How bonding and separation anxiety affect your (love) life

In this article, I will give you insight into the survival mechanisms associated with both bonding and separation anxiety and you will find out how to discover (together) a path to healing despite your fear of intimacy.

The average dating app is full of them: people who suffer from bonding and separation anxiety. In a relationship the dance between these two dynamics can stand in the way of substantial contact for both partners. And let that be precisely what gives love so much joy in life. In this article I will give you insight into the survival mechanisms associated with both bonding and separation anxiety and know how to find a path (together) to healing despite your fear of intimacy.

How does binding anxiety or separation anxiety affect (love) relationships?

Sometimes love alone is not enough to sustain a relationship, however sad this may sound. If you, your (potential) partner or both of you are dealing with bonding or separation anxiety it will create complications in the relationship. It will have an effect on the constant exchange of giving and receiving. A healthy and vibrant relationship has a "rich" and constant exchange of giving and receiving. The mutual exchange can consist of anything: conviviality, sex, money, shared values, an encouraging outlook, doing fun things together, etc. When you fail to meet the other person's needs and expectations, there is "taking" rather than receiving. You then fail in essential moments that are important to the partner. This affects the balance of giving and receiving in the relationship.

Suppose one partner has bonding anxiety and the other has separation anxiety. The one with separation anxiety feels that he or she is lacking in the relationship because the partner with bonding anxiety does not seem to be sufficiently available in the way a person with separation anxiety would like. The partner with bonding anxiety feels constantly overcharged because he or she is unable to meet the other person's insatiable needs. The moment both partners have to offer something to the partner that is challenging for them, or that they are simply incapable of doing, they may both begin to exhibit survival behaviors. Think of distancing or wanting to exert control over the other. This is usually not the most effective and mature behavior available to a human being. In fact, survival behavior serves the purpose of getting through the difficult situation as quickly as possible. Because both partners feel that they cannot get from the other what they need, they feel that they both have a lot to give and are working hard in the relationship. The other partner does not experience that "hard work" from the other as "receiving," which can put the balance of giving and receiving in a danger zone.

What is separation anxiety? 

With separation anxiety, you are afraid that your partner will distance himself or herself and actually distances himself or herself. This comes across as personal rejection. What lies underneath is that someone with separation anxiety actually experiences themselves as nothing and empty without the partner. In fact, these are old childhood pains, which can only be solved if a person works on him or herself. A partner can never solve or compensate for your pain points.

When you suffer from separation anxiety, you feel resentful and disappointed because the partner does not want to meet your needs. The partner with separation anxiety is often very giving, including forgiveness. On the outside, this looks loving. With this behavior, sophisticated or not, subtle love is "forced" as a quid pro quo, so that the balance of giving and receiving will be straightened out again. This is a form of (unconscious) manipulation with a secret agenda of possessiveness and wanting to control the other person.This is because you feel empty and insignificant without the other person. If the partner distances himself or herself, this is felt by someone with separation anxiety as an old trauma in the form of rejection. Compare it to a mother who cannot stand the distancing of an adolescent. An adult parent may qualify an adolescent's distancing as normal behavior, part of healthy human development. An immature "adult" takes an adolescent's distancing personally, which will have a consequence on one's sense of identity and meaning in life. In other words, with separation anxiety you want the other person to be available to you all the time, which for someone with commitment anxiety triggers the fear of being swallowed up by the other person.

What is bonding anxiety?

With bonding anxiety, you fear being claimed by the other person. A person with bonding anxiety experiences insufficient permission to distinguish from one another. Your desire to separate yourself and the often unspoken requirement to be available to the other person do not rhyme. A person with commitment anxiety feels reproach and disapproval when he or she needs distance. With a claiming partner, suspicion and fear of being "taken over" or swallowed up only rises, increasing the tendency to run away. Of course this originates from childhood pains, which may or may not be rightly projected onto the partner.

How are separation anxiety & commitment anxiety connected to your family system?

If you have accepted your parents completely with your inner attitude, you are able to connect deeply with another, making you more available in a relationship. In terms of the metaphor of the fountain, this means that you stand in your place in the invisible fountain and you allow your parents their place above you. The fountain consists of multiple tiers above each other, irrigating each other. Each generation represents a tier and your place is in the child tier below your parents in order of birth. Your parents are the big ones and you are the little one. You leave with them what is theirs, and you carry what is yours. You do not care for them, do not condemn them, and let go of your claim to more because parents give what they can give. How to establish this inner attitude can be read in The Fountain, Find Your Place. 

If you can put your mother well above you in the fountain, you will gain the ability to connect deeply with another. How you have connected inwardly with your mother determines your ability how to connect deeply with a partner. Only then are you able to see your partner as he or she really is. This applies to both women and men and regardless of the type of relationship. So when dating, always ask about "the date's" attitude toward his or her mother.... 

