Letting Go of Unrealistic Expectations in an Unhappy Relationship

In his book, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz has a chapter called "On Mourning the Future" in which one of his clients, Jennifer is trapped in a lifeless relationship.

As he listens to Jennifer describe a long-term relationship with a man who can't commit to getting married or having children, he writes that he thinks about what he would want a therapist to tell his own daughter if his daughter was trapped in a relationship like this.

Stephen Grosz says he would want a therapist to tell his daughter that breaking up means not just giving up the present but also letting go of the hopes and dreams of the future with this person.

Letting Go of Unrealistic Expectations of in an Unhappy Relationship

While this might seem obvious, many people who are caught in lifeless relationships maintain an unrealistic sense of hope that there will be a future at some point that will include all the things they're not getting now in their relationship.

These hopes and dreams of the future can be so powerful that a person in an unhappy relationship can remain focused on these future fantasies to the exclusion of what's actually happening in the here and now.

Meanwhile, time keeps passing, and this person remains stuck and unhappy, relying on fantasies to get through the present.

The Past is Alive in the Present and the Future is Alive in the Present
As Stephen Grosz says in his book, the past is alive in the present and the future is alive in the present.

Let's look at an example of this phenomenon in the following case, which is a composite of many different psychotherapy cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Susan:
When Susan came to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, she was in her  mid-30s and she was in a 10 year relationship with her boyfriend, Mike.

Susan said she loved Mike very much, and she knew that Mike loved her.  She wanted to get married and have children, but Mike kept saying that he wasn't ready.

Susan told me that every time she raised the subject of marriage during the last several years, Mike kept putting it off because of whatever stressful situation was going on in his life at the time.

There was the time that he was having problems with his boss.  After that, there was time he was starting his own business.  And, after that, his mother began having health concerns and he was too overwhelmed by this to talk about getting married and having children.

Susan tried to be compassionate and understanding, but she was concerned that Mike might never be ready to commit to marriage and children.

Whenever she tried to talk to him to tell him that she was concerned that if she waited much longer, she might not be able to have children, he became annoyed with her and told her she was selfish to overwhelm him when she knew he was already overwhelmed.

As Susan talked about this dynamic in her relationship, I could tell that she already knew that Mike would never make this commitment, but she wasn't ready to let go of the relationship or her fantasies of her future with him.

She was very emotionally invested in her fantasies of the future with Mike.  She imagined what her wedding would be like.  She thought about having children with Mike and buying a house together in the suburbs.


The problem was that these thoughts remained nothing more than fantasies in Susan's mind.  Thinking about them helped her during the times when Mike brushed off her concerns that time was passing and her biological clock was ticking.

When I asked Susan how she thought she would feel if, somehow, she knew for sure now that Mike would never be ready to make a commitment to getting married and having children, she thought about if for a long time and then she became tearful.

Over the next couple of months, Susan began to acknowledge to herself that she really knew that Mike was never going to be ready to make a commitment and she had been kidding herself all this time.

Knowing that someone you love will never make the commitment that you want and actually doing something about it are two very different things.  But Susan was at a point where she was no longer in denial.

She talked about her sadness about letting go of Mike and letting go of her dreams about a future with him.  As Stephen Grosz might say, she was in the process of mourning her future dreams with Mike.

It took a lot of courage and the willingness to go through the emotional pain of a breakup with Mike for Susan to leave her relationship.  It also took a sense of hope that there could be a future with someone else.

Even after she broke up with Mike, Susan was plagued with doubts about whether she made a mistake.  She feared being alone for the rest of her life and never meeting anyone else that she would love as much and who would be willing to make a commitment.

She thought: Would it have been better to stay with Mike, who loved her and whom she loved so much, than to wonder if she would ever be in a loving relationship again?

Fortunately, several months later, Susan began a new relationship with another man who was able to make the kinds of commitments that she wanted.  Eventually, they got married and, since her doctor advised her that if she wanted to have children, she shouldn't wait much longer, she got pregnant soon after that.  And both she and her husband were happy.

Fear of Letting Go of Unrealistic Fantasies of a Happy Future When You're in an Unhappy Relationship
Not everyone is as fortunate as Susan. Many people remain in unhappy long-term relationships as time passes and their fantasies about the future get dimmer and dimmer.


