The Biggest Reason Your Relationships Fail Is Because You Never Address This One Issue

by Margaret Paul

Many people with failed relationships in their past think they just have a bad “picker.” Or bad luck.

Maybe they figure they’ve ended up with the wrong person, or maybe it was the right person at first, but then that person changed.

Or they changed.

Why did YOUR last relationship fail? Why is your current one so frustrating?

Is it because your partner is a poor communicator?

Can’t give you what you need?

Cheated on you?

Or is it because of something else?

After 50 years of working with both couples and individuals to heal their emotional and relationship issues, I can tell you that the reason you think your relationships keep failing isn’t the real reason at all.

There’s a much more fundamental issue at play, and it extends across ALL relationships, not just romantic ones.

(It’s also the reason why so many of your friendships fade, why your family members get on your nerves…or you on theirs, why issues arise with your co-workers or boss, and so on.)

This issue is also why the majority of people who fail at one relationship go on to be unhappy in their next relationship.

It’s why second and third marriages are more likely to end in divorce than first marriages.

What’s that reason?

Self-abandonment.

How Self-Abandonment Gets Started And Why It Persists

What is self-abandonment?

Self-abandonment means making someone else responsible for your feelings and sense of self-worth.

It means looking to someone or something outside of yourself to make you feel good about yourself.

For example, you may want your romantic partner to listen to you and understand your needs. You’re looking to them to make you feel okay…needed, loved, accepted. If they ignore you or walk away when you’re speaking with them, it doesn’t feel good. You may feel unloved or judged.

In order to feel lovable, you need your partner to behave a certain way.

We all experience this at one time or another. It’s something most of us struggle with.

Self-abandonment starts in childhood.

It started the moment our parents or caregivers couldn’t or wouldn’t give us the love we needed…for whatever reason.

You were prone to this even if you had loving, caring caregivers or parents, simply because no human being can provide 100% of the love and attention you want and need all of the time.

For example:

You needed a hug when you fell and scraped your knee, but your grandma was busy making dinner and told you to get a Band-Aid instead.

You needed to be held by your mom because you weren’t feeling well, but your mom was tired and let you cry for a little longer before she came to check on you.

You wanted your dad to put his arm around you and tell you that you’re okay, and what that bully said to you at school was wrong and had nothing to do with you. Instead, he ignored you because he was busy fixing something in the garage.

When these types of situations happened, in your child’s mind you concluded your parent or caregiver didn’t love you, and therefore, there must be something wrong with you.

You concluded that you’re unlovable.

This led you to feelings of anxiety, fear, emptiness, and anger.

These are scary, big feelings… and your child mind couldn’t possibly process these big feelings in a constructive way.

You Developed Coping Strategies To Get The Attention And Love You Needed

Therefore, as a child or adolescent, you developed coping strategies to get the love and attention and acceptance you needed.

You either rebelled or conformed.

For instance, you started crying harder, had a temper tantrum… or you did what you were told.

You did this to get the acceptance and love you needed.

And in adulthood, this set you up for a lifetime of habitual behavior meant to control others into giving you the love and acceptance your parents or caregivers couldn’t.

You are still either rebelling or conforming to get love and acceptance, but it looks a bit different than it did when you were 2, 8, or 12.

As an adult, you resist being told what to do, people-please, criticize, act in passive-aggressive ways.

You stonewall, say sarcastic things, slam doors, act needy.

You avoid conflict, say things that aren’t true, complain, threaten.

All in an effort to control what another person feels about you.

All to gain the love and acceptance you crave.

The love and acceptance you can’t seem to, or know how to, give yourself.

This isn’t conscious…you’re not really aware that you’re doing this in order to gain love and acceptance. You think you’re just responding to a situation or person.

But really, it’s self-abandonment.

Self-abandonment is just something you do to cope with the difficult feelings of thinking you’re unlovable.

It’s a habit.

AND it’s destructive to your relationships.

What Happens When Two People Haven’t Healed Their Self-Abandonment?

The funny thing about self-abandonment is that we are attracted to others who share our level of self-abandonment.

Therefore, in a troubled relationship, BOTH people have unhealed self-abandonment, and their problems stem out of control…on BOTH sides.

In trying to get love and avoid pain, both partners will engage in a variety of controlling behaviors that can inevitably lead to fighting, disconnection, and infidelity.

As each partner tries to get love from the other, they end up pushing each other away, creating even more anxiety, emptiness, and anger.

So it’s very important to learn how to create your own sense of worth rather than looking to your partner to give that to you.

You don’t want to make your partner responsible for you feeling lovable. That’s an impossible burden on them because you’re asking them to dissolve the uncomfortable feelings that developed a long time ago in childhood.

If you expect them to make you feel okay about yourself, they will feel pressured, smothered and controlled.

This is why self-abandonment is the #1 reason your relationships keep going awry.

It’s because you’re looking to others to give you the love and acceptance you should be giving yourself, and in doing so, you’re turning to destructive behaviors that push your loved ones away.

And if your partner, friend, or loved one is doing the same thing, it’s almost inevitable that your relationship will fail or make you miserable.

Even if your partner does try to love you, there’s nowhere for that love to land.

Because if you don’t love yourself first, you will not be able to fully receive someone else’s love.

You won’t feel worthy of the love you so desperately want.

You must love yourself first in order for anyone’s love to “land” inside your heart.

How To Heal Your Self-Abandonment And Give Love A Place To Land

We cannot connect with others when we’re disconnected from ourselves.

And we cannot share love with others when we’re not loving ourselves.

But when you realize that you’re the only person who can truly make you feel okay, you welcome the opportunity to take responsibility for your feelings. You make it your job to feel good, which in turn takes the pressure off your partner to make everything right.

As if by magic, even long-standing problems melt away as your need for control disappears.

This is my life’s work, and it’s the work that has helped couples in crisis completely transform their relationships where traditional therapy has failed.

In my program, Wildly, Deeply, Joyously In Love, you’ll learn how to heal self-abandonment so that you are no longer engaging in controlling behavior that creates problems in your relationship.

You’ll learn all about Inner Bonding…a six-step process that has brought healing to thousands. Through this process, you’ll be able to take responsibility for feelings of shame, emptiness, anxiety, and anger, so you don’t pull on your partner to do this for you. Remember, your partner can’t possibly soothe all your feelings and make you feel okay, no matter how much he or she loves you.

You’ll learn how to define your own worth, so you’re not depending on other people to determine you’re okay. That means you’ll no longer be trying to get others to pay attention to you or make you feel better.

Once you learn the process in this program, it becomes a lifestyle…a wonderful habit where you take care of yourself and create a better relationship simply through the act of taking responsibility for your feelings.

Because of this, I’ve structured the program as a 30-day course. You’ll receive 30 daily videos where I’ll coach you through the ideas and give you actionable steps to implement in your life, so you make real progress.

I’ll teach you how to identify when you’re operating out of neediness and control, and ultimately how to give yourself all the love and validation you need. From this place of total self love, you’ll finally be able to share love and create a healthy relationship:

When you learn to fill yourself up with love and you create your own sense of worth, something magical happens…you naturally want to share this love with your partner. No longer in a state of neediness, you just want to give. When two people come to a relationship like this, it’s the greatest joy in life.

Blessings,

P.S. Don’t leave your relationship until you’ve figured out what fears and beliefs led to you being unhappy in the first place. Why? Because your negative patterns will keep repeating, no matter if you start anew with someone else.

You’ll choose the same kind of partner over and over, even if it doesn’t seem like they’re the same. Give it time, and it will all feel too familiar. That’s why you want to heal your self-abandonment first before you go on to the next relationship.