*The names and characters in this article represent a composite of people I have known personally and professionally. No real person is represented in this article, which is intended for educational purposes.* Post updated 10/16/23
When Your Partner Doesn't Understand Your Trauma
Image credit: Canva
Michael can't understand it. He just doesn't get what is going on with his wife of over 25 years, Amy. Michael is concerned about her and wondering when she is going to "get over" the childhood physical and sexual abuse she went through years ago. He really just wants her to be okay. And honestly, he's sick of her trauma symptoms affecting her, him and their children. He's not sure how much longer he can take it.
He wonders, “why can't she just get over it?”
To be fair, Michael doesn't realize that Amy's mood and behavior are related to her childhood trauma. He just knows that despite years of therapy with various therapists, she sometimes becomes deeply depressed and can't seem to get off the couch for days.
Other times the smallest thing will seem to trigger her becoming highly anxious, which can turn into controlling behavior towards himself and the kids. She will sometimes go shopping, overspending with abandon even though they have agreed to stop running up credit card debt - then she hides it from him and acts like she is afraid he will hurt her when he receives the credit card bill.
Although he does get really frustrated when this happens, it bothers him that she feels afraid of him at times, because he feels he would never harm her, and he never has gotten physical with her in more than 25 years.
He also suspects she may be binging and purging, but they don't talk about it. He's afraid to bring it up and he suspects she would deny it if he asked. Although Amy takes medication, her mood swings are still pretty unpredictable and he's never really sure whether he’s going to come home from work and find the smiling, got-it-together wife he married; or the disorganized, scattered, overwhelmed and controlling woman she sometimes becomes; or the sad, crying woman he barely recognizes who just wants to sleep as much as possible. He doesn't know how to help her, which makes him feel frustrated and he fantasizes about a different life where he can be who his wife needs him to be.
He feels unsatisfied in their relationship for two reasons. He wants his wife to be happy, and he feels powerless to help her; and his emotional needs aren’t being met, either, which brings up feelings of sadness and overwhelm that he doesn’t know what to do with.
"She's Changed."
All Michael knows is that Amy has changed. He knew when they got married that she had a "difficult" childhood. He also saw how resilient Amy was then. Despite being abused throughout her childhood she had finished college and started a great career before they married. Although she spoke openly about having experienced that abuse, it didn't seem to have a negative impact on her then.
Other than acknowledging that it happened, she didn't really talk about it. And he didn't really want to talk about it - then or now - because just the thought of what she went through, particularly the sexual abuse, horrifies him. He's not sure if the physical abuse was really all that bad, or why it affects her so much. He wonders if she is really trying in therapy, or whether she somehow is doing all this just for attention.
Michael isn't sure how to deal with the emotions that come up for him when Amy is not okay. It reminds him of how he felt responsible for taking care of his mother after his dad died when he was 10. He would often come home from school and his mom would be sitting in the dark on the sofa in her bathrobe. He found himself needing to be adult-like to take care of her, and he was kind of on his own to take care of himself and his younger brother, too. He was so relieved to get away from that unhappy childhood, to go to college and start his career, but sometimes he wonders if he married someone he will always have to take care of, and he wonders, “what about me?” The burden of handling Amy's emotional needs feels very heavy and familiar to Michael. He feels sad, hopeless and discouraged.
Image credit: Canva
She feels disconnected.
Amy, too, was overjoyed to leave her abusive family behind to marry Michael. She thought things would be so much better once she got away from her controlling, abusive father and her passive mother who was mostly focused on pretending everything was perfect.
And things were so much better! She loved her career, she and Michael got along great, and she was very happy to raise her three beautiful children. However, when her third child, little Megan, turned 5 years old Amy started having flashbacks to the abuse that her father inflicted on her as a little girl.
A part of her had always felt that she was somehow responsible for the sexual abuse and deserving of the beatings. But seeing her sweet, innocent little Megan, a bright, inquisitive kindergartner, she pictured herself as a little girl and wondered whether it was really true that an innocent child could ever be deserving of being harmed the way her father had harmed her.
These thoughts were so sad and overwhelming she tried to push them away. Sometimes she was successful, but other times, particularly in the Spring, she was overwhelmed with fear and worry that something bad would happen to Megan or her two sons.
Amy is bothered by nightmares, trouble sleeping and physical symptoms like Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Sometimes she notices a feeling that someone is watching her which makes her skin crawl.
At times she suddenly vomits, just out of the blue, and she never knows when a panic attack is coming. Much of the time she feels like she is going through the motions of life.
She feels disconnected from her neighbors and the other moms in her community. She describes herself as "on the outside looking in" to her life. She doesn't work outside the home now, and she's not sure if she ever will again.