Many of these same people really know deep down that their fantasies about the future are just that--fantasies that will never materialize with the person that they're with.  But denial can be very powerful, and letting go is difficult.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're stuck in a lifeless relationship where you really know that your partner or spouse isn't going to change, it's important to allow yourself to realize that time is passing.

You owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience helping clients with this issue.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many psychotherapy clients to have more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see my articles:  
Your Relationship: Should You Stay or Go?

Overcoming the Fear of Falling In Love and Getting Hurt Again

The Problem With Rebound Relationships

A rebound relationship is a relationship that usually occurs shortly after you've ended a serious long term  relationship.  Sometimes, it occurs while someone is still in a relationship because s/he doesn't want to end one relationship without having someone else.

Heartbreak, Fear of Being Alone and Rebound Relationships
Generally speaking, many people go into rebound relationships because they're afraid to be alone.  Often, they're also afraid to go through the painful emotions involved a breakup.  So, rather than dealing with the feelings of loss, they find someone new to be in love with and excited about.

The Problem With Rebound Relationships

So, you might ask:  What's wrong with falling in love again?  And I would respond that, while it's true that some rebound relationships work out, many don't for a variety of reasons.

Why Rebound Relationships Often Don't Work Out:

Fantasies and Projections:
Usually, people who jump right into a new relationship, after being in a prior long term relationship, don't really know the new person that well.  Since they don't know the person that well, they fill in the blanks with wonderful fantasies and projections about who this new person is.

Then, as they get to really know the new person, reality sets in, and they usually discover that this person isn't who they thought s/he was.  And this leads to disappointment.

Unresolved Grief:
Since the motivation for a rebound relationship is often due, in part, to a wish to avoid feeling the pain of a prior breakup, the person who jumps into a new relationship quickly ends up pushing down their grief.

But the grief doesn't just go away.  It can come out in many different ways, including somatically.  Your body holds onto the grief even if you aren't consciously aware of it, and you might find yourself more susceptible to getting sick.

Also, once you begin to feel the disappointment when you realize that your new relationship isn't what you thought it was, you will often feel the emotions related to the unresolved grief along with your disappointment in the new relationship.

Incompatibility:
When you rebound into a new relationship, as I mentioned earlier, your own fantasies and projections can sweep you off your feet.  At first, you might not realize that the two of you aren't really compatible.  Evaluating compatibility takes time and the rebound relationship often happens too quickly to understand if you're compatible or not.

Let's take a look at a scenario, which is a composite of many different cases, that is typical of the problems related to rebound relationships:

Alice:
Alice and Bob, who were in their early 30s, were living together for five years when they decided to break up.  They still loved each other very much, but Alice wanted to have children, and Bob didn't.

Alice knew when they started dating that Bob didn't want children, but she fell in love with him and she hoped that, with time, he would change his mind.  But neither of them ever changed their minds about having children, and they each knew that they would be unhappy if they gave in to the other's wishes.

Alice was very aware that time was passing, and she knew that she might have problems with infertility if she waited much longer to have a child.

She struggled with her feelings for a couple of years when she realized that Bob wasn't going to change his mind about having children:  Should she stay with him because they loved each other so much and give up her desire for having children or should she leave the relationship and give herself a chance to meet someone new who would love her and want children too?

What if she didn't meet anyone new that she loved as much as Bob?  Or, what if she met someone new and they had a wonderful relationship, but it turned out that she couldn't have children?

These were very difficult questions that she perseverated about endlessly in her mind.  But, in the end, she knew that having children was a priority for her, and she wouldn't be happy unless she gave herself a chance to be with someone who wanted children.

Although there was no acrimony when she told Bob she thought it was best if they ended their relationship, the breakup was painfully sad.  Bob agreed that it was for the best for each of them, and they agreed that he would move out.

As Alice watched Bob pack his things, she felt her mind reeling:  Bob is a wonderful guy.  Is she making a big mistake by ending their relationship?  What if she never meets anyone as wonderful as Bob?   Although she really knew it was for the best, on some level, she still felt very uncertain about the breakup.

The first few weeks after the breakup, Alice's sadness was excruciating.  She felt like she would never stop crying.  She was tempted to call Bob, who would normally be there for her to comfort her, but they had agreed that it would be best if they didn't have any contact for at least six months.  So, whenever she found herself picking up the phone to call him, she would hang up again.

