Staying With Yourself: What Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Relationships Can Teach About Self Abandonment

By Jen Kost, MSW, LCSW, PMH-C

One of the most common themes that emerges in therapy during pregnancy and postpartum is not simply anxiety, depression, or relationship conflict. It is self abandonment.

Self abandonment happens quietly. It is rarely a conscious choice. It often looks like becoming so focused on another person's needs, emotions, reactions, or approval that connection with yourself begins to fade.

Many people entering parenthood have spent years becoming experts at reading other people. They know how to anticipate needs, avoid conflict, keep the peace, or make sure everyone else feels comfortable. These skills may have helped them survive difficult relationships or environments. They may even be strengths in caregiving. The problem arises when these skills become the primary way of moving through the world.

Instead of asking, "What do I need?" the question becomes, "What will make someone else happy?"

Instead of noticing discomfort, the focus shifts to making sure nobody else feels disappointed.

Over time, it becomes surprisingly difficult to know where another person's experience ends and your own begins.

The Cost of Losing Yourself

Pregnancy and postpartum have a remarkable way of bringing this pattern into focus.

A growing family introduces countless decisions, changing identities, shifting relationships, and increased emotional demands. During this season, many people notice they are constantly monitoring everyone around them.

Is my partner okay?

Is the baby okay?

Are my parents upset?

Did I disappoint someone?

Am I asking for too much?

These are understandable questions. The challenge is when they completely replace another equally important question.

How am I doing right now?

Self abandonment often creates anxiety because the nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for information about other people while receiving very little information from within.

When attention is directed almost exclusively outward, it becomes harder to recognize personal limits, preferences, emotions, and needs.

Attachment Is Not About Losing Yourself

People sometimes believe secure attachment means always being available, always understanding, or always putting someone else's needs first. In reality, secure attachment requires staying connected to another person while remaining connected to yourself. This is very different from becoming emotionally fused with someone else's experience.

For people who tend toward anxious attachment, another person's mood can quickly become their responsibility. For people who tend toward people pleasing, conflict can feel dangerous enough that personal needs disappear in an effort to preserve connection.

Neither response is evidence of weakness. They are often adaptations that once helped someone stay emotionally safe. The work is not eliminating attachment. The work is learning how to stay attached without abandoning yourself.

Staying With Yourself

One phrase that often becomes meaningful in therapy is staying with yourself. Staying with yourself means noticing your own experience before immediately moving toward someone else's. It means becoming curious about your own internal world.

What am I feeling?

What does my body notice?

Do I actually want this?

Am I saying yes because it feels right or because I am afraid of disappointing someone?

Do I even know what I prefer?

These questions sound simple. For many people, they are surprisingly difficult. Years of prioritizing everyone else can leave someone disconnected from their own preferences.

Some people genuinely struggle to answer questions like:

What kind of music do I actually enjoy?

What helps me feel rested?

What friendships feel reciprocal?

What conversations leave me feeling energized?

What boundaries make me feel safer?

The goal is not becoming less caring. The goal is becoming equally curious about yourself.

Keeping Yourself Safe

Many people spend enormous energy trying to keep relationships safe. They monitor another person's emotions. They anticipate disappointment. They avoid difficult conversations. They tolerate situations that feel painful because losing the relationship feels more threatening than losing themselves. Therapy often introduces a different question.

How can I keep myself safe inside relationships?

Keeping yourself safe is not about building walls or avoiding vulnerability. It means trusting yourself to notice discomfort. It means believing your feelings deserve attention. It means allowing boundaries to become information instead of evidence that you are difficult. Safety grows when you know you will listen to yourself, even if someone else does not.

Becoming an Expert on Yourself

Many people become experts on their partners, children, family members, or friends. They know everyone's favorite foods, stress responses, love languages, and emotional patterns. Imagine directing even a fraction of that curiosity inward.

What activities make you lose track of time?

What conversations leave you feeling peaceful?

What situations consistently create tension?

What values matter most?

What kind of support actually helps when life feels overwhelming?

Developing this kind of self knowledge creates a steadier foundation for every relationship. It also creates a stronger foundation for parenting. Children benefit from caregivers who know how to recognize their own emotions, respect their own limits, and recover from difficult moments without disappearing into someone else's experience.

Returning to Yourself Again and Again

Self abandonment is rarely something that disappears overnight. It is a pattern that developed for understandable reasons. Healing often looks less dramatic than people expect. It may be pausing before saying yes. It may be noticing tension in your body before responding. It may be recognizing that someone else's disappointment is not automatically a sign that you have done something wrong.

Most importantly, it is remembering that healthy relationships do not require losing yourself. Pregnancy and postpartum are seasons filled with change. Identity shifts. Relationships evolve. New responsibilities emerge. Through all of that, one relationship deserves ongoing attention. The relationship you have with yourself.

The ability to stay with yourself, especially during moments of uncertainty, may become one of the greatest protective factors for mental health, healthy attachment, and lasting emotional wellbeing.