Every child deserves a healthy attachment with their parents or caregivers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. Far too many children have to deal with unmet needs. While we often think of those things as physical needs, including food, water, and shelter, it’s often more common for emotional needs to go unnoticed or be swept under the rug.
When a child’s needs aren’t met, it can lead to a lifetime of complications and issues, especially when it comes to relationships. Unmet childhood needs can create difficulties with communication, make you feel insecure with a constant need for reassurance, and might even create unhealthy relationship patterns that are hard to escape.
Thankfully, it’s possible to break those patterns with the right help and support. The first step is understanding how unmet childhood needs show up in your relationship.
Fear From Attachment Trauma
Children who experience neglect often grow up with attachment issues that can impact all of their relationships. You might have a deeply-rooted fear of abandonment that stems from childhood. Unfortunately, that often creates unhealthy relationship dynamics. You might find that you’re extremely clingy or possessive. Maybe you need constant reassurance from the people around you that things are okay and your relationship is in a good place.
Unfortunately, people who experienced any kind of childhood trauma might develop unhealthy relationship patterns. They often look for partners who mirror relationship patterns from childhood. It’s often difficult for those with attachment issues to be vulnerable or share their needs. So, attaching to a partner who takes advantage of that can not only be unhealthy, but potentially abusive.
Communication Issues
If your needs were not acknowledged as a child, you likely “learned” from an early age to keep quiet about those needs. Carrying that idea with you into adulthood will have a direct impact on your relationships.
You might not know how to express your needs in a relationship. Or, you might feel guilty doing so. Keeping quiet about your needs will lead to misunderstandings within a relationship. Your partner can’t read your mind.
Those who experienced unmet childhood needs might also have a fear of conflict or confrontation. So, even when your needs aren’t being met, you might keep the problems to yourself. While it might seem like this is helpful in avoiding difficult conversations, it can be extremely detrimental and lead to resentment.
Self-Sabotaging
It’s not uncommon for adults who experience attachment issues as children to have low self-esteem or to deal with guilt. As a result, you might be prone to self-sabotaging behaviors without even realizing it.
Things like emotional distancing and even infidelity are more common for adults with these issues. You might be more prone to do things that undermine the relationship because of your unresolved issues and the feelings they cause.
Finding Help and Support
You can’t go back and change what happened to you as a child. However, through things like EMDR therapy for the trauma you experienced or emotionally focused therapy for your relationship, you can learn to work through those experiences and move forward with your life.
Recognizing the impact of these childhood issues is the first step. Now it’s time to process what you experienced, and you don’t have to do that alone. Therapy can help you with self-care practices that boost your sense of worth. It will also give you the strategies and tools needed to be a better communicator and to stop sabotaging the healthy relationships in your life, so you can break free of the negative patterns caused by a neglectful childhood.
If you’re ready to start that next chapter, I’m here to help. Contact me today to set up an appointment soon.
