Research suggests people who struggle to relax and let go were often raised by parents who weren’t emotionally steady

I used to think about a friend from college.

We hadn’t spoken in years.

The falling out was over something I can’t even remember now.

But I still thought about them.

Wondered if they thought about me.

Replayed the last conversation, looking for the moment everything shifted.

They’d moved on. I knew that. They weren’t sitting around wondering about me.

But I couldn’t stop.

I told myself I was loyal. Committed. Someone who didn’t give up on people.

I even convinced myself I was just bad at goodbyes.

But it wasn’t just that one friend.

It was exes whose birthdays I still remembered.

Old coworkers I hadn’t seen in a decade.

Friends who’d drifted so far I couldn’t even remember why we stopped talking.

I held onto all of them. Not because I wanted them back. Because some part of me kept hoping things could be fixed. That if I just held on long enough, the broken thing would somehow become whole.

It took me years to understand where that fear came from.

Not from a bad breakup or a friendship that soured.

From childhood. From a parent whose mood I could never predict.

Some days they were warm. Some days they were cold. Some days they were present. And some days, they were gone.

People raised in environments like that often have a hard time letting go due to a mixture of things they learned, saw, and experienced.

They learned that connection could disappear without warning

When a parent is emotionally unsteady, a child doesn’t develop what psychologists call a “secure base.” The person who’s supposed to be their anchor is unpredictable. So they learn to stay alert. To watch for the shift. To hold on tighter than they should.

According to attachment theory, developed by psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, children who experience inconsistent emotional availability often develop an anxious attachment style. They learn to “hyper-activate” their attachment system—constantly checking, worrying, clinging—because connection has never felt guaranteed.

People who struggle to let go aren’t weak. They were trained to believe that if they let go, they might lose everything.

They’re holding onto hope, not reality

Here’s what many people in this situation don’t realize. They aren’t holding onto the parent they actually had. They’re holding onto the one they wished they had.

The good moments. The times when the parent showed up. The glimpses of warmth that made them think, “See? They can be that person. Maybe if I just try harder, they’ll stay that way.”

Licensed professional counselor Stephanie St. Clair, MA, LPC, writes that many adult children of emotionally immature parents hang on to what she calls a “healing fantasy”—the belief that if they just try hard enough, or say the right thing, the parent will finally change and provide the emotional steadiness they’ve always needed.

Letting go means giving up that fantasy. So they hold on. Even when it hurts. Even when they know better.

Every small conflict feels like the end of the world

This is the pattern that shows up in adult relationships.

A friend cancels plans. A partner seems distant for a day. Someone doesn’t text back as quickly as expected. And suddenly, the person who struggles with letting go is spiraling. What did I do wrong? Are they upset with me? Is this the beginning of the end?

They’re not overreacting. They’re responding to a childhood where conflict really did feel like it could end everything. Where a parent’s bad mood could mean days of silence. Where a small mistake could make the ground shift beneath them.

Without a stable base, they never developed what psychologists call “object constancy”—the ability to believe a relationship is still solid even when there’s distance or conflict. For them, every bump in the road feels like a cliff. So they hold on tighter. They apologize when they didn’t do anything wrong. They make themselves small to keep the peace.

Because letting go feels like losing everything. And they’ve been afraid of that for as long as they can remember.

They were trained to wait for the other shoe to drop

When you grow up with emotional unpredictability, you never learn to trust calm.

Calm doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels suspicious. You’re waiting for the shift. The sudden coldness. The explosion you know is coming because it always came before.

So people with this history stay hypervigilant. They scan for signs of trouble. They hold on tight to anything that feels stable—even if it’s not good for them—because the alternative feels like freefall.

This is the exhaustion no one sees. Not the drama of letting go. The exhaustion of always holding on.

They grieve what they never had

Letting go isn’t just about leaving a person or a relationship behind. It’s about admitting that something was missing.

That’s the hardest part. Not walking away. Accepting that the steadiness they needed wasn’t there. That no amount of holding on will ever make up for what they didn’t receive.

They grieve the parent who couldn’t be steady. They grieve the childhood where they learned to be afraid instead of secure. They grieve the person they might have been if they hadn’t spent so many years bracing for impact.

And that grief is heavy. But it’s also the first step toward letting go.

The specific ways they learned to hold on

People who struggle with letting go don’t just feel afraid. They have specific behaviors that keep them stuck.

They replay conversations in their head, looking for what they could have done differently. They check their phone obsessively, waiting for a text that isn’t coming. They apologize first, even when they did nothing wrong, because keeping the peace feels safer than being right.

They hold onto old photos. Old messages. Old hopes. Not because they’re sentimental. Because letting go of the evidence feels like letting go of the person entirely.

They know the photos don’t matter. The messages are years old. The person they’re holding onto doesn’t even exist anymore—not the version they’re grieving. But letting go of the evidence means admitting that. And they’re not ready.

They make excuses for people who hurt them. “They’re going through a hard time.” “They didn’t mean it.” “They’ll come around.” They’ve been making excuses since childhood—for a parent who couldn’t show up, who couldn’t be steady, who couldn’t give them what they needed.

They don’t know how to stop. Because holding on was how they survived. And no one taught them what comes next.

How they’re moving forward

People who struggle with this are learning that not every conflict is a catastrophe. That distance doesn’t mean abandonment. That they can let go of what isn’t good for them and still be okay.

It’s slow. It’s hard. Their bodies still want to hold on. Still scan for danger. Still brace for the shift.

But they’re starting to notice the pattern. To name it. To tell themselves: “This fear isn’t about now. It’s about then. And I’m not there anymore.”

It doesn’t always work. Some days the fear wins. But more days than before, they put the phone down. Walk away from the old photos. Let the thought pass without chasing it.

They’re learning to let go. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But enough. Enough to know that they can survive what’s on the other side of holding on. Because they already have.