Most of the time she feels like she is barely holding it together. She wishes Michael were more empathetic and supportive of what she's going through but he doesn't seem to understand why she can't just "put the past behind her." She feels disconnected from him, and wonders what happened to the happy newlyweds they once were. She is sad and worried about the way she feels, but she doesn't know what to do about it. In some ways these feelings are familiar and she wonders, “am I the common denominator?” She feels alone in her pain and unsure how to express herself to Michael, or anyone else. She feels like things are never going to get better.
The Truth Is, Both Michael and Amy Are Struggling
This dynamic is all too common and we hear stories from both sides of the relationship described above in our Maryland-based trauma psychotherapy office every day. Many of our clients are women like Amy who feel deeply ashamed that they are still affected by the abuse from their childhood years. Though Amy would be unlikely to identify her problems as being associated with childhood trauma, that is exactly what is happening.
Other clients we sit with are men like Michael who wonder if they can handle the emotional burden of their partner's PTSD.
Regardless of gender, both Amy and Michael could be any one of us. They both feel alone and don't know how to reach the other partner.
Whether you can relate to Amy's feelings or Michael's, it's helpful to understand a few things.
Three Things to Remember:
1. You are not alone. Whether you are the person who experienced childhood trauma or the person who loves them, what you are feeling is common. Many people are affected by childhood trauma. It is so much more common than most of us realize. Click here to learn more about the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) and the prevalence of childhood trauma.
2. Trauma survivors aren't trying to be difficult. And they don’t usually realize they’re trauma survivors! Like all of us, they’re actually just trying to feel normal. In the scenario I described above, both Amy and Michael are affected by childhood trauma, though neither of them understands the effects in depth.
Amy could be described as the "identified patient" - she's the one who is seen as having a problem and needing help. And she does need help. She is suffering so much. Amy's trauma is that she was physically and sexually abused by an adult (her father) whom she trusted to take care of her and keep her safe. Her mother was unable to protect her and pretended nothing was wrong. This is called emotional neglect, developmental trauma, and attachment wounding.
So both of her primary caregivers, whom she depended on for safety and protection, let her down. She is affected by a loss of attachment as well as the effects of the abuse. Our attachment needs can be seen as what “didn’t happen,” that we needed. They’re much more challenging to identify than traumatic experiences, because unmet attachment needs during childhood seem like “just the way it was back then,” because what we grow up with is all we know. It seems normal in our family - especially if everyone else we know is going through the same challenges.
Here is a short video from our founder, Laura Reagan, LCSW-C, describing how attachment wounds can show up in our lives. Watch the full video, from an interview with Catherine Stagg-Macey on her podcast Unsaid @ Work, here.
The truth is, we seldom realize what is happening in other people’s homes. But even if it may be culturally typical to dismiss and minimize emotions, does not mean that it support healthy child development. Even if we think “I was spanked and I turned out fine,” if we feel like Amy and Michael in this example, then maybe we didn’t “turn out fine” - maybe we are actually suffering from the hidden effects of childhood trauma and attachment wounds.
Amy's not the only one in this story who needs help.
Although he doesn’t realize it, Michael, too, experienced childhood trauma. His father died when he was only ten, and in her grief his mother was unable to attend to Michael's emotional needs. This is another example of one of the partners having unmet emotional needs from childhood.
Instead of receiving what he needed from his bereaved mother when his father died, in order to survive, Michael had to take care of his mom's emotional needs, and his own needs were ignored. He also had a younger brother to look out for. So Michael experienced a loss of attachment when neither of his parents was available to take care of his emotional needs, as well as the trauma of his dad's sudden death. This isn’t his parents’ fault, and therapy to heal these attachment wounds isn’t focused on blaming his parents for what Michael didn’t get. But it’s also true that it wasn’t fair for Michael, as a traumatized and grieving child, to be responsible for carrying the pain of his mother’s grief and trauma - and his younger brother’s grief and trauma - when his dad passed away. But that’s what happened, and it’s still impacting Michael now.
It's no wonder that Amy and Michael were drawn to each other, because they both had unresolved pain they were trying to escape when they met. However, Michael's role as a caregiver in his family may have helped him feel comfortable marrying someone who he perceived as having gone through something terrible (without realizing how he himself was affected by his own trauma).
Both Amy and Michael were young when they met, and they were both doing the best they could. They both wanted to be okay, and they were trying to be okay together. For a while they were, but the effects of trauma always pop up just when you least expect them. And it is quite predictable that they will pop up when we become parents. It’s not what we are expecting, but it’s an opportunity for healing. There’s never a convenient time to heal from trauma, but when we are ready, when our lives are stable enough to be able to manage the feelings we couldn’t tolerate back then, healing is possible.
