I’ve been with my boyfriend for a little over a year. From the start, our relationship has been challenging—partly because of my own struggles with childhood trauma, trust, and communication. I’ve been working hard in individual therapy and have made a lot of progress, but I’m not fully healed yet. Sometimes I still have moments where I react poorly or misinterpret his actions, which can lead to fights.
He’s been very patient and supportive, but he’s also human. We both admit that communication is a problem on both sides—sometimes we misunderstand each other and it escalates. We decided to start couples therapy, and after just one session, we had a big fight in the meantime where we both said and did things that hurt each other.
We don’t want to break up, but I can see that he’s emotionally drained, and I feel guilty for the stress I’ve caused. At the same time, I know we both want to try and make it work. My worry is that while therapy might help us in the long run, the process could be long and painful, and we might still hurt each other during that time.
So my question is: Should we give therapy more time and keep working through this together, or end things now before we cause more damage? Has anyone been through something similar and made it work?
1 comment
A year is a really short period of time to start couples therapy.
I work in mental health, specifically within trauma, and have an extensive trauma history myself. My advice is not something you’re going to like, but it’s built on everything I’ve learned through my work and through my own experiences.
1. Break up.
2. Get yourself into **intensive** trauma therapy if that’s not what you’re already doing.
3. Stay single while in intensive therapy for 9-12+ months before trying to date again.
You’re likely not in a place yet to pick partners out of anything but your own trauma. The unfortunate truth is that broken people pick broken people. It’s very likely that you picked this guy out of your own trauma experiences. (This is not a judgment from me — it would be throwing stones from my glass house.) When you are more healed, you will likely find you two are incompatible.
My instinct is that he probably has a trauma history as well, whether he can acknowledge it or not, because that’s generally how these things work.
You have to learn safety. Only when you feel safe in your own body can you stand down in a relationship. You need to be able to stand down in a relationship because a relationship is not meant to be a threatening space. You should be able to assume the other person has your best interest at heart, whether they fumble on their wording or not. I can’t say whether you’re reacting negatively to what he’s saying because of your trauma or because he’s digging at you in subtle ways, but I can say neither is a cycle you want to be in.
You are 23. You have a lot of time left to find the right person, but trying to hash it out in couples therapy after one year together is really unlikely to get you anywhere good. There’s some stuff that is best handled relationally, in a relationship with a safe person, but it’s not kind or fair if you’re trauma-bonded to that person and/or are still highly reactive to everything they do or say.
I wish you a lot of luck. It’s a tough climb. I’ve been in therapy a decade and done three rounds of intensive trauma therapy in that time, totaling about four years. You will be okay and you will find someone who makes you feel safe in ways you couldn’t have fathomed before.