How Trauma Affects Relationships
Unfortunately, almost all people experience trauma at one point or another. Sometimes it happens before you and your partner meet, sometimes it happens to you while you’re together. Other times, it happens to one partner and not the other.
Examples can range from childhood abuse and neglect, sexual abuse and assault, bad parenting, and natural disasters, to injury, infidelity, miscarriage, loss of job, death in the family and more.
Every example is unique, and we each respond differently. Our brains create new neural pathways associated with such events to keep us functioning in our daily lives. Over time, these coping mechanisms can become a big problem – the trauma becomes not the incidents themselves, but how we carry that baggage forward through the rest of our lives.
The effects can ripple throughout our lifetime if not processed and dealt with in a healthy manner. Learning to process trauma together can take communication and other skills that we haven’t fully developed or have too much baggage to tackle unobjectively.
PTSD & Couples Therapy
Sometimes, traumatic events cause a person to experience post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
The presence of PTSD symptoms within one partner can cast a profound shadow over the marriage or relationship, impacting both individuals involved. It’s essential to recognize that these symptoms may manifest in various ways, such as flashbacks, hypervigilance, or emotional numbness, creating a barrier to authentic connection.
Couples therapy becomes a crucial ally in mending the marriage under these circumstances. Our therapists work diligently to provide a supportive space where the individual experiencing PTSD symptoms can express their emotions without judgment. By fostering a climate of understanding, couples therapy facilitates the development of coping mechanisms and strategies that not only help the individual manage their symptoms but also empower their partner to navigate the challenges with empathy and patience. Through this collaborative process, couples can learn to navigate the complexities of PTSD, fostering a sense of resilience and mutual support that becomes the cornerstone for rebuilding and strengthening their marriage.
Why Choose the Experts at Well Marriage?
Modern therapy has evolved with changes in neuroscience, approaches to emotional development, and advancements in research – how therapists approach marriage counseling is no exception. For example, in the past, marriage therapists would often start with “what seems to be the problem,” and couples just had to accept that the next hour would be a tense one.
Instead, we start by exploring your strengths as a couple, what you each brought to the relationship initially, and where your relationship might have started out strong. We use this as a foundation for doing deeper work and getting to the root of issues and problems your relationship is facing. This subtle, positive shift reminds couples they are on the same team and helps set them up for longer-term success from the very beginning.
When you work with a specialized therapist who has dedicated their career to understanding and resolving relational issues like trauma, attachments, communication, conflict, separation adjustments, infidelity, and more, you have a greater chance of getting to the root of concerns that spring up between you and your partner. As experts in our field, we don’t run out of ideas, insight, and tools that you can use to improve your relationship dynamics.
Our Specialties
Our therapists specialize in everything about how people relate to and connect with one another.
This, unfortunately, often includes topics like trauma, sexual issues, intimacy concerns, communication issues, withdrawal, and high conflict situations. We’re also specialized to assist with other aspects of life, like loss of job, infertility, death in the family, life changes, faith and secular issues and how they affect relationships, and couples from different backgrounds.
Reach out to our intake coordinator today to see if we’d be a good fit for your unique situation. You can also read more on our blog or check out our FAQs. If you’re in crisis and need immediate support, please check out our crisis resources here.
Get Started Today!
Our affordable fees and insurance policies can be found here. We work hard to keep the cost for couples therapy in line with other local providers, and many couples can get reimbursed through their insurance company.
If you have more questions that our website doesn’t answer, click the Get Started button and schedule a free time with our Intake Coordinator; she’ll answer any lingering questions you may have.
