Healing Your Heart – How Trauma Affects Relationships
You’ve been through a traumatic experience or have complex trauma and are now wondering how it might be affecting your relationships. Can you have healthy relationships after trauma? It can sometimes be challenging for trauma survivors to have a relationship for a number of reasons.
It is important to note that when I discuss trauma I am referring to experiences that have had a lasting negative impact on you. People often hesitate to call their experiences traumatic. They say they didn’t go to war or get raped, so their experience shouldn’t be labeled trauma. Many people that I work with do not have a PTSD diagnosis. That doesn’t mean that their mothers’ constant putdowns during childhood doesn’t continue to impact their life. Oftentimes childhood trauma wounds are more difficult because our childhood brain created meaning out of these experiences. And part of us continues to believe this understanding of the experiences and their meanings, even though “adult you/your higher self” knows better. “Adult you” may wonder why you can’t do certain things, or why you can’t stop doing certain things.
Many times trauma goes unresolved and untreated, and if this is the case for you, it may be hard to have healthy relationships after trauma. It can be difficult to trust and let someone in when you’ve experienced trauma. There are also more subtle effects of trauma that show up in relationships. Even once you start to feel safe, you may experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
I see how trauma affects relationships in my work with trauma survivors. Trust issues, perceived threats where there may be none, or feeling your logical brain shut down while you act out from emotional triggers, may all be signs of your trauma impacting your relationship.This is especially true if both you and your partner have experienced trauma. Healing from trauma while in a relationship takes work, but it can be done.
How Does Unresolved Trauma Affect Relationships?
When looking at how trauma affects relationships, it’s important to recognize that a traumatic event can affect a relationship for better or worse. Life after a traumatic incident can bring romantic partners closer together or push them further apart. Additionally, all trauma is unique. There is no universal way that all trauma survivors are impacted by trauma, and different types of trauma may affect people differently. That said, I will talk about some ways trauma MAY affect relationships.
For a healthy relationship, if one partner has gone through a traumatic experience or has complex trauma, it’s important for the other partner to listen and figure out how to support the trauma survivor. Good support may look different between survivors because they will have different triggers and defensive mechanisms. A big part of support is understanding. Learn about trauma. Understand how the survivor is experiencing the world. Learn their triggers. Learn their trauma responses. Communicate about how trauma affects your relationship, and keep communicating. You may even want to speak with a trauma therapist yourself.
Trauma symptoms may be hard for partners to understand, which can negatively impact a relationship. Partners may blame or criticize a trauma survivor for behavior that is actually a trauma response. For example, when a person has unresolved trauma, they might dissociate, which can be very difficult for their partner to understand or know how to respond. Dissociation can look different for every person, but the person might blank out or appear distant or even cold. This can be hard for their partner to not take personally.
Additionally, people who have unresolved trauma may engage in/struggle with:
Risky behavior
Depression or feelings of despair
Anxiety
Difficulty accepting support/trusting others
Difficulty trusting themselves
Self-medication with alcohol or drugs
Difficulty connecting with others
Hypervigilance- being on high alert
Feeling overwhelmed by their trauma symptoms
Being emotionally unavailable
People pleasing
Psychosomatic symptoms
Isolating
Anger
Intrusive thoughts
Suicidal thoughts
Hopelessness
Poor self worth
Recreating painful relationships
Feeling numb or disconnected
Difficulty managing emotions
And many more…
It is important for the partner of a trauma survivor to understand that these behaviors can be trauma responses. A trauma survivor is having these experiences because their brain is trying to cope with their trauma or things that may trigger it. They often have internal “parts” of themselves that are critical and judgemental of the behavior, and the survivor often has a lot of guilt and shame. The survivor may question his/her/their own behavior and feel frustrated that they can’t change.
When looking at trauma and relationships if one partner has not experienced trauma, they’ll need to practice patience. It’s important to show unconditional love to their partner who is a trauma survivor.
How Does Trauma Affect Intimacy?
When looking at how trauma affects relationships, it’s important to think about sexual and emotional intimacy. Someone who has experienced trauma can feel far away from their partner. It’s easy for one or both partners to experience isolation, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, avoidance, frustration, anger, confusion, sadness, anxiety, or frequent fights.
Physical intimacy may be difficult for a survivor of sexual abuse. The trauma survivor may dissociate or have extreme emotional reactions to physical intimacy. They may find it difficult to enjoy sex or be mentally present. They may be reminded of their abuse by sexual intimacy.
Sometimes people who have experienced trauma are afraid to be physically intimate. They might worry that physical intimacy will make the trauma worse or bring back difficult emotions or flashbacks. In addition to trauma therapy, the other partner should work with their traumatized partner to establish trust and safety.
On the other end of the spectrum, some trauma survivors can be hyper-sexual, which can trigger symptoms of PTSD and cause distress. Help your partner find the appropriate level of physical intimacy for both of you. Communicate your desire for them without making them feel that they are only valuable for sex.
Explore how you and your partner can have exciting experiences together while trying not to push your partner too far or make them feel unsafe. You need to both follow their lead, and also mediate the situation if your partner becomes either uninterested in physical intimacy or hypersexual to the point of worry.
Acknowledging the Effects of Trauma in a Relationship
Many times a survivor of trauma will try to hide their emotions and experience from their partner. They may not know how to communicate their needs and desires because they don’t know what they are. They may have learned that their needs and desires don’t matter.
Survivors of trauma may not value themselves. They may have internalized negative messages from their abuser. It’s possible that the trauma survivor has internalized these messages and values as fact. So, if they have a disagreement they may easily give in or may give greater importance to their partner's needs and desires than to their own needs and desires. They may fear losing their partner if they are too difficult or have needs.
If the traumatized partner isn’t communicative, the other partner may not know that something is wrong, which can cause further distress in the trauma survivor. Having healthy relationships after trauma means acknowledging its effects and exploring them with your partner through trauma therapy and working together. Communicate with your partner when you’re feeling disconnected and distanced from them. Show them that you are a safe person who loves and values them.
Building trust is paramount to having a healthy relationship after trauma. Remember that you and your partner were attracted to one another for a reason. Don’t let the symptoms of PTSD or after-effects of trauma pull you apart.
If you’ve experienced trauma, you can live in the world with a sense of meaning and purpose, control over your life, and positive self-worth.
It’s possible for you to have healthy relationships after trauma. I’m here to help. Contact me to set up a free 20-minute consultation. Together we’ll identify how trauma affects relationships, what that looks like for you, and how to make your relationship the healthiest it can be.