You may experience separation anxiety in a romantic relationship. It can feel like persistent worry or fear. Following routines is one possible coping strategy to make the separation more manageable.

Spending time apart can be tough in any loving relationship. It’s OK to feel some loneliness and unease as you go about your days while longing for your partner’s return.

But if worry, nervousness, or other emotional turmoil has become overwhelming enough to affect your well-being and disrupt your daily life, you could be experiencing separation anxiety.

Our guide below offers more insight into separation anxiety in relationships and some guidance on navigating those worries productively.

Many factors can contribute to relationship separation anxiety, including those discussed below.

Childhood attachment issues

Attachment, in the context of psychology, is the bond that forms between you and your childhood caregivers.

If you learned that you could trust your parents or guardians to take care of your needs, you most likely developed a secure attachment.

Inconsistent love and support, on the other hand, can lead to insecure attachment later in life. Anxious attachment, one type of insecure attachment, has a lot in common with relationship separation anxiety.

If you have an anxious attachment style, you might:

  • worry about your partner leaving you
  • need a lot of reassurance to believe they really love you
  • find it difficult to spend time alone
  • depend on them to meet most of your needs

Life stress or unwelcome changes

In some cases, separation anxiety might develop after a significant loss.

If you’ve just lost a loved one, you might begin to consider your own mortality, and your partner’s, for the first time.

Surviving a disaster or a traumatic event can also prompt some unwanted familiarity with life’s transience. If your partner has previously faced a dangerous situation, you might begin to feel terrified about what might happen the next time you’re apart.

Additionally, leaving home for the first time can cause some stress, according to Vicki Botnick, a marriage and family therapist in Tarzana, California. Whether you move out to live alone or to live with a partner, you might feel unaccustomed to your new independence and anxious about being on your own.

Codependence

While it’s not technically considered a mental health condition, codependence can cause emotional distress, including symptoms of separation anxiety.

In a codependent relationship, you might put your partner’s needs first, have more concern for their well-being than for yours, and even believe you know what’s best for them. Eventually, you might become so intertwined with them that you find it difficult to remember that the two of you are, in fact, different people.

“When people lose their sense of who they are, separate from their loved one, they’re more likely to have a hard time functioning alone,” Botnick said.

Maybe you’ve always found it challenging to be without your partner. Or maybe separation anxiety is a new experience for you, one that leaves you wondering how to rekindle your desire for your own company.

In either scenario, these strategies can help.

Limit your check-ins

Separation anxiety can leave you with the urge to call, text, or message your partner frequently.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping in touch throughout the day. But when you spend all your time worrying about them, you’ll have less mental energy to spare for yourself. This can affect your concentration and create challenges in your daily routine. Plus, frequent texts might overwhelm them.

Create some space by giving yourself some guidelines. Maybe you text them during your morning break and give them a quick call during lunch, for example. Otherwise, set your phone aside and turn your attention to your own day.

If worries continue to pop up, acknowledge them and then let them float on by. Refusing to engage with these thoughts can help weaken their hold.

Create new routines

Separation anxiety can develop after major life changes when you fear losing the closeness you and your partner currently share.

One solution? Make a dedicated effort to build time for quality connection into each day.

It’s absolutely healthy to spend some time apart, but you can’t maintain a strong, healthy relationship unless you spend time together too.

Bonding time may look different depending on your unique situation.

You might want to try some of these ideas:

  • Share one meal every day.
  • Make a habit of going to bed at the same time.
  • Reserve one day of the week to spend time together.
  • Reconnect with an evening walk.
  • Schedule a nightly video chat or telephone call.

Share your worries

Good communication isn’t a relationship cure-all, but it can go a long way toward easing different types of relationship distress.

Even just explaining what you’re feeling and how you’re trying to work through it can help. Your partner may not understand where your fears are coming from, but they can still listen, validate your feelings, and offer emotional support.

It’s also possible that they’ve experienced some similar anxieties and wondered how to share those feelings with you, so an open conversation could make a difference for you both.

Focus on your needs

Tending to your emotional and physical needs won’t automatically make your worries disappear, but it can help you manage them more successfully.

When you catch yourself stuck in a loop of worry, consider whether you’re making enough time for:

Self-care can involve pretty much anything you do to support your own well-being. You might consider:

Get used to separation gradually

Graduated exposure, a tactic often used in anxiety treatment, can help you slowly adapt to whatever triggers your anxiety.

Experiencing separation in bite-size steps can help you adjust as you slowly work your way up to spending a few days (or more) apart from your partner. You might feel a little more secure each time your partner comes home safely as the evidence stacks up in favor of their continued return to you.

If symptoms of separation anxiety last for 6 months or longer, a mental health professional may diagnose separation anxiety disorder — but you don’t have to wait that long to reach out.

Botnick recommends connecting with a therapist if:

  • emotional distress begins to affect your daily life and personal relationships
  • you have panic attacks
  • you feel anxious and distressed days before the separation
  • anxiety persists even after your reunion

Therapy provides a safe space to explore feelings of anxiety, on your own or with your partner. Helpful approaches might include:

A couples counselor can offer guidance on strengthening your communication skills and exploring any existing concerns, from your current relationship or a previous one, that might play a part in separation anxiety.

As it turns out, the sorrow of parting isn’t really all that sweet.

Yet even when time apart from your partner is the last thing you want, a brief separation could help the two of you grow even closer. After all, you might treasure your bond all the more when you reconnect.

If you still have difficulty with worries about abandonment or about your partner’s safety, a therapist can help you explore solutions so that you can feel secure, connected, and comfortable on your own.