Sometimes, your past experiences may cast long shadows over your present. The attachment to past traumas may significantly affect how you interact with your partners and your capability to create long-lasting relationships.

The healing power in relationships is immense; it’s often a step towards healing. Addressing relationship trauma with the help of couples counseling can be helpful.

Understanding Relationship Trauma

According to licensed marriage and family therapists, relationship trauma is simply a type of trauma that happens in the relationship context. Various factors cause it, like a traumatic event, infidelity, neglect, and abuse.

It may also result in unhealthy relationship dynamics, communication issues, and damaged trust. It might be difficult to identify trauma effects on relationships as they don’t always appear right away. However, it may cause intense feelings of fear, hurt, and betrayal that may linger for many years.

Why Relationship Trauma Happens

Abuse and violence often happen in intimate relationships when one partner starts engaging in behaviors to manipulate, control, or gain power over his/her partner.

Stressful life events, which are also a trauma history in abusive partners’ lives, and alcohol or drug use may escalate abuse in relationships and escalate very dangerous situations.

Harmful and abusive behaviors cause an imbalance of equality and power in relationships. Plus, it diminishes safety, which may create fear of experiencing extreme anxiety or abuse in some relationships.

Impacts of Relationship Trauma

Understanding all the specifics of your significant other’s trauma is important before you even respond to it. Relationship trauma is simply a phase that we use to describe psychological and emotional anguish brought on by a series of events. This may involve going through things such as the following:

• Changes in trust and intimacy dynamics: Trauma may also change the way safe and comfortable partners feel with one another. This may impact their intimacy.
• Increased misunderstanding and conflict: Since trauma impacts the way people communicate and process emotions, couples may argue more regularly. What used to be a small disagreement can turn into a serious conflict as partners struggle to deal with the emotional chaos that trauma brings. Misunderstanding will become more frequent as it becomes difficult for every partner to see things from other people’s points of view.
• Emotional miscommunication and disconnection: Trauma may make it difficult for you to express your feelings clearly and more challenging to understand your partner’s emotions. This disconnection of emotions happens simply because relationship trauma may make you withdraw into yourself as a means of coping, which makes you less emotional to your partners.

Surviving Trauma through Counseling

Probably because of relationship trauma, most couples emerge with more connection. So, if you and your spouse experienced a shared traumatic event or a deep loss, couples therapy can help you in the following ways:

• Improve Communication

Poor or ineffective communication is a prevalent concern among couples. Unsolved issues, misunderstandings, and preconceptions can disrupt discourse, leading to more emotional detachment and frequent disagreements. Communication difficulties may eventually result in a poisonous environment where neither partner feel respected or heard.

Through counseling, couples can improve their communication skills. A licensed marriage and family therapist serves as an impartial mediator, helping both partners express their ideas in a productive and courteous manner. Therapy sessions provide a safe environment for couples to express themselves frankly, understand one another’s perspectives, and listen actively.

• Build Trust Following Trauma

Trauma can severely damage trust, making it important for couples to concentrate on re-mending it. In therapy, couples may work on building a new pattern of openness and dependability.

Usually, this encompasses setting achievable, small goals to demonstrate consistency and trustworthiness. Through honest conversations and guided exercises, partners may learn to reassure one another and mend broken trust. Rebuilding trust is a gradual process, but fostering a resilient and secure relationship would be best.

• Improve Physical Intimacy

Apart from emotional intimacy, most couples have a physical intimacy challenge, like a lack of physical love, mismatched libido, or sexual dissatisfaction. These concerns can cause emotions of insecurity, irritation, and rejection, resulting in emotional estrangement.

Relationship counseling often gives a non-judgmental atmosphere to freely address your physical intimacy problems. A qualified and professional therapist can help couples identify underlying psychological or emotional issues that impact their sexual connection, like unsolved disputes, stress, or body image challenges. By addressing those issues, you can collaborate to improve your physical closeness and even establish a healthier sexual connection.

• Handle Relapses & Setbacks

Recovering from a relationship trauma is hardly a smooth process; relapses and setbacks may occur. Counseling provides support and tools to manage those challenges whenever they arise.

As a couple, learn strategies to constructively address setbacks without allowing them to undermine your progress. A professional therapist can help you handle those challenging moments with resilience and compassion, ensuring you stay focused on your long-term goals regardless of temporary obstacles.

• Resolve Conflicts Healthily

All relationships come with challenges. Disputes about home obligations, economics, or parenting methods are inevitable. However, how couples often deal with those disputes can ruin or damage their relationships. Most couples engage in various harmful practices, like completely ignoring topics, blaming each other, or shutting down.

A relationship therapist can help you as a couple resolve disagreements or issues. This, in turn, enables couples to work through issues politely and quietly instead of turning to avoidance, anger, or impatience. Therapists often offer methods and tools, like problem-solving capabilities, conflict resolution strategies, and active listening exercises, that can help you handle conflicts better.

• Set Boundaries and Respect Space

Trauma makes personal space and boundaries important in relationships. Therapy may help you as a couple navigate those needs by simply establishing respectful and clear boundaries.

As partners, you will know how to effectively balance closeness, ensuring you both feel respected and secure. This balance can help prevent you or your spouse from feeling overwhelmed and maintain a deeper connection, which is important for relationship growth and healing.

 

In conclusion, we still have hope even if the pain in our relationships feels horrible. As a couple, just make sure you learn to be present emotionally and visit a couples’ therapist. Through a therapist’s help, you can address your emotional needs and understand your partner’s past.