Alice's friends tried to comfort her, but she felt inconsolable.  Just getting through the day was excruciating.  And the nights alone in the bed that she shared with Bob were even more excruciating.

Until then, she had been avoiding social get-togethers with friends.  But her best friend, Tina, convinced her that staying home alone would only make her feel worse, and she convinced her to come to a friend's birthday party.  Although celebrating was the last thing she felt like doing, Alice knew that isolating herself wasn't good for her, so she agreed, reluctantly, to go.

Alice thought she would just go and stay for an hour and come home.  She was afraid that she wouldn't be such good company.  But there were many friends that she hadn't seen in a long time, and she was surprised that she was actually enjoying herself for the first time in a while.

Then, she saw John talking to her friend Tina.  She couldn't remember when she had seen such a handsome man.  She thought:  Lucky Tina.  Where did she meet him?

But when Tina came over to introduce John to Alice, it turned out that John was Tina's cousin who was visiting from California.

Alice felt an instant attraction to John, and she sensed that he was attracted to her too.  They spent most of the night together talking to each other, and the more she talked to him, the more she liked him.  And, to her delight, he talked about loving children and wanting to eventually have children.

All the while, she thought to herself:  How is it possible that after only a few weeks of being out of my relationship with Bob, I'm so attracted to this guy?

But she was undeniably attracted to John, and she felt swept off her feet after going out with him on a date while he was in NY.

After he returned to California, she thought about John all the time, and they would call each other and text several times a day.  Since her job involved traveling to the West Coast at least once a month, Alice would visit John and he would come to NYC at least once a month.  These visits were eagerly anticipated by both of them, and their time together was passionate.

Alice's friends liked John a lot, and they were happy to see that she met someone that she really liked.  But her best friend, Susan, who knew Alice since their college days, warned Alice to slow down.  She was afraid that Alice was caught in a rebound situation where she was allowing her fantasies of a long term relationship with John to run away with her.  But Alice was so excited and immersed in her new relationship with John that she dismissed Susan's advice.

When John found out a job in NYC, he and Alice decided to live together in her apartment.  A month before he came, Alice redecorated the apartment, made space in the closet for his clothes, and bought new linen.  She was so happy that they could be together now.  They talked every day about how wonderful it would be.

But within a couple of months of John moving in, tension developed between them.  They discovered that they were very different in many ways.

Whereas Alice was an early to bed/early to rise person who sprang out of bed and couldn't wait to begin the day, John would go to sleep late and get up about 11 or 11:30 AM.  She thought John was an early riser too because whenever she visited him or he came to see her in NY, he was up early with her too.  But she soon discovered that this wasn't John's natural inclination.  He keep this schedule he mostly worked from home.

Alice often got to her office at 8 AM to avoid the rush hour crush, and she often stayed at work until 7 PM.  By the time she got home, she was tired, but he was energized from sleeping late and spending time at the gym.

As time went on, they discovered other incompatibilities.  He was more of a home body and she liked to socialize more with friends.  She assumed that because she met him at a party and they went out a lot before they moved in together that he liked to socialize.  But she found out that he usually didn't go to parties and, other than going out to dinner or a movie with her, John didn't like to socialize that much. So, after John moved in, Alice would end up going to social events alone.

A few months after they began living together, they also began getting on each other's nerves with the kinds of habits that two people only discover when they move in together.  At the same time, they stopped having sex and they began to co-exist like roommates with neither of them acknowledging to each other that their relationship was spiraling down.

This saddened Alice and she realized that their relationship wasn't going to work.  As she wondered how she would broach the topic with John, he brought it up one day when she got home.  After they spoke, John packed his things and moved into a hotel until he could find his own apartment.

Alice cried harder that night than she ever did, and she realized that she was crying for the end of this short relationship and even more so for the end of her long term relationship with Bob.

She realized she had a lot of unresolved grief because she never gave herself a chance to grieve for her relationship with Bob before she got involved with John.  And she and John got involved so quickly that they never dated so they could get to know each other over time.

A few weeks after the breakup with John, Alice began therapy with me to deal with her losses and to understand why she feared being alone so much that she jumped into another relationship on the rebound.  Gradually, Alice began to work through her sadness and fear.

Getting Help in Therapy
These issues are more common than most people think.

