Abandonment

Loving and wanting someone who does not love us back engenders a deep personal wound. Rejection hits a raw nerve whose root begins in childhood.  It arouses our abandonment issues.   Abandonment is primal fear, the first fear that each of us experience as an infant.   It is the fear that we will be left, literally abandoned, with no one to care for us. Abandonment's wound is cumulative.   It contains all of our losses, disconnections and disappointments from early on, the death of a parent, a teenage breakup, being out-shown by a sibling, these experiences make us more susceptible to heartbreak when we are abandoned as adults.

The abandonment wound, stored deep within the limbic brain, is easily triggered.   You feel its raw nerve twinge when you fail to get recognition at work, a friend forgets to invite you to a party, or a date you thought was special did not call back.   When being left is the trigger, core abandonment fears erupt. Stress hormones course through our bodies, compelling even the strongest among us to feel desperate and dependent.  However self-sufficient we think we are, we suddenly feel we can’t live without him/her.
Being left also kicks up our control issues.   The breakup wasn't our choice.   Someone else cast us into this lonesomeness by choosing not to be with us.   We feel at loss of our personal power to compel another person's love. "I must be unlovable and unworthy for him to discard me like that."  Abandonment is similar to other types of bereavement, but its grief is complicated by rejection and betrayal.   We turn the rage against ourselves, accounting for the severe depression that accompanies heartbreak.   When we blame the breakup on our supposed inadequacies, we abandon ourselves.   We automatically think to ourselves, “There must be something wrong with me that makes me not worth keeping.”
We emerge not only disconnected from self-love, but with a heightened fear of abandonment.   If one person can discard us, we fear others will do the same to us in the future.   Rather than dissipate, this fear tends to incubate.   Its insecurity burrows deep within us where it sabotages our relationships.   The fear of being left makes it more difficult to let go.   The rejection creates nagging conflict; closure remains incomplete.   We feel unjustly dismissed and we long for an opportunity to vindicate the hurt.   We are left alone to grapple with the broken pieces.   Mixed with our rage is a desire for our sigificant other to come back to take away the hurt and rejection.
The paradox of abandonment is the tendency to idealize the abandoner.   He or she emerges in our imaginations as a powerful figure.   We assume she must be very special to have caused this much torment simply by being absent.   The intense craving is confusing to our limbic brain.   Stress hormones course through our bodies, causing a heightened response to anything related to our ex for a long time.   An important thing to understand is there are five universal stages that accompany the loss of love: Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing, Rage, and Lifting. As we make our way through these stages of grief and recovery, we build self-esteem, resolve fear and self-doubt and restore the spirit.
The Five Stages of Abandonment are: 1. Shattering: Severing of love-connection, devastation, shattering of hopes and dreams. The emotions are shock, panic, despair, feeling you can't live without your love. 2. Withdrawal: You're in painful withdrawal of love-loss, as intense as heroin withdrawal. The emotions are yearning, craving, obsessing, longing for your ex's return. 3. Internalizing: As you try to making sense of the rejection, you doubt and blame yourself.   To idealize the abandoner at your own expense,  and fear incubates.  4. Rage: Reversing the rejection and having retaliatory feelings. Displacing anger on friends who don't understand or are critical of the abandoner leads to more unhealthy action.  5. Lifting: Rising out despair, life begins to distract you. You begin to open to love again and all its possibilities.   You “SWIRL” through all the stages over and over until you emerge out the end of the tunnel a changed person capable of greater life and love than before.

Is “Sexting” Cheating You Out of Real Intimacy?

There is a good, sound argument for how technology can bring two people together. Countless couples have now met, married, forged unions, and had children as a result of a dating website, a Facebook chat, or a bold text message. Technology has provided a new platform for millions of people to take that first step in a relationship. This has been especially helpful to people who are shy, overworked, or just too exhausted to make a consistent effort to get out and meet someone.

Between smart phones and the Internet, the possibilities for flirtation are now endless. This can be healthy when it comes to keeping the spark alive between a couple, particularly one enduring forced separations. It can also be beneficial to two people first getting to know each other; it’s much easier to ask for a date by text than face-to-face. The so-called “sexting” that takes place between two people getting together can be positive when the flirtation turns into action, i.e. when the text messaged invitation becomes the actual first date. The trouble arises when devices become a substitute for real relating. When it comes to love in the time of technology, there are four elements (what I call the four D’s) that we all should be wary of: Distraction, Disconnection, Desensitization, and Dishonesty.

Distraction
Relationships are hard work. The baggage each person carries with them weighs heavily on the way a couple relates to each other. Caring for someone deeply can trigger old feelings, memories, and fears. The closer things get, the more obstacles we should expect to encounter. Devices are a major distraction from the real challenges that arise in a relationship. Passing time on our Blackberry helps us avoid major issues or problems that are lying right next to us in bed. When the going gets tough, the tough start texting.

This problem is one that has been explored by Dr. Pat Love, the acclaimed author of “The Truth About Love” and “Hot Monogamy,” and it’s one I discussed with her recently when we were recording our upcoming webinar, “Love in the Time of Twitter.” We wanted to explore how interpersonal relationships have been impacted by new media and explore how love can be preserved in the face of such colossal distraction. As Love recently wrote, “Other than breathing we spend more time streaming technology than any other activity … This constant state of stimulation leaves little room for contemplation, mindfulness, and deep intimacy, which are all necessary for maintaining relationships.”

