Many couples who have each experienced trauma, especially in their childhoods and subsequent adult relationships bring their own unhealthy coping methods into the partnership, which creates chaos, confusion and conflict. In their separate attempts to manage their individual pain they can create more hurt in their relationship – thereby substituting one painful problem for another. When they have children or if they involve other family members, they might spread the pain around causing agony for the whole familial system. They don’t mean to do this, of course; it is not at all a conscious process. They are usually very upset or desperate and struggling to cope or to know what to do for the best.

Very often these couples look like they are at war with one another and that’s because they are in a way as they are being led by their warring brains. Wired to fight or flee, it is trauma frozen in their bodies that leads them to manage their pain in unhelpful behaviours that cause them to act more like enemies than lovers. The many coping methods employed by such individuals include substance misuse, OCD, disordered eating, promiscuity or absenting themselves to the office or gym to work(out) all hours. When partners can view their own and each other’s behaviours as adaptive to manage pain and gain control, they can drop the judgment and learn to understand and empathise with one another.

Relationships can be powerful containers for healing and growth and, over time, such couples can develop healthy coping methods together by learning how to move into a two-person interdependent system rather than operating independently or co-dependently. When each person in the relationship moves from a self-focus to placing their attention on the safety, health and wellbeing of their partner – things will change. And, when their priority is now their partner’s protection from themselves, from each other and from anyone and anything, they can move from cycling alone in chaos towards a secure-functioning relationship where they are two mates tethered together, co-regulating and acting as one system.

It takes knowledge and skills for people with trauma to learn healthy ways of coping in relationship and it takes time, patience and sustained effort; in addition to the right kind of guidance and support as it’s difficult to work this stuff out alone. Unfortunately, people with trauma histories whose lives are blighted by mental anguish and associated unhealthy coping behaviours are almost always treated individually in our health system. This is because the medical model is the dominant model in this country and most of the West where problems are positioned within the individual who is treated as a lone entity. However, there is so much research that shows that having another human being who can help us to regulate our emotions is healthier than auto-regulation, which is more associated with avoidant attachment styles rather than secure functioning relationships. Learning how to be in a healthy relationship or two-person system is one of the many benefits of therapy with a safe practitioner experienced in co-regulating, but therapists can also teach couples how to do this with each other.

So, if you’re a couple with a trauma history looking for someone to help support you in your relationship, do your best to find a therapist who is knowledgeable about trauma, attachment, co-regulation, polyvagal theory and/or neuroscience (both pertain to the nervous system). I also incorporate Imago therapy and dialogue, which I find super-helpful for communication, as well as focusing oriented therapy, parts work, and mindfulness (the latter as part of a suite of Tantric tools for intimacy). Each therapist will have their own toolbox of what they find works but the most important thing when one or both partners have trauma histories is to find a trauma-trained or trauma-informed practitioner who can teach you to co-regulate together.

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