Understanding Trauma Bonds

I remember when I was with my ex, and we had been together for several years. I was desperately unhappy. He showed me barely any warmth or affection, often disdain in fact, as if my existence was an annoyance in his life.

Although, I don’t think my existence annoyed him. He liked me to play my role; to have dinner ready, to be the cheery couple when his married friends came to visit. To make him feel good about himself. But he didn’t like it when I asked something of him. Anything really. I once asked if we could spend more time together and he coldly responded, “this is me. If you don’t like it, you know where the door is”.

He just seemed to like to put me down constantly.

And at the same time as being desperately unhappy, I thought, what have I got to be unhappy about? In many ways, he was my ideal partner… on paper. Although as I write that I struggle to really put into words how… another example of a feeling I had rather than the truth of our relationship, perhaps. But we went on big holidays and date nights. We lived in a good location. We had enough income. I didn’t really have anything to complain about.

It was like on the surface we were living the dream, and underneath I was trapped in a nightmare.

This was the trauma bond.

I started to daydream about ways to escape, often landing on some fatal accident. And even then, I felt as though I couldn’t bare life without him, so my dreams of escape were of my own fatality, not his.

I didn’t feel as though I could live with him or without him…

As it often is with a trauma bond, I felt intrinsically connected to him. In many ways my life had become about him. He was so deeply immersed in my present, future, and how I identified with myself. To imagine being without him felt like standing on the edge of the void.

Or a cliff edge.

Where do I go from here?

The Origins of Trauma Bonding

Trauma bonding occurs in relationships where there is a power imbalance and intermittent reinforcement.

Intermittent reinforcement is the switch between abusive and caring behaviour. Many abusive relationships start with big displays of affection, or if it was an abusive parent, some of your earliest memories often include moments of connection and warmth. It’s natural for us to form a connection with those who treat us with affection and kindness. When the relationship includes abusive behaviour and devaluation, these acts of kindness cloud our understanding of the abuse, as we believe that they can return to or remain as the “kind version” of themselves.

It’s the kind version of them we are attached to. Not the abuse. You never choose to be abused.

When they treat us well during in the relationship, it’s like a soothing balm for the pain of their abusive behaviour. And as a result, we tend to shift focus onto those kind moments. When the abuse is painful, their kindness offers us respite from it.

This cycle of intermittent reinforcement is then magnified by the power imbalance. Often, the power imbalance doesn’t only include emotional dominance, such as risk of abandonment or punishment if we gain their disapproval, but also, we may be socially isolated, economically or financially dependent, and have key areas of our lives tied up with the abuser, such as family, pets, or career.

This means that we can’t leave the abuse. Not without risks. And that makes us lean into the good times even more. We experience the good times as amplified to help us to cope with an abusive environment that we feel trapped in.

It is essentially a freeze response.

The Lingering Trauma Bond

After the relationship ends, or we go no contact, we continue to lean on the good times for the same reasons as when we were in the relationship. Firstly, the good times remain amplified in our memories, because that’s how we experienced them at the time. When the abuser celebrated your birthday, it wasn’t just about your birthday. It was a memory of them giving you affection and appreciation when you were often starved of it. It became more significant and remains so in your memory. Secondly, we still must cope with processing the pain of abuse, and remembering the good times still acts as a soothing balm.

The only problem is that this causes confusion for us. And we start to question whether it was really that bad, whether we made a mistake, and whether we were better off in the relationship. Which brings us a fresh pain of coping with the loss of it.

We are also biochemically attached. The cycle of abuse and intermittent reinforcement get us into a stress cycle, where we release cortisol in high stress incidents, and then receive dopamine (our reward hormone / a feel good hormone) when they show us kindness.

Immediately after the relationship ends is typically highly stressful, and we are literally in the habit of soothing stress through dopamine hits we get from the abuser being kind towards us. We crave their attention and affection because that has been our way to reduce stress, even though it was stress caused by their abuse.

It isn’t your body misfiring when all you can think of is the good times. It’s looking to support you through a known method of stress reduction.

As time goes on, you may find that there is a lingering attachment towards the good times. Also, because they held a lot of hope within them about how we wanted our relationship to work out.

Breaking the Bond

To break the bond we need to support ourselves in reconciling what we understand our experience to be and how we feel. We have deep emotional attachments that can sometimes guide (and confuse) our understanding of the relationship.

In my book, I write about recognising the good memories as the eye of the storm, and that the first step in breaking the trauma bond is widening our scope so that we see the storm.

It’s ok to remember the good times, if we see them as part of the whole.

Three things we can do to help us keep perspective:

Journal – don’t filter your emotions. It’s ok to miss the abuser. It’s ok to have positive feelings towards them. You can journal them too. What I also recommend is that you keep a journal inclusive (or even in a separate easy access section) of anchoring incidents. I call it an anchoring log. Incidents of abusive behaviour. Why you left. Why it was not a healthy relationship for you. Why you deserve more than the intermittent care that you remember.

Affirm the reasons for the good memories – remind yourself when you have these memories that they serve a purpose. They helped you to cope with abuse. They help you to cope with pain. They are amplified because you didn’t receive them affection consistently. But they don’t mean you should go back or that you made a wrong choice in no contact / leaving.

Third person perspective – when thinking about abuse it can be helpful to distance yourself. Think about if a close friend had your relationship, what would you advise them? What would you want for them? Offer yourself the same compassion.

I think about myself feeling like I was on a cliff edge those years ago, and the other advice I want to give is to make small investments in yourself. When our identity is so immersed in the abuser and relationship, we stay attached to them because we simply don’t know what direction to go in. Or if we do, that direction can feel overwhelming. Step back from the “big future” picture. And focus on the here and now. The small steps that you can take away from the cliff edge and towards reconnecting with yourself. For me those first steps were leaning on a close friend, going to a support group, and enrolling in an evening class at my local college. But it really could be anything that is an intentional investment of time in yourself. Even if that’s watching a TV series with your feet curled up on the sofa.

We’re breaking the bond with them, and strengthening the bond with ourselves.

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