How PTSD affects our intimate relationships

The trauma and pain of your past doesn’t last for a moment. It can damage your happiness for a lifetime…and your relationships too.

by: E.B. Johnson

When we confront trauma and considerable hardship in this life, it leaves a stain that never quite washes away. It’s a bit like a shadow that follows us forever, popping up and startling us when we least expect it; when we think we’ve moved on. Dealing with trauma can (and often does) result in a condition called Post-Traumatic Stress disorder, a condition which can ruin your life and your ability to build stable, functional relationships.

If you’ve become the victim of PTSD, you have to find a way to deal with your pain and move forward in confidence if you want to build partnerships that last. Likewise, if you’ve found yourself struggling to support someone with a harrowing past of pain and emotional exploitation — you have to dig deep, educate yourself, and find a way to arm yourself in understanding and compassion if you want your partnership to thrive.

The monster under the bed.

For many of us, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD) is the monster that lives under our bed and lurks on the edge of our relationships. While there are a lot of different scenarios that can lead to this state of being, the symptoms are traditionally the same. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can strike us when we least expect it, and entail everything from bodily pain, to flashbacks, emotional dysfunction, and a problem regulating cognitive processes.

Though we tend to think of PTSD as something that’s reserved for soldiers coming home from war, nothing could be more untrue. At its most basic level, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder that’s brought on by any highly stressful, frightening, or emotionally damaging experiences. This can encompass bad breakups, childhood trauma, and events that take place at school or in the workplace.

You don’t have to take a bullet for your country to suffer from this condition (though that can be a part of it). You can witness a traumatic event, or you can undergo a jarring experience as a child. Natural disasters and unexpected events like car accidents can also impact you in a way that follows you for years and decades to come. However, it occurs, these events instill a fear that can seriously disrupt our lives and our intimate relationships.

How PTSD impacts our intimate relationships.

Think that PTSD is something that only takes a toll on your internal environment? Think again. When we suffer from this extreme fear, hesitation, and insecurity — it also impacts our relationships and the people we’re building our futures with.

Lowered intimacy

No matter what kind of trauma might have led to your diagnosis of PTSD, you can find yourself struggling with lowered intimacy levels in your relationship. It’s hard to get close to someone when you’re struggling with memories of pain and fear (not to mention the substantial impact it has on our endocrine and nervous systems). This is especially true if you are someone who experienced sexual trauma. Which can also result in flashback and re-traumatization in the bedroom.

Inability to be vulnerable

Do you struggle to be vulnerable with your partner? Is it impossible for you to open up to them? Tell them about your past? Or otherwise express the way you feel about them or your relationships? Vulnerability is important in a cohesive partnership. It allows to build compassion for one another and trust as well. When we cannot be vulnerable to our loved ones, they can feel shut out or as though they aren’t getting “all of you”.

Physical unrest

Physical decay and unrest are common side effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You might notice and increase in aches and pains, or even have a hard time sleeping or concentrating. Over time, this leads to an exhaustion or constant feeling of being “run down” takes a serious toll on your personality. It can lead to a shift in the way they think or behave, which in turn shifts the dynamics of your relationship substantially.

Moodiness and irritability

When we battle with PTSD, we often find that we deal with a loss of emotional regulation. This comes down to an overwhelm of negative emotions and an unwillingness or inability to process them. It also deals touches on the stunting of our emotional growth, which occurs whenever we’re cut down at certain stages in our development. The more exhausted and run down we become by the negative patterns of thoughts, beliefs and memories — the harder it becomes to keep your cool, or effectively manage conflict or moments of importance.

Avoidance and insecurity

Trauma linked to our childhood or even past relationships can result in a lot of avoidance and insecurity when it comes to our relationships. Often, this happens because this trauma taught us that loving someone or trusting them wasn’t safe. So, we might overcompensate by developing insecure attachment patterns that end up pushing our partners away in the long run. On the other side of that, you might develop avoidant tendencies which make it hard to speak up for yourself or get close to anyone.

