Hi Lauren,

I loved your class on BH today. Thank you for all of the solutions.

Do you think being a "pursuer" in a pursue/withdraw dynamic with my husband is a type of codependency? I related to almost everything you shared today except that I am outspoken and easily make decisions, but still I over-sacrifice for my husband and then resent the lack of attention I get and the dismissal when I try to get seen.

~Anonymous

Dear Lo,

During childhood, my mom would purposely stonewall me whenever she was upset with me. If I failed to abide by her standards, expectations or rules, it usually resulted in stonewalling. She emotionally abandoned me as her way of basically saying "I don't want to talk to you or acknowledge you because you've upset me." She would purposely ignore my needs and emotions because I upset her. I would feel scared to tell her anything with the fear that she would either continue to ignore me or unintentionally anger her some more. "Ugh... WHAT!!" or ".......WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" would be her responses if I was lucky enough to her to say anything. I was scared to talk to her. There was really nothing I could to revert her back to normal other than just ride the tide and hope she'd revert back to normal, even if I was there crying my eyes out because I upset her or just wanted her attention again. She just didn't care because I upset her. She emotionally abandoned me because I depended on her for basic needs, hence, the likelihood of my survival was greatly at stake. Her love had to be earned back. How? By over-loving her. Sometimes it worked. Other times, it didn't. And if it didn't, it usually intensified the negative emotions. Her "love" was conditional. However, there were also times where I felt her love was unconditional. It was freely given to me and I didn't have to do anything to feel her love. I felt safe, loved and acknowledged. Cool! This inconsistency childhood love by my mom, however, has set me up for what I am experiencing today.

Whenever I develop an emotional connection with a romantic person, I tend to feel intense abandonment anxiety and irrationally fear that she could abandon me at any given moment for any given reason. I have also felt very much so anxiously attached to romantic partners in the past, both physically and emotionally, because over-love will keep me safe from a romantic person’s abandonment. I need constant reassurance that she still desires me, people-please romantic individuals to ensure I’m desired upon and for the lesser likelihood of an abandonment, cling to her physically and emotionally, and have even subconsciously turned her into my new “mom" by irrationally and subconsciously believing she'll love me like a mom. A romantic connection is emotionally turbulent with negative/irrational thoughts and anxiety. And so if a romantic person does unexplainably abandon/reject me and walks out of my life as it’s happened before, it’s going to trigger an extremely profound sadness where I could be on the floor crying uncontrollably hard with extreme emotional pain that deeply overwhelms me. This last happened to May of 2023 after Angelica walked out of my life without much of any explanation and basically abandoned me. I never heard from her ever again. My therapist believes it could be Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. I will feel this post-abandonment extreme depression because my “mom” abandoned me. How will I survive now???

It's also important to note that I only feel these negative emotions/thoughts with romantic individuals. It's never felt with any other social group.

Bottom line is this: I cannot form an emotional connection with a romantic person without feeling abandonment anxiety, anxious attachment issues, or codependency issues. Abandonment by a romantic person = extreme sadness. I want to heal. I want to develop an emotional connection with a romantic person without the negative emotions and thoughts from interrupting the romantic connection. I want to separate my mom’s pot of love and establish a new pot of love for romantic partners.

~Gabriel