Are my marriage struggles related to trauma?

If you have ever found yourself wondering is your marriage struggles are related to trauma? Or why your marriage feels so hard—heavy, disconnected, and exhausting—I get it.

You are not alone.

I started CPTSD Medicine with a podcast literally called that: Marriage Is Hard.

Marriage, or any type of intimate partnership, can feel incredibly hard when deeper dynamics are at play, and it is not always clear how to break free from the cycle of hurt and frustration. This is especially true because mainstream marriage advice is not translated into a “with unresolved complex trauma” version.

When there are Parts of you from your childhood that are stuck in a time and space when your emotional needs were unseen and unmet, that well of unmet need travels forward in time and lands right in the middle of your marriage.

Your marriage struggles are not just about what is happening in the present moment with your partner. It is about decades of past abandonment wounding and rejection suffering, paired with the frustration of the present moment.

The tension you feel in your marriage originates in patterns you carry from your own past, even before your marriage began.

Unhealed trauma can show up in the form of heightened sensitivity, defensiveness, or shutting down. These reactions aren’t your fault, but they can make it hard to feel safe and connected in a marriage. Your marriage struggles are amplified by your unhealed trauma.

Here’s where many humans make a mistake. Because their marriage feels so awful, they go straight away into trying to fix it or decide about it.

Yet, when emotional flashbacks are looping us back to the past and taking us away from the reality of the present moment, we are unable to see the reality of our partners or our relationship as it truly is.

You are well-served by learning how to unblend from wounded younger Parts of you and unburden those Parts of Hurt Victim Energy before you attempt to problem-solve with a partner or even engage in couples therapy.

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Here are three quick tips for unblending:

1. Use your breath to turn inward and see what is happening internally. Do you notice that memories of the past are flashing in your mind’s eye? Gently ask your Parts, “What is it about these memories that are relevant to what is happening right now?” Open your heart and let them show you and tell you.
2. Notice how you are looping back through the past even though you are in the present moment. This recognition is a pathway to healing. Do not try to let go of the past, but rather see if you can provide an update to the Parts that validates their experience as being stuck in the past, while showing them that you have in fact grown up.
3. See if they are willing to come join you in the present moment so that you can continue to update them.

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When you are ready, you can unburden these Parts so that they are no longer trapped in the past. But this begins with the three steps above.

As you work with this, you will likely discover that working on your marriage should come after you go on a healing journey. Healing yourself first isn’t selfish; it is necessary to see your relationship and your partner clearly. If you are running Hurt Victim Energy and looping back through the past, your relationship is not being given a fair chance to reveal what it is truly about.