A Personal Letter to My Abandonment Issues

Alek, what has it cost you to hold onto this relationship — now, this marriage — for so long?

The truth?

More than I ever thought I could lose.

In the first four years alone, it cost me a huge business opportunity.

Then my finances.

Then my income.

Then my health — shingles, literally on my face. My body was screaming, yet I refused to listen.

After that came something even deeper:

The loss of my sexuality.

It began with a kind of unexplained sexual rejection — only three months into being with him.

No conversation. No clarity. Just… a closing.

And slowly, I disconnected from my body, my desire, and the part of me that once felt alive through touch.

I became physical with someone I didn’t feel safe with, because I didn’t know how else to survive.

And with that came a kind of humiliation I couldn’t even put words to.

Then came the moment of brutal clarity:

A walk in Hamburg, 2015.

He looked at me and said, “I’m doing to you what your mother did to you.”

And just like that, it all made sense — my abandonment issues, my inability to leave, my desperate loyalty to someone who couldn’t meet me.

He mirrored the wound.

And I saw it.

That was the beginning of something.

I realised I needed to cut the cord with my mother. And I did.

I haven’t spoken to her in nearly ten years.

Then my sister followed — because she had become a clone of the same energy.

About three months later, I left my partner.

For a whole year, I was thriving.

I rebuilt my income.

I got my body back in shape.

I dated people who were better aligned with me.

But somehow… I couldn’t get him out of my system.

So when I heard that he was crashing, I came to the rescue.

That was 2017.

And if I’m honest, I still don’t know if I’ve recovered from that decision.

Since then, we’ve moved from Berlin to Poland, to London, back to Berlin, then Luxembourg, back again, then Switzerland.

And here we are, full circle:

Bills unpaid.

Credit score about to crack again.

Energy gone.

Health low.

And this time, there are new ingredients.

I’m almost ten years older now — in my fifties.

My career is nearly nonexistent.

To even start over, I’d first have to qualify for an apartment in Germany again, have the cash ready, and somehow rebuild a sense of direction.

But the hardest part isn’t logistics.

It’s that somewhere along the way, I lost faith in myself.

He doesn’t want to move.

Switzerland was only ever supposed to be one year.

That was the plan we both agreed on — because it was clear my way of living didn’t fit here.

A village of five hundred.

A culture that feels foreign to everything I am and everything I want.

There are no people here — and I need people.

Connection. Energy. Movement.

That’s how I make money. That’s how I breathe.

In the last two years, I’ve had more health issues than in the previous fifteen.

And he lets it happen.

He escapes — disappears into his beloved nature, where he doesn’t have to think.

Not about his budget, which is a mess.

Not about his impulses.

Not about me.

He simply allows himself to live like no one else could — not even a king — with no real responsibility.

And I’m the one holding it all together, like an employee running his life.

Sometimes it feels like when I’m too old or too tired, he’ll just find a new one.

And yet, here we still are.

My intuition keeps whispering that he’s fine with me dying here — literally — as long as I stay.

He doesn’t love me, not in a way that nourishes or protects.

He can’t even give himself what he needs, let alone me or us.

And yet, he also can’t let go.

I saved him so many times.

Or maybe… I sank both of us by never letting him face his own mess.

It feels like I’m dying in slow motion.

My brain is shutting down.

My body is tired.

My finances are in ruins.

And I’m starting to lose faith in myself.

And yet… I still don’t want to let go.

I still want him near me — at least it feels like that.

But I know, deep down, I’m scared.

Scared I can’t take care of myself financially at 52.

Scared I’ve passed some invisible point of no return.

Scared that if I leave, I’ll be alone forever — not because I couldn’t meet someone else, but because of the damage this relationship has done to me.

I keep asking myself:

If I had €20,000 to start over, would I leave?

And every time, my answer is: Yes.

Because I know I could give myself a clean eight months to rebuild.

To rest.

To recalibrate.

To come back to life.

But right now, I have €5,000 to my name.

No new clients since January.

No safe landing place.

Just this relationship I’m trapped in — emotionally, financially, energetically.

And the truth?

I’m empty.

I’m done.

There’s nothing left to give.

And still, some part of me clings.

To the story.

To the fantasy.

To the trauma‑bonded sense of love that was never love at all.

So what now?

Maybe this article isn’t for you.

Maybe I wrote it for myself — to see it all laid out.

To name it.

To feel it in one breath instead of a thousand silent ones.

Maybe I just needed to tell myself:

This is what it has cost.

And it’s okay to choose differently now.

Even at 52.

Even with nothing left.

Because if I don’t choose differently,

I won’t survive what’s left of this.

And I want to live — or maybe I keep holding it together only so I can take care of Loki, my beloved Dalmatian.

Written by Alek Martin aka WhiteTrashRoyal.com