5 Tips for Navigating PTSD in Your Relationship
A fulfilling partnership is possible in relationships impacted by PTSD.
Navigating trauma in any relationship can be difficult. At times, it may be difficult to hold onto hope when it feels like you are frequently riding the rollercoaster of life with little peace and stability in sight. The good news is that a fulfilling partnership is possible in relationships impacted by trauma. Trauma does not have to have the final word when it comes to your ability to foster a deep connection with your partner.
Trauma is complex and it takes time to heal. As you journey toward supporting your partner, you will make mistakes, and that is because you are human. The goal is not perfection, but to keep showing up for your partner. Own your mistakes and forgive yourself. Your ability to offer yourself grace will support your ability to show up as a safe person for your partner. The safety in your connection will not only set a foundation for a thriving relationship, but will make your relationship one of the most healing factors in your partner’s life.
#1— Educate yourself about PTSD.
Understanding PTSD and how it works will help you understand your partner, release judgement and resentment, and develop a compassionate, fulfilling, and intimate relationship with your partner.
Trauma is any deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms a person’s ability to care for themselves. As a result, people experience a loss of control, connection, and meaning. Trauma disrupts the person’s sense that the world is safe or that they are valuable. As a result, it affects the person’s relationships.
How Trauma Impacts the Brain
When a person experiences a traumatic trigger, the reasoning part of their brain (the prefrontal cortex) shuts down, and the emotion center of the brain (the amygdala) takes over. The person with trauma experiences an emotional “whiplash” where they are thrown back and forth by their emotions due to their brain operating from the amygdala—the emotion center of the brain.
Maybe you have just found yourself in the midst of emotionally intense moment with your partner. Whether or not either of you recognize that one of you has just experienced a trauma trigger, you are now in a situation where a seemingly small moment has exploded into a crisis. The logic doesn’t seem to make sense and the emotions seem frighteningly extreme. You are witnessing your partner in the midst of their fight, flight, or freeze response. Your partner is suffering from an intense feeling of not being safe.
The body re-experiences traumatic memories as if they were happening in the moment.Trauma memories are stored primarily in the amygdala (the emotion center of the brain). When your partner experiences a traumatic trigger, they experience intense emotions that are disconnected from the current context of the situation.
The traumatized brain uses hypervigilance as a survival tool. The brain understands incoming information in light of previously stored patterns. If your partner has experienced a particular situation as unsafe, the brain will try to protect itself by viewing current situations through the lens of that sense of danger. The emotion center of the brain becomes overly sensitive, and hypervigilance becomes a survival mechanism. To a person without trauma, this hypervigilance does not make sense and can seem like “overkill,” yet to the traumatized person, it is the brain’s natural response to the lack of safety it feels.
The good news is that the brain is constantly learning—the brain CAN change. The more experiences of safety that your partner experiences, the more the brain learns to release hypervigilance and view the world through the lens of safety. Every small gesture of safety supports the traumatized brain in its journey toward healing.
#2— Co-regulate with Your Partner
When your partner is triggered, a helpful rule of thumb is to calm and regulate the body before attempting to have a conversation.
Until the body is regulated, the reasoning part of your partner’s brain is offline. This does NOT mean that your partner is illogical or unintelligent. It means that in that moment of being triggered, your partner’s body is doing what it knows best: to fight, flee, or freeze. Your partner’s body has been magnificently adapted to know instinctively what to do in dangerous situations. The trick is helping the body recognize that it is no longer in danger—that in this particular moment, it is safe.
If your partner feels overwhelmed or triggered, the best thing you can do is support them in calming the body. Some ideas might include:
Using a weighted blanket
Brushing your partner’s hair
Offering your partner a hug or to cuddle
Giving your partner a massage
or breathing deeply with your partner.
I would encourage you and your partner to find what works best for you so that triggering experiences can be transformed into opportunities for connection. By knowing how to respond to your partner, you provide a responsive, attuned, and safe person in your partner’s life that helps them develop the ability to see the world through the lens of safety and love.
#3— Respond With Empathy
We’ve all been there. We’ve been riding the emotional rollercoaster for too long and find ourselves saying things we wish we could take back. Educating yourself about trauma and learning about how your partner experiences life are key to developing empathy toward your partner.
It is important to understand that the traumatic response to the trigger will feel as real to your partner as the moment the trauma first happened. Time and distance from the traumatic event does not mean that your partner does not experience the trigger in a less threatening way. This is important because being attuned to your partner (enhancing the safety and security in your relationship) means understanding how intense the experience of a trigger is even if it feels distant to you.
#4— Remember to Take Care of Yourself
As much as you would like to be, you are not superhuman. You do not have an endless supply of patience, empathy, and energy to give. At times, you may feel the need to take a moment for yourself to wrestle with your own emotions and needs that arise from the challenges of being in a relationship with someone with trauma. There is no shame in this. You are worthy of having support, joy, and peace in your life.
If you find yourself feeling less patient, more easily distracted, experiencing a lack of joy in things you normally would find pleasurable, or are struggling with procrastination, you may be in need of a little “you time.” Take time to be with a friend, engage in self-care, make sure you are getting the sleep you need, and learn to set healthy boundaries with your partner.
Talking to a therapist can be another way to care for yourself as you navigate supporting your partner. A therapist can offer you helpful tools for navigating your boundaries, doing self-care, and communicating with your partner. They can also provide you a safe space to release and process any painful emotions that you are experiencing. You are not responsible for your partner’s healing. It is not your job to save your partner at the expense of your own well-being.
#5— Go to Couples Counseling
Seeking help from a couples therapist can be a helpful resource in helping you and your partner navigate the relationship issues that arise as a result of PTSD. Whether you are struggling with co-dependency or unending stress and conflict, the support of a professional counselor can help you and your partner use these wounds as gateways to a stronger and healthier relationship.
My hope is that understanding will lead to compassion and serve as a safeguard against judgement and shame. If you are a partner of someone with trauma, offer yourself grace. This is not a quick-fix situation, you two are in this for the long haul. It is okay to make mistakes. The most important thing is repair. Return to your partner with responsiveness and empathy. You are human, and your wounds are gateways for connection.
