anything about the ills you suffered during childhood, so don’t shame yourself or berate yourself for not “doing better” at friendship. Instead, admit that where you are now is a good place because God has allowed you to recognize there’s an issue.

Treat yourself kindly by taking care of your skin, going for a walk, or cooking a scrumptious meal. Learning to slow down and reflect on how you’re handling stress can also be a game-changer. Stress can aggravate anxiety, which is often what’s driving your desire to hide in friendships or your tendency to push a friend away because of a lack of vulnerability.

Reaching out for help

Finally, abandonment issues are best dealt with alongside a trusted counselor. Our offices have licensed, professional counselors who are skilled at helping you gently examine some of the causes of your abandonment issues. They will guide you through practices to help you heal over time.

Pursuing personal healing doesn’t mean your friends have to wait. It just means asking for patience and the freedom to grow. Please reach out to our offices today for help with your abandonment issues.