If Alice's story resonates with you and you're struggling to overcome the emotional pain of loss, a rebound relationship or your fear of being alone, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health practitioner who has experience helping therapy clients to overcome these problems.

With help, you can lead a fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many psychotherapy clients to overcome the emotional pain associated with breakups and fear of being alone.

To find out more about me, visit my web site:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Are You Trying to Avoid the Emotional Pain of a Breakup By Having the Next Romance in the Wings?

There are many people who start casting an eye around for the next romance as their current relationship is ending.  They prefer to have a new person in the wings so they can begin a new relationship just as the current one ends.

Trying to Avoid the Emotional Pain of a Breakup By Having the Next Romance in the Wings

Why Do People Seek Out a New Romance as the Current Relationship is Ending?
There are lots of reasons why people want to have the next romance in the wings when they're going through a breakup, and many of those reasons are fear based:

Fear of Being Alone
Some people seek out someone new immediately because they're afraid of being alone.  To them, being alone often means they're undesirable.  They like to go from one relationship to the next without ever being single, if possible.

Fear of Dealing with the Emotional Pain of the Heartbreak
Related to fear of being alone, many people don't want to deal with the emotional pain of the breakup.  Rather than deal with painful emotions, they want to immerse themselves in a new relationship to avoid feeling the pain.

You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

While it's understandable that no one wants to feel the emotional pain of a breakup, thinking that you can avoid the pain completely by seeking out someone new is an illusion.

Running from the problem isn't the answer.  You might distract yourself for a while with someone new, but pushing down the emotional pain from the breakup will just cause it to manifest in other ways, including physical ailments (headaches, stomach problems, body aches, etc).

In addition, whether you realize it or not, you bring your old emotional baggage from the current relationship into the new relationship.

Learning to Cope With Emotional Pain Can Make You More Resilient
As much as we hope to avoid dealing with emotional pain in life, including the pain of a breakup, learning to cope with emotional pain, rather than trying to avoid it, is part of emotional development.

While you're going through the pain, it can feel awful.  But, usually, while you're recovering from the loss, you can learn a lot about yourself, relationships and life's lessons.

After you've healed, you usually realize that you can cope with a lot more than you might have realized, and you don't need to distract yourself with a new relationship, a drink, a drug, gambling or other potential emotional numbing activities.

Healing From Heartbreak and Building Resilience to Deal With Life's Inevitable Challenges
Once you've recovered from your loss, having gone through the emotional pain, you often become more resilient and better able to deal with the next challenge in life.

Just knowing that you were able to cope with the pain and you got through it, as painful as it might have been, can give you more confidence to deal with future adversity, which is unavoidable in life.

Getting Help in Therapy
Everyone needs help at some point in his or her life.

If you find that you're having a difficult time coping with a breakup on your own or even with your emotional support network, you could benefit from seeking the help of a licensed psychotherapist, who can help you to work through the healing process.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and  Somatic Experiencing therapist. 

I work with individual adults and couples, and I've helped many people through the emotional healing process.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming Your Fear of Abandonment That Keeps You in an Unhealthy Relationship - Part 2:

In my blog post yesterday, I began the discussion about fear of being alone and lonely, how common it is, and how it can manifest: Are Your Fears of Being Abandonment Keeping You in an Unhealthy Relationship? Part 1.

In today's blog post I will focus on how I help clients to overcome the fear of being alone and lonely.

How Fear of Being Alone and Lonely Can Be Related to Childhood Trauma

As previously discussed, the fear of being alone is often a fear about a trauma that has already occurred, usually in childhood.

Overcoming Fear of Abandonment

While it's true that, as adults, many people unconsciously recreate similar relationships in their lives by choosing people who are emotionally unreliable or who are likely to leave them, that's a topic for another blog post.

The fear that I'm focusing on in yesterday's and today's posts is of the irrational kind where, objectively, there is no rational reason in the here and now to be afraid.

Mind-Body Psychotherapy to Treat Fear of Being Alone

In terms of working through this fear, there is no quick fix. However, in my professional opinion as a psychotherapist who specializes in working with trauma, there are certain treatment modalities that are usually better than others.

Obviously, there is no one-size-fits-all solution but, generally speaking, my experience has been that mind-body oriented psychotherapy is usually more effective than regular talk therapy alone.

