Tips to help with fears of abandonment

Identify your fear – It is easier to overcome an issue if you come to terms with it first.  Accept your fear and make efforts to conquer it.  Do not push it in the background and just accept that it’s the way you are meant to be.  Overcoming a fear can be a long process, but avoidance is never the answer and can prevent you from living a fulfilling life and opening up to love. 

Determine the source – fears such as this rarely come from nowhere.  Experiences in your life generally hold the key to why it is you fear abandonment.  Locating the source of your apprehension is the first step to tackling the problem and until this is done, you cannot conquer your fear. Often it is when you are most happy that your fear emerges to ruin what you have.

Deal with the past - Sometimes occurrences can be hard to remember due to your human defense of shutting experiences out to avoid pain of living with it.  Do not be ashamed to seek a therapists help to dig deeper into yourself to find the cause.  Let the events of your past go.  It is only then, that you will be able to open the doors to a fear free future.  Often our fears are what hold us back from what it is we want.  By fearing everyone will leave you, your distrust pushes them away. 

Don’t categorize people – If you have been hurt by someone do not automatically assume that everyone is going to hurt you. Allowing ourselves to over-generalize following the occurrence that has brought on our fear only prevents us from trusting another person.  Just because you have been cheated on by a man does not mean that all men can’t be trusted.  Just because someone you loved left you, doesn’t mean that everyone you love is going to leave you.  

Take things as they come – Enjoy each moment that is presented in your relationships.  Painful experiences are all par for the course but I strongly believe that people come into our lives for a reason no less significant than the reasons they leave.  If something bad happens, then believe there is a reason for it.  There is no point in worrying about something that may never come to pass.  If you fear the negatives all your life you will be blind to the positives. Do not allow yourself to avoid a committed relationship for fear it will not last.

Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater?

This article is for those of you out there who have been cheated on and are left wondering if you can forgive and forget such a deception.  The feeling you are left with after someone cheats on you, is quite likely one of the lowest feelings that you can possibly feel.  You are left feeling worthless, betrayed and devastated.  You have never felt so low in your whole life and the only thing that you should be asking yourself is, if he/she loves me, would they do something to put me in such a dark unshakeable place?  The answer is NO.  You obviously love this person more than they do you.  Simply put, you deserve better.

It is easier to let go of someone after such a betrayal, then to find it in yourself to forgive them for something so horrible.  Many would argue that sex is just body parts, particularly men, but the truth of the matter is if you really care deeply about someone and are serious about your relationship with them than you wouldn't have it in yourself to cheat on them.  How committed can someone be to deceive the person they supposedly love?  The situation in which the betrayal happens is irrelevant.  If you find yourself unable to stop a temptation from manifesting into reality, then you are not fully committed to the relationship that you are already in.

After a betrayal, the trust you once had is completely shattered.  Trust is something that takes time to begin and takes longer to re-discover then to initiate.  If you cannot trust someone you are in a relationship with, then you will find yourself questioning where your partner is, who he/she is with and what he/she is doing.  This is no way to live.  You will always have that doubt in the back of your mind that your partner is playing up on you.

Do I believe that once a cheater, always a cheater? Well in my opinion, if the foundations in a relationship are not solid enough to prevent an initial occurrence, then I think the connection between two people is not what it is meant to be in a committed relationship.  Cheating is a breaker, in which once broken, cannot be repaired.  Regret of a betrayal is not enough to repair or excuse the damage that has been done.  If you feel that you can forgive your partner for something so hurtful, then you must also be capable of the forgetting as well, or it will eventually tear you apart.

Ultimately it is a personal decision to forgive and forget, however love is an overwhelming emotion that takes you over completely and everyone deserves a love that lives up to that.  You will do well to remember this next time you find yourself wondering if your cheating partner deserves a second chance.  With the right person this kind of love is out there.  You owe it to yourself to guarantee that you don’t settle for anything less.  If you are not enough for someone then they don’t deserve any part of you.