Conflicts of trust

Do you struggle to trust your partner? Or even yourself? These conflicts of trust can take a serious toll on your relationship and make it hard to hold compassion for one another. The less you trust your partner or spouse, the more you lash out or cling tightly. Likewise, if you fail to trust yourself and your instincts, it could result in chasing relationships and ideals that don’t fit (and bring nothing but more misery and heartache).

Loss of self

Do you struggle to know who you are or what you want? If someone asked you to define yourself, what would you say? When we live a life fraught with PTSD, it can muddy up the waters and make it hard to make sense of the things we need in this life. Defining who we are is a battle, but it’s one that we can’t fight when we’re still struggling against insecurities and memories that plague us. This loss of self even impacts our relationships, where individual identity is key in order to retain equality and balance.

One-sided focus

Perhaps the most insidious effect of PTSD on our relationships is its ability to create off-balance power dynamics. When one partner is struggling to cope, it can create a pressure on the other partner to act as a “healer” or “caretaker”. All the focus in the partnerships tends to shift toward the “unwell” partner, to the point that the other person might completely stop seeing to their own needs (or happiness) in the worst possible way. One partner becomes a caregiver, and the other becomes helpless and hopeless.

Social isolation or loneliness

When our relationships go into toxic convulsions (such as they do when we’re battling PTSD in our partnerships) it can lead to a lot of emotional chaos and even shame. Your energy depleted, you might stop going out and seeing the people you once enjoyed spending time with. Likewise, if you feel as though your relationship is fracturing — you might pull away in order to keep your friends and family from seeing what’s really going on. This social isolation isn’t normal, nor is it a happy way to live.

Chaos as the norm

PTSD causes serious short-circuits in the brain, which makes it hard (if not impossible) to maintain efficient cognitive function. That means not only that a victim of PTSD might struggle to regulate their emotions and thoughts — they might also struggle to make decisions for themselves. This can turn into a world of chaos, as they traipse from disaster-to-disaster in search of something to calm the storm within them. Though these decisions may have nothing to do with us directly, they usually come back to impact us through our relationship ties.

Dealing with PTSD before it destroys your partnership.

Don’t allow PTSD to destroy you or your propensity for love. You can take charge of your health, your happiness, and your relationship. And you can start doing it today. Whether you are the victim or the witness, stand up and let go of the blame games so you can take action in the name of your own joy.

1. Let go of the blame games

No matter what side of the fence you stand on at this moment in time (victim or witness) you must make the conscious decision to let go of all the anger and the blame, so that you can embrace acceptance. Without acceptance, no involved party will ever be able to move forward with empathy. Rather than looking for someone to shoulder the pain, we have to take an honest look at where we are so we can decide where we need to go next.

Stop blaming your partner for your pain. Stop looking for them to resolve the trauma of your past, or to make up for the bad people who hurt you. They can’t give you that resolution — only you can do that for yourself. You have to stop blaming them for your disorder and find a way to live in harmony with yourself and your past.

At the same time, if you’re the partner of someone struggling with PTSD, you have to be understanding and compassionate. You must also know that — sometimes — the memories are in control of their rational behavior and thought. When they lash out, they aren’t always lashing out at you. They’re lashing out at the person who terrorized them, abused them, and made them feel small. Keep that in mind and move toward them with empathy.

2. Never give unsolicited advice

This advice is directed primarily at supporters of partners with PTSD, but it stands all the same. When we see someone we love struggling, we can often be moved to step in or step up; taking initiative into our own hands, or laying out a plan for the person we see hurting. The problem here, though, is that this often creates more pressure while removing more power. You need to learn to just be there and avoid interfering in someone else’s process.

If a partner in pain opens up to you, don’t tell them how to feel, or take it into your hands to “fix” their issues yourself (whether this comes through unsolicited advice, or some grandiose struggle). Listen. Offer questions when appropriate, but mostly just be there to support them without judgement.

It’s enough to simply be a shoulder to cry on sometimes. We’re all capable of rescuing ourselves, but we’re not capable of being there for ourselves when we’re hurting. Be that emotional staple that never leaves and never tries to change them. Rather than serving them action, serve them compassion and open arms. We don’t all want a savior. We want to be heard. We want to be seen. And we want to know we are safe in that experience.