When I refer to mind-body psychotherapy, I'm referring to the types of therapies that focus on the mind-body connection. These include clinical hypnosis, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and clinical hypnosis.

When these mind-body oriented treatment modalities are used by a skilled clinician, they tend to be more effective and, generally, work faster than talk therapy alone.

The Mind-Body Psychotherapy Process

During the first few psychotherapy sessions, I listen to the client's experience of how the fear of abandonment is affecting him in his or her current life.

Often, this fear has an adverse effect on his or her current relationship or it might be creating an obstacle with regard to meeting new people. Then, I usually want to get some information about family history, the quality of those relationships and any history of loss or trauma.

From there, I want to assess a client's emotional resources and coping skills before delving into the work. This is especially important when working on trauma.

A skilled clinician will want to ensure that a client has the emotional capacity to work on these issues so that the work will not be retraumatizing. If the client doesn't have the emotional capacity to do the work, a responsible therapist focuses on helping the client to develop the emotional resources.

For example, this might involve teaching the client to do a self soothing meditation on a safe or relaxing place so that he or she doesn't become emotionally overwhelmed while doing trauma work or between therapy sessions.

Often, during this phase of assessing a client's internal resources, many clients ask, "How long will this take?" In fact, there's usually no way to know in advance. Each client is different.

For some clients who have developed emotional resources on their own, the resourcing stage might be relatively short. For instance, if a client already has a regular meditation practice or goes to yoga on a regular basis, more than likely, the resourcing phase will be shorter than for someone who has little in the way of internal resources.

Of course, most of us have coping abilities just to get through life. It's more a question of degree and whether attempts at coping are maladaptive.

In any form of psychotherapy, the relationship between the therapist and the client is important. Under optimal circumstances, when it's a good match, the client develops a sense of trust in the therapist over time.

Without this sense of trust and safety, there is relatively little good therapeutic work that can be done. This is especially true in cases where clients have a fear of being abandoned. Often, this fear will extend into the relationship with the therapist.

Clients will often struggle with their insecurities as to whether it's safe to open up to the therapist, especially if they have a history of feeling abandoned in their early primary relationships.

Assuming that a client is motivated to do the work, sufficiently resourced, and feels safe enough with the therapist to begin doing therapeutic work, then the issue is which treatment modality will work best for a particular client.

Each client is obviously unique. What might be less obvious is that certain types are therapy are more effective for a particular client. Assessing this is often more of an art than a science. At times, I might have an intuitive sense of whether, let's say, hypnosis might work better than EMDR for a particular client.

Other times, it might be a matter of trying a particular mode and seeing how well it works. It helps to have a range of diverse techniques to choose from so that if one technique is ineffective for a particular client, the clinician can try another.

It's not possible in one blog post to discuss every therapeutic method and how it works. Generally, most forms of mind-body psychotherapy work to help clients overcome the original trauma so that it's no longer affecting them in their circumstances.

The advantage of mind-body oriented psychotherapy is that it's not just about developing intellectual insight. While insight is important, it's often not enough to bring about a change or to heal. In my experience, healing is much more likely to occur when there is a more integrative, holistic approach, which Somatic Exiiperiencing, cinical hypnosis, EMDR and other mind-body therapeutic techniques offer.

Working on the original trauma that created the fear of abandonment usually has generalizeable effects. This means that, often, it's not necessary to work on every memory of being abandoned because working on the earliest memory can produce enough of a healing effect to help the client overcome the fear of being abandoned.

In some cases, it might be necessary to work through a few of the seminal experiences of trauma to overcome this fear.

It's important to know, especially for people who suffer with a fear of being abandoned, that it's possible to work through this fear to lead a more fulfilling life. When you can live your life without a fear of being abandoned, you're free to experience the happiness you deserve.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples. 

I have helped many clients overcome their fears of being alone and loneliness so they can lead fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Are Your Fears of Being Alone and Lonely Keeping You in an Unhealthy Relationship?

Fear of being alone and fear of loneliness can very powerful emotions. When we make decisions, or fail to make decisions, based on fear of being alone, our emotions can cloud our judgment. Unfortunately, many people stay in unhealthy relationships because they're afraid to be alone. These same people often unconsciously choose unhealthy partners because they want someone who will be dependent on them and who won't leave them.

