Children and adults are affected in ways large and small by their parents’ divorce. Fear of abandonment is a common theme among us “children of divorce”, and though it affects our behavior in some obvious ways, there may be some less obvious ways it can play out.

Oftentimes adult children of divorce feel abandoned by one parent even if that parent was still active in their lives. These feelings of abandonment, or the experience of actually being abandoned, stay with us. Everyone experiences the loss of people in their lives, and we can be traumatized by them. For children of divorce, losing someone (whether permanently or periodically) can make us relive that first childhood experience of abandonment every time. Each incident reinforces for us what we already think about ourselves: People will always leave us, and we are unlovable.

In my case, it started with my dad leaving the family home when my parents got divorced and only seeing him every other weekend after that. Then my sister “abandoned” me when she came to live with me and my mom but changed her mind mid-schoolyear to go live with our dad. Then it was my high school boyfriend, a free spirit, who after his senior year decided to spend the summer in Europe.

Being the First to Leave

I wore my wounds of abandonment like a badge of honor and became entrenched in a victim mentality. To overcome my fears of being left, I was always the first to leave a relationship; I hurt many people along the way. Leaving first was a form of self-preservation that was necessary in childhood (staying unattached) but became an unhealthy behavior in my adult relationships. For many children of divorce, being the first to leave gives a sense of power or control that we felt was lacking at the time of the divorce and even into adulthood, for example having to accept new family dynamics, interact with people we would rather not, and accommodate our schedules to fit the needs of the various family members that are now a part of our world.  

Ambivalence About Marriage

Fear of abandonment can also translate into fear of love, relationships, and marriage. It is related to feeling unloved. “Would our parent have left us if they loved us?” we ask ourselves. We feel that abandonment is inevitable. We experienced it as a child, and we have experienced it numerous times since then. We will be left, so why get involved in a relationship at all? It’s clear in our minds that we are unlovable, so even when someone does love us, we’re suspicious. “They just don’t know the real me,” we tell ourselves. “Once they realize how flawed, broken, unholy, and insecure I really am, they will leave me.” Again we operate out of our fears, and in our risk analysis, we decide more heartbreak is just not worth it.

Fear of Commitment

Fear of commitment can be related to fear of abandonment or can come from our fear of divorce, the fear that we are doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes. We are so traumatized by the divorce and don’t want that to happen to ourselves or our kids. Yet we feel that either by nature (it’s in our genes) or nurture (what was modeled for us), or just from the current statistics on divorce, that it is almost inevitable. These are not irrational fears, given that children of divorce do have a higher divorce rate themselves, but they discount our free will, our ability to heal, and the grace of God in our lives.

Possessiveness

In my situation, I realized I had a fear of abandonment after making a list for a therapist of the most impactful moments in my life and realizing they all had to do with people leaving me. I had to deal with this knee-jerk reaction every time my husband would leave on a business trip. It was hard and painful. I would shut down before he left and be cold and distant when he returned. It would take days to reconnect. But I’ve also started to notice over the years how possessive I am of friends and family members. If they start to get too attached to someone else, I feel threatened. It’s hard for me to “share” my friends and family members with others, even other people within my own family. I get jealous and fearful that I will lose them, their love, their loyalty, or my special relationship with them. I fear that I will be usurped, forgotten, and abandoned, maybe not physically but emotionally. It’s hard to admit this. We can often admit to a lot of other faults more easily than jealousy. It seems so petty and embarrassing. But understanding and admitting this to myself has given me new insight into the effects of divorce on my feelings, reactions, anxieties, and relationships. If I can stop operating out of fear and give thanks for the people I have in my life instead of jealously guarding them, I can improve these relationships.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

While acknowledging abandonment issues can help us understand our feelings and reactions to different situations, focusing too much on them can lead us into a self-fulfilling prophecy: The more afraid of abandonment we are, the more self-protective barriers we build, and the less people can know us intimately. Everyone wants authentic love, to know and to be known, so the obstacles we create that prohibit others from knowing us may very well cause them to leave. People will love you more for your authentic self, warts and all, then they will for a guarded version of yourself.

Do You Want to Be Healed?

Divorce is messy and complicated. Our feelings and perceptions about ourselves are warped by childhood wounds. Acknowledging this is not the same as playing the victim. This is simply admitting what happened and realizing that some of your failure to thrive in life is not your fault. However, the difference between being a victim and being someone who has been victimized is an important distinction. The former makes your pain your identity; the latter acknowledges what someone has done to you in order to pursue healing. We tend to justify our anger, unforgiveness, and failures as a response to being hurt, but seeing ourselves as victims leaves us feeling helpless. To be the person we want to be, the person God made us to be requires shedding our victim mentalities and taking responsibility for our lives, including our failures. If you have taken your identity from being a victim, you will ultimately have to ask yourself as I did, “Do you want to be healed?” If you are serious about healing, it comes with taking responsibility for your life, and forgiving those who have hurt you. This means owning your part in your faults and failures instead of placing all the blame on other people. It’s hard and scary, but blame keeps us stuck in helplessness. Owning up to how we have contributed to our problems leads to healing, and a greater feeling of control over our lives.

You Are Lovable and Loved

It’s hard to admit it if you have taken your identity from your pain, and perhaps prolonged it in doing so. Don’t make this admission, and the time you have wasted wallowing, one more reason to hate yourself. Be gentle on yourself, and remember you are loved despite what you have told yourself in the past. In my case I had to adopt a prayer mantra that I made up, holding my hand over my heart and telling myself over and over “You are loved, you deserve love, you are worthy of love, you are capable of love, you can receive love.” If you can’t find evidence of being loved in this world, love yourself, and discover God’s love for you. As the retreat facilitator and spiritual director Teresa Monaghan said on my first silent retreat, “God loved you into existence. You wouldn’t be here if he didn’t love you!”

As children of divorce, we can take heart that we are lovable and loved, no matter how many times we’ve felt abandoned by people in our lives. And we can rest in the fact that our Lord will never abandon us, no matter what. That can give us the confidence we need to begin to trust in others again, and in so doing find the joy that comes from authentic, trustworthy love.

Sandy grew up in Southern California where she spent her time camping, surfing and horseback riding. She earned a B.A. in journalism from Cal State, Long Beach, and has written for Black Belt and Boys’ Life magazines and various community newspapers. She has been married for 20 years and now lives in Minnesota with her husband Mark. She has a blended family with 2 stepsons, one earning his Masters in Theology, another who is a talented musician, and one son in his first year of minor seminary.

Sandy rediscovered her Catholic faith upon moving to Minnesota 9 years ago, and in the last 2 years has begun the healing process from her parents' divorce. She has been retired since 2019. She is a Life-Giving Wounds online retreat leader, and works part-time for Marriage Material, a pro-life organization.