True self – How to Stop Abandoning Yourself in Relationships
True self. The moment often happens so subtly you barely notice it—that slight internal flinch when your authentic response rises, followed by the automatic adjustment of your words, needs, or boundaries to maintain harmony in a relationship. Perhaps you find yourself agreeing with a perspective that doesn’t actually align with your values. Maybe you notice your body tensing as you swallow words that feel too risky to express. Or you might recognize the familiar sensation of becoming slightly smaller, less defined, more accommodating in the presence of someone whose approval matters to you. These moments reflect a common human pattern: self-abandonment in relationships.
This pattern manifests physically. Notice the subtle contraction in your throat when you stop yourself from expressing a genuine need. Observe how your shoulders might rise slightly toward your ears when you’re accommodating someone else’s preferences at the expense of your own. Pay attention to the shallow breathing that often accompanies pushing your own feelings aside to maintain connection. These bodily responses aren’t random but reveal the embodied nature of self-abandonment.
I work with a woman who realized she physically braces herself whenever expressing a preference that differs from her partner’s. Her breath holds, her muscles tense, and she unconsciously prepares for conflict or rejection—even with a partner who has never responded negatively to her differing views. This physical response developed long before her current relationship, reflecting earlier experiences where authentic self-expression led to disconnection or disapproval.
Self-abandonment takes many forms. Sometimes it appears as consistent deferring to others’ preferences while minimizing your own. Other times it manifests as hiding certain aspects of yourself—perhaps your accomplishments around someone easily threatened, or your struggles with someone uncomfortable with vulnerability. Often it involves muting your emotional responses to maintain others’ comfort, whether swallowing anger to avoid conflict or suppressing joy to prevent others’ envy.
The origins of this pattern typically trace to early relationships where authentic self-expression created risk to important connections. A child whose enthusiasm was consistently met with irritation learns to modulate their energy to maintain attachment. Another whose different perspective triggered parental disapproval learns to mirror others’ viewpoints rather than expressing their own. Still another whose emotional needs overwhelmed available resources learns that relationship security depends on minimizing their own requirements.
These adaptations made developmental sense. Children depend on caregivers for survival, making attachment needs literally life-sustaining. The child who learns that certain aspects of themselves threaten connection makes the only choice available—adapting to maintain the relationships they need. These protective patterns long outlast their original context, however, creating relationship dynamics in adulthood that repeat the familiar cycle of self-abandonment.
The costs accumulate over time. Relationships built on partial self-expression create a particular kind of loneliness—the isolation of being connected to others who know only carefully curated versions of you. The constant monitoring required to maintain these adapted presentations consumes enormous energy. Most fundamentally, habitual self-abandonment creates estrangement from your own experience, making it increasingly difficult to even identify your authentic needs, feelings, and boundaries.
Try this experiment: Notice the next time you feel the subtle impulse to adjust your self-expression in a relationship. Perhaps you’re about to soften a boundary, hide a feeling, or adapt to someone else’s preference despite your own. Rather than immediately following this impulse, pause and bring attention to your body. What sensations arise in this moment of potential self-abandonment? Where do you feel constriction or tension? What happens to your breathing? This awareness creates a crucial moment of choice where previously there was only automatic adaptation.
The path toward more authentic self-expression begins with recognizing the specific ways you abandon yourself in relationships. One helpful approach involves tracking patterns across different connections. Do you consistently subordinate your preferences around certain people? Are there particular emotions you find yourself hiding in specific relationships? Do certain topics trigger automatic self-silencing? This inventory reveals the landscape of your self-abandonment patterns.
Physical practices support this reclamation process. Many find that consciously connecting with their body before important interactions helps maintain access to authentic responses. Try this: Before a conversation where you typically abandon yourself, take a few moments to feel your feet firmly planted on the ground. Take several deep breaths into your lower abdomen. Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly, physically reminding yourself of your commitment to remaining present with your own experience alongside connection with the other.
Working with a man who habitually abandoned his own needs in his marriage, we developed a practice called “returning to center.” Whenever he noticed himself about to automatically accommodate his partner at significant cost to himself, he would visualize returning to a centered position—neither collapsing his own boundaries nor aggressively asserting them, but simply returning to an integrated sense of his own experience alongside care for the relationship. This mental image corresponded with physical shifts—relaxing his shoulders, deepening his breath, feeling his feet connecting with the ground.
Another helpful dimension involves small experiments in authentic expression. The person accustomed to self-abandonment might express a preference when asked where to eat dinner rather than automatically deferring. They might share a feeling in the moment rather than processing it privately later. They might maintain a boundary despite another’s disappointment. These seemingly minor shifts represent significant courage, challenging deeply held beliefs that relationships depend on your self-erosion.
Importantly, the journey toward authentic self-expression in relationships involves recognizing that genuine connection requires your presence, not your performance. The parts of yourself you’ve learned to hide or modify often hold the very qualities that create meaningful bonds. Your unfiltered enthusiasm, your honest emotional responses, your clear boundaries, your authentic needs—these aspects don’t threaten true connection but are essential foundation for it.