Are Your Fears of Being Alone Keeping You in an Unhealthy Relationship?

The following scenario is a fictionalized account of many similar accounts with all identifying information changed:

Tom:

When Tom met Carol, he felt a strong instant attraction to her. Looking back on it years later, he realized that part of this attraction was that he saw her as a "damsel in distress" and himself as the "knight in shining armor" who could rescue her. Carol was attractive, smart and funny. They clicked immediately, and they began dating shortly after they met. Tom knew, even then, that their was something very familiar about Carol, but he wasn't sure at the time what it was.

Almost immediately, Carol revealed that she was living on the edge. She had a good job, but she didn't know how to manage her money. She was behind in her rent and her landlord was threatening to evict her. Her credit card bills were piling up, but she always had a new outfit. In short, her life was a mess, but Tom was sure he could help her.

Within six months, Tom convinced Carol to move in with him. At first, they were both very happy. Tom began managing Carol's money and paying off her bills. When her creditors wouldn't extend her any more credit, Tom placed her name on his credit cards. When she decided to start her own consulting company, he encouraged her to quit her job and he financed her business. He took care of the financial responsibilities so she could focus on the creative aspects of her business.

But after a while, it became evident that Carol wasn't working on her business. Instead, while Tom took on extra projects at work to help support them and finance her business, Carol spent most of her time on the Internet instead of working on her business. She was easily distracted and had many excuses for not doing work, which began to annoy Tom.

He tried very hard to get Carol to focus on her business. He even started networking among his friends and colleagues to try to drum up new business, which he was successful in doing. He hoped that by showing Carol that these efforts produced results, she would become motivated herself. But although she appreciated his help, she continued to make excuses for not making more of an effort. Worse still, Tom's colleagues began complaining to him that Carol wasn't following through on their projects.

After a while, Tom felt that he was making all the effort to support them, keep their apartment tidy, and advance Carol's business, and she was making almost no effort. He felt resentful and angry. They began to argue. Then, in exasperation, Tom suggested that they seek professional help, but Carol refused to go. So, Tom went on his own.

It didn't take long for Tom and his therapist to draw parallels between his relationship with Carol and his earlier relationship with his mother, who was a severe alcoholic and nearly always in crisis. At a young age, Tom took on many adult responsibilities, especially after his father left the family.

By the time he was a teenager, his mother was almost completely dependent on him. It was not unusual for Tom to help his mother walk home from the bar, help her to get into bed, and then cook and tend to his younger siblings.

Tom's biggest fear back then was that something bad would happen to his mother, something that, even with all his efforts, he couldn't prevent. Given the severity of his mother's drinking, this wasn't an irrational fear.

Somehow, through Herculean efforts, he managed to take care of his mother and younger siblings, work part time and get good grades in high school. He was often exhausted, but he was determined to do whatever he could to rescue his mother and his brothers and sisters.

Shortly after he graduated college, his mother got into a fatal car accident while she was in a drunken stupor. In the past, Tom had always managed to hide the car keys from his mother. But on this particular day, he forgot and left them in plain sight. After he left the house, his mother found the keys, went out for a drive alone and crashed the car into a pole.

For years after that, Tom blamed himself with many "if onlys." His worse fear came true and he felt he didn't do enough to prevent it.

When he began dating, he tended to choose women who "needed" him. These relationships usually ended in a lot of emotional pain and frustration, and he usually blamed himself for not doing enough. He hated being alone, and he'd usually get involved again fairly soon to avoid feelings of loneliness.

Now that he was in therapy, Bob had to confront his fear of being abandoned and the codependent dynamic in his relationship with Carol. He began attending Al-Anon for additional support. And he and Carol started couples therapy.

With much hard work, both individually and as a couple, they changed the dynamic in their relationship. Carol took on more responsibilities, and Bob learned how not to over-function for Carol. Over time, he also worked through his childhood trauma and his fear of being abandoned.

Fear of abandonment can bring about many unwanted consequences in relationships. Many codependent relationships are based on fear of abandonment.

Getting Help

If you suspect that you might be suffering from fear of abandonment, you owe it to yourself to get professional help.

Getting help from a licensed mental health professional, who specializes in working with trauma, can free you from your fears.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist. I work with individual adults and couples.

I've helped many individuals and couples overcome their fear of abandonment so they could lead fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during regular business hours or email me.