3. Educate, educate, educate

Whether you are the victim of PTSD, or you find yourself in a relationship with someone who is — education is the most important gift you can give to yourself. Moving past the pain and traumas of our past isn’t easy, and it requires dramatically reshaping the landscape of our thoughts and self-perceptions. We do this with knowledge, and we do this by teaching ourselves (consciously) to see the world and who we are in a different light.

Start educating yourself on PTSD and its array of complex symptoms. Don’t assume you know it all and don’t assume that there isn’t anything you can do to help. Knowledge, on its own, is a massively powerful tool that can empower us to transform our lives and the lives of those who mean the most to us.

Read anything and everything you can on PTSD and C-PTSD. Get your hands on studies and stories; personal accounts and support groups. If you’re a victim, reach out to an expert and find out more about what it means to live in peace with your trauma. If you’re living with a partner who is struggling to overcome — get in good with your local library, or get online and tap into resources that can help you be more efficiently supportive and loving.

4. Find the courage to get better

If we don’t want PTSD to destroy our relationships, we have to find the courage to get better for ourselves and the ones we love. Likewise, as a partner of someone battling PTSD, we have to encourage them to get better on their own terms — not seek to hand-off or delay their burdens. Rather than being a distraction, we must be a source of energy and motivation. Partners of those with these issues have a rare ability, in that they offer a picture of what life could be.

Don’t struggle on your own or seek to shift your burden onto someone else. If you’re battling PTSD, stand up for yourself and take action in the name of your own healing. Reach out to a mental health professional and open up to them about what’s going on. You can open up to your partner too, but you alone have the power to change your life. No one else can heal for you.

When you’re the partner or spouse, do everything you can to encourage them daily. Remind them that you love them, and remind that they are beautiful, capable and worthy. Beyond, know that there is little that you can do save encouraging them to get help and care for themselves. Reassure them in the relationship, and do what you can to create an environment of safety and security for them to open up within. Encourage them with compassion and love.

5. Understand that you can walk away

PTSD is a complex and nuanced condition that can occur in varying degrees of severity. While we can find avenues to help ease this condition, for some it is not something that ever truly goes away. No matter how much we might love someone, our problems and our darkness become too big to overcome. In those moments, we must be brutally honest with ourselves and the people that we love — in order to ensure we all find the happiness we have a divine right to.

When the challenges of your PTSD-laced relationship become too big, know that you have a right to walk away. Even though you may love your partner, their pain may be too great for you to overcome. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean you love them any less; it means you love yourself just as much (as you should). If the therapy and the compassion don’t work, give yourself a free pass to do what needs to be done.

On the same end, it’s important to be honest about your condition and when its complications have become too big for a committed partnership. When our darkness runs deep, it’s sometimes necessary to branch out on your own; in order to get the help we need and find our authentic center again. If your trauma is leading you to behave abusively, aggressively, fearfully, or in a toxic way — it’s crucial to be honest with yourself and admit that you’re causing more harm than good.

Putting it all together…

Nothing blows a hole in the side of a relationship quite like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This condition results from a highly painful or distressing experience which instills in us an intense fear and insecurity when it comes to life, love and happiness. PTSD can wreck our lives (and our relationships) if w allow it. In order to combat it, we have to find our courage and tap back into our love and affection for one another.

Let go of the blame games on both sides. If you struggle with PTSD, stop blaming your partner for your pain or looking for them to “fix” you. Likewise, if you’re supporting someone who is suffering, you have to be compassionate and know that they are acting more from a place of fear than anything else. Don’t give unsolicited advice or take grandiose action. Instead, simply offer a judgement-free shoulder to cry on. Educate yourself on the realities of PTSD and reach out to a mental health expert if necessary. As a couple, we should always be pushing one another to be better. Encourage your partner to get the help that they need and enable yourself to heal as well (if you’re dealing with PTSD or a similar issue of your own). Relationships are all about building a life together, but that building requires brutal honesty. When things get too challenging, admit it. And admit too when it’s time for you both to walk away.