How to Support Your Partner Through Trauma Healing
Relationships are not easy. When you commit to loving a person, you commit to loving them even with all their problems, past experiences, and trauma. You want to help them work through their difficult past and truly heal from it. Trauma healing is a long road, but the good news is that as you and your partner work on it together, your relationship will become stronger than ever. So how can you help your partner heal from past traumas?
Here are five simple yet effective suggestions that you can put into practice every day.
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1. Support Your Partner In Getting Professional Help
The first step in trauma healing is to admit to the trauma and get help. This first step, however, is often one of the most difficult for a person experiencing trauma. They may be unwilling to admit that they are weak and in need of help. They may be ashamed because they have been made to feel like the trauma was their fault. They may simply want to white-knuckle their way through it because "that's the brave thing to do" and "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." However, professional help is nearly always a must when healing from trauma.
As the person who wants the best for your partner, you can encourage your partner to get professional help. Support them as they search for the perfect fit. If needed and if possible, help them financially. Encourage them that they are doing the right thing.
2. Remember, Your Job Is to Love, Not to "Fix"
This is a hard thing to remember. When you see your partner suffering, you want to eliminate the problem as quickly as possible! You may have a lot of ideas about how they could make their life better. This is natural, and it shows how much you love your partner. But it is good to keep in mind that some things are your job and some things just aren't.
Your partner has professional help (hopefully) and it is the professional's job to diagnose, identify patterns, offer solutions, and assign homework.
It is your job to offer unconditional love and support. Believe it or not, this is just as important in the healing process as problem-solving is. Your job is important!
3. Help Your Partner Care For Their Body
Trauma has an effect on the body. Even if past trauma does not have to do with physical abuse, your partner's body will be affected by the stress of dealing with past experiences. They may be triggered by certain things, and have an uncontrollable physical response (such as shaking, inability to swallow, increased heart rate, etc.). Even without triggers, trauma causes brain fog, fatigue, lowered immune system, and other physical symptoms.
Your partner may not always have the energy they used to. This is your chance to be gentle with them and show them how much you love them. Have a conversation with your partner about what triggers them (they may need help identifying triggers at first), and create a home environment that avoids those triggers. Even in public, you can be on the lookout to help them stay away from triggering experiences.
Other ways to help your partner recover physically are making sure they eat (cook for them when they do not have the energy) and encouraging them to sleep enough. You can even do daily stretch routines, yoga, or meditation together to help them relax.
4. Go Overboard With Verbal Affirmation
Trauma tells lies. And people who have been through traumatic experiences - especially over long periods of time - believe those lies. They really have no choice, unless someone else swoops in and tells them differently.
Some of the lies your partner has been led to believe might sound like this: "I'm not good enough... This was all my fault... I'm not worth anything... I'm ugly... Nobody cares about me because I am not worth their time... I can't feel anything, so I must be a heartless person..." The list could go on and on.
Think for a minute about how discouraging it would be to believe these things about yourself! You have a chance to help your partner heal by counteracting these lies with affirmations. Fair warning, though, it will take time. Your partner may not believe or respond to your affirmations at first. But if you create a habit of affirming them over time, the truth you speak will slowly begin to chip away at the lies they have been told.
Affirmations might look like this: "You are worthy of love... You are strong... I respect you... You are not a bad person for saying no in some situations; you are protecting yourself and that is a good thing... You are not to blame when someone else hurts you... You have the right to speak up... You are beautiful... You are a treasure."
5. Remind Your Partner That They Are More Than Their Trauma
This final step is the most crucial step of all. Your partner may feel like their trauma defines them. They may not be able to separate who they are or what they do from the difficult things they experienced in the past. They need to know that you see the real person behind the trauma. They need to be reminded that they existed before the trauma happened and they will continue to exist after healing has occurred. Many people who have been through trauma feel like they have lost parts of their personalities.
You can remind your partner that those precious parts of them are still there, but they are in hibernation, and that is okay. Their true self will begin to show again as the trauma heals. You can be a voice of truth in their lives, letting them know that they are so much more than the hurt they have experienced. And make sure to let them know that you love the real them, even through the trauma.
Your role in your partner's trauma healing is huge! The steps laid out in this article may seem like small, mundane, everyday habits and you might be wondering if they will make a difference. If this is you, rest assured that your actions will have an enormous impact on your partner's health and healing. If you want to make an even bigger difference, consider Couple Summit to help you strengthen your relationship and heal together.
