Irretrievable Losses ad Unfillable Voids
How Childhood Wounds Shape Our Adult Needs and Relationships
It’s a painful, often heartbreaking realization that the comfort we seek from a partner—or anyone else for that matter—can never reach the depth of the need we feel inside.
The needs we chase as adults, the relentless hunger for security, validation, or reassurance, often trace their roots back to the unresolved wounds of childhood. These deep, emotional scars—formed through experiences of neglect, abandonment, or overwhelming parental control—become the template for how we approach connection in adulthood. And yet, nothing, no one, ever seems to be enough.
Our unfulfilled needs from childhood are like ghosts from the past, haunting our present-day relationships. What we once sought from our parents in childhood—whether it be unconditional love, safety, or recognition—remains embedded in our psyche as an unresolved longing. When we enter relationships as adults, we unconsciously transfer these unmet needs onto our partners. We want them to provide what was missing in childhood, hoping they will finally fill the void left behind by absent or insufficient parental care. Of course, none of this is conscious.
But here’s the tragic irony: our partners can never truly fulfill those needs. The depth of the wound is too profound, its origin too far in the past, for anyone to heal it completely. The need we feel is not just about the present moment—it’s about something we didn’t receive long ago, something we can no longer obtain. The love, validation, or comfort we yearned for as children has slipped through our fingers, and no matter how hard we try to recreate those dynamics with a partner, the result is inevitably the same: disappointment and despair.
This cycle of unmet expectations can lead to a devastating sense of powerlessness. We turn to our partners to feel secure, to reassure us, to provide the stability we crave—but what we are really asking for is something they can never provide. We are asking them to step into the role of our parents, to fill a hole that was created in childhood. And when they inevitably fall short, we feel abandoned and alone all over again. The cycle repeats: we project our unmet needs onto them, they fail to meet them, and we are left feeling empty, unseen, and unloved.
What’s often missing from this cycle is a deeper examination of the very nature of our needs. There is so much emphasis on fulfilling each other’s needs. We are told that in a healthy relationship, partners should meet each other’s emotional needs, creating a safe and secure bond. But how often do we stop to ask ourselves what those needs actually represent? What do they point to?
For many of us, the needs we express in relationships are not new—they are echoes of a much earlier time in our lives. They are not simply desires for connection in the present, but rather manifestations of unmet needs from childhood.
The child who was emotionally neglected may grow into an adult who desperately seeks validation and attention from their partner. The child who felt abandoned may become an adult who fears any sign of distance in a relationship, clinging tightly in an effort to avoid the pain of rejection. The child who was invaded psychologically may develop an avoidant stance and distance themselves from the very love they seek.
What’s more, the intensity of these needs often blinds us to the fact that they can never truly be fulfilled in the way we hope. The neglect, abandonment, or overwhelm we experienced as children cannot be undone in adulthood. No amount of love from a partner can heal the original wound. And so, we find ourselves caught in a painful loop, constantly seeking but never finding the satisfaction we crave.
This is not to say that our needs in relationships are not valid. We all require love, connection, and security to thrive. But when these needs are driven by unresolved trauma, they become unmanageable, overwhelming, and impossible to meet. The trauma lives on in the body, coloring every interaction with fear, anxiety, and longing. It distorts our perception of what we actually need in the present, pushing us to demand more and more from our partners without realizing that we are asking them to do the impossible.
What we are often missing is an acknowledgment that these needs cannot be fully satisfied by anyone outside of ourselves. The wounds we carry from childhood are ours to heal and/or tolerate, and that healing begins with acceptance. It requires a painful but necessary confrontation with the reality that some of our deepest needs will never be met in the way we long for them to be. This is the loss we must learn to live with—the loss of what could have been in childhood, but never was. This is an irretrievable loss.
Healing from this kind of trauma is not about finding a partner who can give us what our parents couldn’t. It’s about learning to tolerate the discomfort of unmet needs and finding ways to soothe ourselves in the present. It’s about recognizing the patterns of projection that lead us to place unfair demands on our partners/ourselves and stepping back from the cycle of disappointment. Most importantly, it’s about understanding that the security we seek can only be found within ourselves. And while keeping in mind that that sense of internal security might involve tolerating the felt experience of insecurity.
The idea that we can heal through relationships, that a loving partner can fill the gaps left by our parents, is a powerful and seductive myth. No partner can ever step into the role of a parent. Trying to make them do so only sets the stage for frustration and disillusionment. The key to breaking this cycle lies in accepting that some wounds will never fully heal and that we don’t actually need them to fully heal in order to move on and have satisfying relationships.
This is not a hopeless message—on the contrary, it is freeing. It allows us to stop looking for external solutions to internal problems. It encourages us to take responsibility for our own healing and to cultivate relationships that are based on mutual support, rather than unspoken expectations. When we stop turning our partners into our parents, we can begin to see them for who they really are, and we can start to build relationships that are grounded in reality, rather than fantasy.
Such a powerful reminder of the work and path ahead to heal.
Thanks a lot
So many truths here ❤️ I still like the idea of choosing someone that loves us better than our parents may have. While recognizing I do not NEED that love for validation or to fill a void. Oooh boy it's a process tho