When Loyalty Becomes Self-Abandonment

At what point does your commitment to not abandoning somebody become self-abandonment?

I've been sitting with that question for a while now. And its shadow question: At what point does your refusal to be abandoned become the same thing?

Loyalty has always been one of my core values. Right up there with authenticity. I used to think it was simple: you commit, you stay. But the math stopped adding up somewhere along the way, and I've been trying to figure out where.

Two Vows, Same Trap

I've watched the first version play out in friends and clients. Somewhere along the way, they made an unconscious vow. Maybe from being abandoned themselves, maybe from watching someone they loved get left behind. They decided, with all the fierce certainty that comes from pain: I will never do that to anyone. I will never be the one who leaves.

These vows are born in genuine suffering and genuine love. They're attempts to transform wounds into something useful. Noble, even.

The problem is that vows made in pain rarely account for nuance, and don't include clauses like "unless staying destroys me," or "unless this person repeatedly crosses boundaries that would be unacceptable in any other relationship," or "unless I've given everything I have and it's still not enough, and it will never be enough."

So they stay. They over-function. They accommodate. They become full-time emotional regulation services for people who will never regulate. They abandon their own boundaries to avoid "abandoning" someone else.

I recognize this pattern immediately when I hear it described. I understand the logic, the trap, the math that doesn't add up.

The Other Vow

My wound doesn't make me the one who stays no matter what. It makes me the one who refuses to be left.

I want to be friends with all my exes. Or at least keep tabs on them. As if knowing what's going on with them erases the end of the relationship.

When someone pulls away from me, I don't just let them go. I explain. I clarify. I send the long message laying out my perspective, my intentions, what I really meant, how they misunderstood, what could help them understand me better. I craft careful words hoping they'll finally see me clearly, and once they do, they'll come back. They'll realize they were wrong to leave. They'll love me again.

I've done this with high-conflict people in my life, too. I reason with them. I try to get them to understand things they are neurologically incapable of understanding. I bring more vulnerability, more clarity, and more patient explanation. I keep thinking: if I can just find the right words, if I can just frame it the right way, they'll finally get it.

After a few years of studying conflict, I finally understand: some people can't get it. Their brains aren't wired for the kind of mutual understanding I keep offering. And no amount of careful words will change that.

The Belief Underneath

Both vows come from the same wound, just expressed differently.

"I will never abandon anyone," says: I know how much it hurts to be left, so I will never inflict that pain on another person, no matter the cost to myself.

"I will never let anyone abandon me," says: If they really understood me, they wouldn't leave. So if they're leaving, I must not have made myself clear enough yet.

Both keep you in relationships past their expiration date. Both make it nearly impossible to cleanly let go. Both turn you into someone who over-functions, who exhausts yourself trying to prevent the inevitable, who abandons yourself in the process of trying to prevent abandonment.

The math doesn't work either way.

What We're Really Trying to Prove

Here's what I've had to sit with, and it's uncomfortable: all of those desperate attempts to maintain connection are not actually about the other person. It's all about me.

If I can stay friends with my ex, then the relationship didn't really fail.

If I can get them to understand my perspective, then I'm not actually rejected.

If I can reason with the unreasonable person, then I'm not powerless.

It's magical thinking dressed up as communication, as if enough words could undo what's already happened. And as if clarity could make someone capable of the understanding they're not capable of.

And while I was spending my finite energy trying to be understood by people who've already shown me they couldn't or wouldn't, I was abandoning myself in the pursuit of not being abandoned.

The Body Knows Before You Do

Here's what else I've learned: when you've been overriding your own limits for a long time, they don't announce themselves politely.

Your jaw starts aching. You grind your teeth at night. Your neck is in a permanent knot that no massage can release. Your stomach acts up before every interaction with that person. You're exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix, because your nervous system has been running a low-grade emergency response for months or years.

Or it shows up in your reactions. You snap. You say something sharp that surprises even you. You yell when you never yell.

And then, if you're like me, you feel terrible. You worry you've now given them a reason to leave. You consider apologizing, explaining, or making one more attempt to smooth it over.

But your reaction wasn't the problem. It was just your system finally telling the truth: this is not okay with me. This has not been okay with me for a long time. And I'm done pretending it is.

What if your commitment to never abandoning someone has become the way you abandon yourself?

What if your refusal to be abandoned has become the same thing?

What if the most loyal thing you could do is finally be loyal to your own limits?

What if setting a boundary isn't abandonment, even when it feels that way, even when they tell you it is, even when every old wound screams that you're doing the terrible thing you vowed never to do?

I don't have all the answers, though. I'm suspicious of anyone who does. The line between healthy commitment and self-destruction isn't always clear, and it moves depending on the day.

But I can tell you from experience that you can love someone and still let them go. You can honor your past commitment and still acknowledge that you made it with incomplete information. You can be someone who shows up fully, and also be someone who knows when showing up means leaving. You certainly can stop explaining yourself to people who aren't listening.

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If any of this hits close to home, you don't have to figure it out alone. I work with people navigating high-conflict dynamics, boundary struggles, and the complicated math of staying vs. leaving. You can learn more and book a session at masharusanov.com/services.