A damaged connection can lead us to start looking for excitement or romance in other places, like Twitter, Facebook, or exes whose numbers are conveniently programmed into our cell phones. This communication doesn’t always lead to deception or infidelity, but the distraction alone inhibits us from repairing the connection we have with our partners. It limits our ability to attune to our partners and be sensitive to their needs and aware of what lights them up. Time spent with devices can keep us from taking the time to talk through problems, resolve arguments, or simply spend time enjoying each other — actions that would rekindle the spark we initially felt in our relationships.

Disconnection
The trouble with much of the flirting we do via email, text, or live chat is that it can be highly impersonal. Many of the examples we’ve seen of “sexting,” from everyone from close friends to high-profile politicians, seem to cross the line from real relating to total fantasy. The trouble is that people often prefer the intoxicating illusion of connection and sense of possibility to the everyday acts of romance that are available to them. As I said before, relationships bring real challenges that we can easily avoid in a cyber world. The deeper we travel into fantasy, the further we drift from what is really important to us, who we really are, and what we really want. We replace a deep and meaningful connection with surface pleasures that fail to fulfill us in the long run.

Desensitization
Technology has the wonderfully destructive ability to tune us out. The outlets for instant gratification have invaded our homes in the form of apps, online shops, games, videos, social media, and more. We rarely have to face our fears on Facebook or feel our anger over a game of Angry Birds. Technology can numb us from pain, but it also numbs us from passion. Any activity we use to cut off negative emotions has the unfortunate effect of diminishing positive emotions as well. This can be particularly taxing on our intimate relationships. If we use the little energy we have left at the end of a day to return emails or surf the Web, think about what we are sacrificing in the way of attunement, affection, passion, and personal exchange.

Dishonesty
One of the most glaring downsides of new media is that, in many relationships, it has bred an environment of deception and distrust. We now not only live in a world where many people think it okay to search through their partner’s cell phone, but a world in which these same people often find something that confirms their suspicions. From flirty texts to secret lives, people have used technology not just to escape but to deceive.

This deception can take place when we withhold information from our partner that we fear will make him or her jealous. It can take place when we substitute the excitement of a secret flirtation for the passion we once felt in our relationship. It can even occur when we deceive ourselves that the relationships we forge and people we meet online are perfect or superior to our imperfect, real-life unions. In this sense, we can use varying degrees of “sexting” as a build-up of ourselves or a way to feel dirty or bad about ourselves. In either case, we are avoiding the truth, preferring an illusion of what could be over what we really have.

The solution to the problem of technology invading our relationships is far from hopeless. In each individual case, one must examine how he or she uses technology and whether or not that use is distancing him or her from a loved one. If it is being used as a distraction, what are we avoiding? If it is being used as a desensitizer, what pain are we not facing? The sentiment may be easier said than done, but it holds true that it is always better to do the hard part, challenge ourselves to get close, and fight to have a satisfying relationship. In this journey, we can use technology to get closer as opposed to moving further away from each other. We can use it to ask sensitive questions about each other’s day, to plan an exciting night together, or to keep connected in a world where one million distractions are always readily available, if not in the ceaseless streaming of gadgets but the never-ending output of our own minds.

Post Relatonship Emotions

There are times in our lives when we may question everything, even ourselves. There are no guarantees about anything in life and all we can do is do our best. Beyond doing our best, everything else is not in our control. Sometimes when things turn bad for us it wears us down and makes us question ourselves and others. That is the very time you must take care of yourself, stay strong, eat healthy because staying healthy helps us mentally, emotionally, and, of course, physically. Sometimes we wonder things like, "How can a significant other ever return into a relationship?", how will I ever get through college, how will I ever have a relationship again is I've lost my true love, etc. We wonder what others will do and what we will do. All I can say is stay strong, do your best, stay healthy, and things will work out. If a relationship is meant to be, it will be. If the love is there a relationship will begin or continue. Love conquers. Love still stands when all else has fallen.

Ramifications

Ramifications are not recognized by either woman or man when that particular mate has a subvert plan of action causes long lasting devastation for mate who has to go on with life alone. This is the case for too many couples in the advent of “Noncommittal” I have interviewed many couples who have been with the same mate for 65 plus years that continued to state the reason the marriage lasted to the 100 years was the action of kiss and make up was continuous implementation in each of the case I interviewed.
Just recently a woman out nowhere told a man she felt kiss and make up was not in her scope of living. She just wanted her book back that was given to the man and said, “I don’t have to give you any indicators of my decision “in summery she said, “It is not my nature to tell you nothing.” This left the man knocked off his rocker for not being permitted to say what he felt. This left the man stunned that his thoughts and feelings where disregard from the woman who was totally in control of this action.
The women concluded by saying now get friends, rest, and your own space. This was a statement of being uncommitted, selfishness, and inconsideration of a man who has a devotion to this woman. This is one of the many scenarios that will be popping in during these moments in our state of non-committal .