If you can put your father well above you in the invisible fountain, you will get to your natural decisiveness and be better able to set your boundaries. You know where you end and the other person begins. Being able to feel boundaries is necessary, because without boundaries there is no relationship, but rather an unhealthy symbiosis. If you don't have your father inwardly with you, you get an insatiable need for recognition and being seen. This often manifests itself in a hefty desire for proof, possibly even at another's expense. In addition, chances are that you have difficulty with authority.

Since everyone has a biological father and mother, any unresolved and unprocessed issues and needs regarding parents will carry over into your love life. This is because if you are not in the right place in the fountain, you have incurred deficits and you are always going to claim them somewhere: with your partner, your children and often also with your employer or the government.

How else does the connection with your parents affect your love life?

If, as a woman, you cannot accept your father, you unconsciously see your father in all men. That can work against you tremendously when you are looking for a partner. Ditto in maintaining relationships. After all, behind every (possible) partner is your father. You are looking at a double image without realizing it. As a man and (possible) partner, you have to be very brave to stand up to these unconscious prejudices. How do you make it clear that you are not her father? Rationally and with practical evidence it is still possible to convince her. Deep down, it is more difficult. After all, she is the only one who can dismantle that double image (and that is by accepting her father and putting him above her in the fountain). In ordinary daily contact with men, that double image need not be a problem. In love relationships with men, however, it becomes more difficult. For men, if they cannot sufficiently put their mother above them in the fountain, they see their mother in all women. If you haven’t put your mother above you in the fountain, it sometimes makes sense to remind yourself that your partner is in front of you and not your mother.

How do bonding anxiety and intimacy relate?

The first person with whom a person has been able to experience intimacy is the mother. Intimacy, being deeply connected to someone, can be scary. Often scarier than sexual contact. Intimacy is about vulnerability. The tension and feelings involved may not be bearable for everyone. Virtually every person needs intimacy; the moving away from intimacy that you see in someone with bonding anxiety is often a survival mechanism. The possible "threat" of intimacy is sometimes frightening to them already! From a distance it can be overlooked and the desire for it grows, but up close it becomes exciting again. At a distance you can (more easily) feel your need for intimacy and feel deeply and allow your love for someone to flow. During prolonged or intimate contact, however, your survival mechanism is switched back on to channel the "abundance" of intimacy and bring the threat back to an acceptable level. For example, by leaving all options open and not making choices (yet), giving you escape routes. Or you start turning something small into something big, creating a reason for yourself to say that this person just isn't the right one after all. Enthusiastic proposals are made to spend a week together or to move in together, but every time it just doesn't happen because of work, pressure-pressure-pressure, wrong planning or just not the right time. These kinds of survival mechanisms were once necessary, but are now usually no longer helpful.

You often see ex-partners being glorified by people with bonding anxiety. Now systemically it is totally justified to give your ex-partners their rightful place, so by all means do that. However, it is also good to see that because of the distance, the magnified issues of the past are not so threatening now. The risk of "too much" intimacy has been averted, so current contact with the ex-partner is often smooth.

Why are bonding anxiety and separation anxiety almost always connected? 

In my coaching practice, clients often say that they suffer from bonding anxiety. But when I do a family constellation with the client, it often turns out that it is not about bonding anxiety, but rather separation anxiety. The pain once experienced, because a mother or perhaps the father was not available for the child, is so great that a survival strategy has been developed. For example, the strategy is to avoid intimacy and steady relationships: if you do not enter into a relationship, you will not experience the pain of possible loss or separation. It works the same way the other way around. Sometimes people say they suffer from separation anxiety. During a family constellation, it then turns out that it is bonding anxiety. During a family constellation, the client often stands with his or her back to the parents: the client refuses to receive from the parents. Perhaps this once originated from a time when a parent was not sufficiently available when you were young. This can even terrify a small child. You may then decide even as a small human being "I have lost the confidence that I can get what I need so much from you. Then in every contact you have to get over that old childhood pain. Because those old images and (un)conscious memories are pushed over the 'here and now', causing the here and now to be considered unsafe. The trick then is to get right into the most recent version of yourself so that you have a realistic awareness of the moment. 

What can healing offer if you are suffering from bonding or separation anxiety? 

Realize that your current bonding or separation anxiety was once created. Usually it is not one cause why you suffer from bonding or separation anxiety. It is a combination of various themes and unprocessed issues from the past. A family constellation about these themes flawlessly reveals where the blockage is and how the fountain can start flowing even better. Because patterns in your fountain repeat themselves in your present life, including your love life. Realize that you are the most recent version of yourself. A younger version of you needed a survival mechanism to get through the situation at the time. The most recent version of yourself can cope. After all, you have grown up and made it through. You are now able to take care of yourself.