When to Leave a Relationship

Описание: On this video, I explore the painful cycle of on again off again relationships, how attachment injuries create chronic self-doubt and override red flags, and why you feel like you're wilting inside while clinging to the possibility of change that never comes.

If you're trapped in the exhausting loop of "maybe this, maybe that" while putting your life on hold and denying your needs, this video reveals why your chronic uncertainty IS your answer. Here's what you need to know!

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why the chronic "stay, leave" loop is actually your answer
How attachment injuries create chronic self-doubt and override red flags
The misplaced loyalty that keeps you clinging to potential vs reality
Why you accept crumbs of relating while feeling emotionally starved
How you've betrayed yourself by denying your needs completely
The difference between hoping for change vs white-knuckling for it
Why you feel exhausted, vacant, and like you're wilting inside
How emotional starvation makes you lose connection to yourself

💡 Key Topics Covered:

Stay or leave decisions
Chronic relationship doubt
Attachment injuries
On again off again relationships
Misplaced loyalty
Emotional starvation
Self-betrayal patterns
Red flag denial

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I'm Alan Robarge, an Attachment-Focused Psychotherapist and Relationship Educator. I work with people who die inside when relationships end or who suffocate before the end. I help those hurt by love rebuild what heartbreak shattered and forge a stronger self.
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Clinical Trauma Specialist: Alan Robarge, LPC | Attachment-Focused Psychotherapist and Relationship Educator Licensed Professional Counselor with 23 years of experience. This channel provides Psychology Education for Relationships and Mental Health, specializing in:

Anxious attachment patterns, fawning behaviors, enmeshment, trauma bonding, shame, and self-abandonment in relationships. Attachment trauma, emotional neglect, love addiction, codependency recovery, and adult children of developmental wounds from childhood.

Clinical Framework: Attachment Distress & The False Persona / My work addresses the phenomenon of losing the self within relational dynamics. When ego-strength is insufficient to remain grounded during attachment distress, the result is an implosion—manifesting as symptoms of hyper-arousal, intrusion, dissociation, and constriction. The biological trauma responses of Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn manifest as relational behavior strategies: Poking, Running, Hiding, and Submitting—each used to manage vulnerability.

Toxic shame drives an internal double bind: the agonizing conflict between the longing for connection and the fear of exposure. Unintegrated and unhealed trauma wounds result in a cycle of feeling stuck, triggered, and crushed. Unprocessed grief accumulates as the self wilts to maintain connection. Healing requires grieving the collapse of the persona and restoring the "heart light" sense-of-self. When it comes to Childhood Attachment Trauma, we grieve what happened; we also grieve what didn't happen.

By regulating shame and dismantling survival defenses, I help individuals safely restore the essential self and reclaim relational integrity. Healing includes strengths-based skill-building, education of somatic awareness for nervous system regulation, evidence-based psychotherapy interventions, and the cultivation of relational competency.

Credentials & Clinical Training

Alan Robarge, LPC, Licensed Professional Counselor, holds a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from Regis University and completed specialized graduate-level studies in Contemplative Psychotherapy at Naropa University, focusing on Clinical Psychology from a Buddhist Perspective. His theoretical orientation is rooted in Depth Psychology and Jungian Psychology—specifically the process of individuation, shadow work, and the integration of opposites—as well as John Gottman’s research on building trust and commitment and Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT).

His clinical foundation includes service as a Trauma Counselor for two non-profits, specializing in treatment for survivors of childhood abuse, and as a Bereavement Counselor within a hospice internship. Beyond his academic degrees, he has pursued independent study in Somatic Experiencing and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to integrate body-based nervous system regulation into trauma recovery.

With over 23 years of clinical experience in private practice, he has specialized in the remediation of developmental trauma and the long-term sequelae of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). His work addresses the clinical presentation of anxiety disorders and the systemic entrenchment of the pursuer-distancer loop within high-conflict couple's relationships. He focuses on the psychological impact of relational dissolution (breakups, divorce, endings), specifically the complex grief and attachment-based distress resulting from acute heartbreak.