12: Why Can’t I Walk Away From a Relationship With an Unavailable Partner (including an affair)? – Justine & Gemma

• Gemma Gladstone
• September 14, 2020

In this episode, Gemma and Justine discuss how the abandonment schema can prevent someone from ending or leaving an unhealthy romantic relationship.  Being able to walk away from a relationship that is not good for you can be a very difficult and daunting experience.  There are some relationships which seem so familiar on a sub-conscious level because the dynamics match or replicate aspects of our earliest attachments – that is our relationships with our parents or care-givers when we were young children. 

These relationships are often with partners who cannot commit, are unstable in some way and unavailable in some way.  The flavour of these relationships is that they are inconsistent, with a tenuous or insecure connection.  The ‘abandoned child’ part of us, feels a sense of “sameness” and stays in these relationships, hoping and longing that the unavailable partner will one day become available.  We also discuss in some detail, why it is especially hard for some people to walk away from an affair that they are having with a married person (ie, an extremely unavailable person).  

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