One client found it helpful to explicitly name her pattern when beginning to shift it. With trusted others, she would acknowledge: “I notice I tend to abandon my own perspective to match yours. I’m working on staying more connected to my genuine responses while in relationship.” This transparency created context for her changing behavior while inviting others to relate to her more authentically.
The reclamation process often reveals grief. There’s legitimate loss in recognizing how long you’ve abandoned yourself, how many relationships have been built on partial presence, how different your connections might look had you remained fully present. This grief deserves acknowledgment rather than bypassing.
Working with a woman who’d maintained patterns of self-abandonment through decades of relationships, we created space to mourn both the authentic connections she’d missed and the energy she’d expended maintaining adapted presentations of herself. This grieving process, while painful, created necessary clearing for different choices. She began recognizing that her habitual self-diminishment emerged not just from fear of rejection but from unconscious beliefs that her full self would overwhelm others or that relationship harmony required her inconsiderable self-editing.
The journey isn’t linear. You’ll have moments of courageous authenticity followed by reflexive returns to self-abandonment. You’ll encounter relationships that expand to welcome your more authentic presence and others that resist or collapse without your former accommodation. Through it all, your commitment isn’t to perfect self-expression but to growing awareness of the subtle ways you leave yourself and the growing capacity to choose differently.
One practice that supports this journey involves consciously tracking the physical sensations of both self-abandonment and authentic presence. How does your body feel when you’re abandoning yourself in relationship? Perhaps there’s constriction in your throat, tension in your shoulders, shallowness in your breathing. How does your body feel when you’re maintaining connection to yourself while engaging with another? Maybe your breathing deepens, your posture straightens, your gestures become more natural and expressive. These bodily cues provide valuable feedback about your current state.
The capacity for authentic self-expression requires discernment. Not every thought, feeling, or need requires immediate verbal expression. Not every relationship can accommodate your complete authenticity, and some contexts appropriately call for adapted self-presentation. The crucial distinction lies between conscious, selective sharing versus automatic, fear-based self-abandonment—between thoughtful discernment about what to express versus habitual self-silencing.
Try this practice: Identify one relationship where greater authenticity feels both possible and important. Before your next interaction, reflect on one specific way you typically abandon yourself with this person—perhaps automatically agreeing with their perspective, hiding certain feelings, or minimizing your own needs. Set an intention to maintain connection to this specific aspect of your experience during your time together. Afterward, notice: What supported your authentic presence? What triggered self-abandonment? What happened in the relationship when you remained more fully present?
Another helpful approach involves reviewing past experiences of both self-abandonment and authentic presence. Recall a time when you significantly abandoned yourself in an important relationship. How did this choice affect your sense of self, your energy level, your genuine connection with the other person? Now recall a time when you maintained authentic presence despite the risk. What supported this choice? How did it impact the relationship and your own wellbeing? These reflections help clarify both the costs of self-abandonment and the benefits of authentic presence.
Physical practices that develop greater capacity to tolerate relational discomfort support this journey. Many find that conscious breathing helps maintain self-connection when authentic expression creates tension in relationships. When you notice the impulse to abandon yourself rising, try taking several slow, deep breaths while mentally reminding yourself: “I can tolerate this discomfort without leaving myself.” This simple practice helps rewire the nervous system’s association between relational tension and self-abandonment.
Working with a couple where both partners habitually abandoned themselves to maintain harmony, we developed a practice of “breathing together through difference.” When they encountered a genuine disagreement, they would sit facing each other, maintain eye contact, and breathe consciously together for a full minute before responding. This shared regulation created space where different perspectives could exist without triggering mutual self-abandonment.
The capacity to maintain authentic presence transforms not just individual relationships but your entire relational field. Work interactions shift when you contribute perspectives instead of automatic agreement. Friendships deepen through honest exchange rather than one-sided accommodation. Intimate relationships develop greater resilience when both partners express genuine needs and feelings. Even casual connections take on new quality when you’re no longer automatically scanning for others’ expectations while suppressing your own authentic responses.
Importantly, the journey from self-abandonment toward authentic presence creates ripple effects beyond your personal relationships. Each time you practice remaining connected to yourself while in relationship, you not only transform your immediate connection but contribute to a broader culture of authenticity. Your courage creates permission for others to express themselves more genuinely, gradually shifting relational patterns that maintain collective self-abandonment.
Remember that the reclamation of self in relationship isn’t selfish but essential—not just for your own wellbeing but for the possibilities of genuine connection. True intimacy can only exist between whole people, each fully present and authentically expressed. By gradually, compassionately reclaiming the aspects of yourself you’ve learned to abandon, you create foundation for relationships characterized not by mutual disappearance but by the transformative power of being fully seen and genuinely accepted.
Keywords: True self, Anxiety, polyvagal theory, gestalt therapy, psychotherapy, parents, parental trauma, somatic experiencing
Contact us: Feel and Heal Therapy Office
