Back again

[mamabird]

MKB,
I have been following your sitch. My H also has pretty significant abandonment issues. His mom left the family when he was an early teen. He kind of buried the whole thing and it came out again when I got breast cancer 6 years ago. Actually, it came out when I was recovering. My H really withdrew and my response to that was to start an EA in my head, which just made it about a million times worse for my H. Not great coping mechanisms for either one of us.

You are right about the deep pain he feels. It's really a primal pain and if he hasn't gone to therapy or tried to work through it, he will be carrying that around forever. I think you came upon some good insight and if you go to him with that in a gentle way (at the right time) you may make some headway. My H never really shared his feelings about abandonment with me so we couldn't work through it together. One time (after this initial event) he cried and I held him and that was it.

He's probably afraid of losing you too, and if he senses that you want to leave, he'll probably try to do it first so he can't be abandoned again.