How can I stop my gmail account deleting all my contacts?

I have spent ages putting contacts in my phone.
When I add my google account to do updates, it is usually not there I remove it immediately after doing updates, it deletes all my contacts despite being told not to sync.
Is there anything that can be done about that

Welcome to the forums. To make sure I'm understanding correctly, are you adding contacts in the phone, but your contacts aren't synced?

And are you adding them as Device contacts or Google contacts?