At the time they reached out for help, neither Amy nor Michael were able to be a support for the other, because they’re both affected by their own childhood trauma. Both of their trauma and attachment wounds are activating reactions in the other. They can both benefit from individual trauma and attachment therapy - and potentially attachment focused couples work, too.
3. Trauma and attachment focused therapy can help. The reason Amy has been in and out of therapy for 10 years without experiencing relief from her trauma symptoms is that she hasn't had the right kind of therapy. 9 times out of 10, our clients with extensive trauma histories will tell me that their previous therapists never explained trauma to them or told them that their symptoms could be related to trauma.
Why? The therapists probably didn't know. Trauma is still a newer field of study, although its effects have been documented for years. Understanding that your symptoms are caused by trauma helps explain an overwhelming set of symptoms that are seemingly unrelated and offers hope and clarity.
You begin to recognize that you developed these coping methods (like dissociation, comfort eating, binging/purging, compulsive shopping, depression, anxiety and trust issues) because of the effects of trauma, and not because there is something wrong with you.
Can You Relate?
You may be wondering if you are an Amy or a Michael. I can't answer that for you, but here are some symptoms which may indicate that you are affected by childhood trauma.
If you have had some kind of disturbing experience in childhood that has always bothered you, for example:
Loss of a primary caregiver
Any unwanted sexual experience
Any sexual experience you were too young to understand
Witnessing violence, whether it happened to you, your caregiver or another family member
Feeling that no one understood you, no one cared about you, or that you were abandoned, unwanted, or unloved
Being bullied
Receiving physical punishment, including spanking, beating, whipping, or being physically abused or harmed by an adult when you were a child
Having a parent or primary caregiver who abused alcohol or drugs
These are just a few examples of situations that could be traumatic in childhood. Read this article for more, and consider taking the ACES quiz as well.
So if you have some kind of childhood experience you think might have been traumatic AND you have some of these symptoms:
Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, nightmares, sleep paralysis
Feeling numb, detached, zoning out, trouble concentrating, easily distracted, losing time
Memory issues - feeling forgetful, being disorganized
Feeling a nagging sense that there is just something wrong with you, something that makes you different from everyone else
Feeling like you are on the outside looking in
Trouble feeling close with other people, trust issues, feeling suspicious of other people's motives, thoughts like "no one can be trusted" and a feeling that it's you against the world
Panic attacks, anxiety, need to maintain control at all times, rigidity, need for order
Feeling mistrustful of your partner, feeling judgmental and critical of others and yourself
Body image issues, physical symptoms like chronic pain, stomach issues, migraines,
Sexual problems - lack of interest in sex, shame related to sex
Constantly on high alert, watchful, vigilant, can't relax - you hate it when someone comes up behind you and touches your shoulder or stands too close to you
You might be affected by childhood trauma. No article can substitute for talking with a qualified therapist. If you are wondering if you are affected by childhood trauma, talk to a therapist. You can usually speak to them by phone before scheduling an appointment to make sure they feel qualified to help with the issue that affects you.
If you’re in Maryland, our practice, the Baltimore Annapolis Center for Integrative Healing, has appointments available. Our trauma and attachment focused therapists specialize in eating disorders, depression, anxiety, chronic illness, relationship issues, feeling alone, worthlessness, dissociation, self-harm, parenting, body image and much more. Learn more about our team here and request an appointment.
Here are some resources for finding a qualified trauma therapist if you’re outside of Maryland:
Trauma Therapist Network (created by our founder, Laura Reagan, LCSW-C)
National Child Traumatic Stress Network
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute
Somatic Experiencing Institute
And here are some suggestions for further reading and learning:
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
In the Realm Of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté
ACES Primer (video)
Finding a therapist who understands the effects of trauma on child development and has specialized training in trauma recovery can make a huge difference. Whether you are directly affected by childhood trauma or it is a problem for someone you love, therapy can help. You don't have to keep suffering. The first step is understanding that your trauma is real, that it matters, and that you can feel better. Then the hard part comes - trusting a therapist to help you. I know there are many caring and skilled trauma therapists out there who want to help. I am one of them. If you're in the Baltimore area of Maryland, I would love to talk about how we can work together to help you feel better. Give us a call at 443-320-4034 or e-mail us at info@bahealing.com.
I hope this article was helpful to you. If it was, please share and/or leave a comment below!
Wholeheartedly,
Laura Reagan, LCSW-C
Sources:
ACES Primer video found here: http://www.acesconnection.com/g/resource-center/blog/resource-list-aces-videos
ACES Quiz found here: https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/