Is My Partner Supposed to Help Me with My Trauma?
Hi Pauline, I'm currently dealing with abandonment issues. How did you not let it affect your current relationship/marriage and did your partner help you overcome it? Or did you do some inner work (God led)? Thank you in advance.
This is a great question! I am guessing you heard a bit of my story and things I’ve faced in the past. Abandonment and all trauma sucks. It sucks because it is painful and we usually didn’t intentionally cause it, but we are responsible for receiving our healing. If you get hit by a car, it is your job to go to the doctor and follow their directions—not the person who hit you!
To be honest—it did affect my marriage and my dating relationship. I don’t believe trauma is trauma if doesn’t deeply change the way you view yourself or certain situations. On the other hand, trauma doesn’t have to hold us back from all God has for us. The key for me was leaning into the pain of the trauma. It is so natural for me to ignore my problems and just hope they go away. I had to dissect my trauma and ask myself “how did I get here?”
After some digging, of course I learned that I was the problem! I had a very bad habit of blaming other people for my trauma: my parents, my ex, my friends, my environment, even God. Once I came to terms with the truth, that I played a bigger part than I cared to admit, I began to take baby steps to freedom. The enemy loves to keep us bound through fear and insecurities.
One truth I had to embrace in order to not be bound by my abandonment issues is actually believing that God is good and He is a good father to me personally. For so long, I had believed that I was an orphan and was alone in the world. But that goes against what God promised in Joshua 1:5 where He says never will He leave me nor forsake me. Right after that, He commands us to be strong and courageous. Did you know it takes bravery and courage to love and be loved? I had no idea. Because of my past, it was brave and vulnerable for me to be loved by God and by Tim. It was easier for me to stay to myself and guard myself from any future hurt. Love is risky, but it is also freeing. So to answer your question: yes I had to do internal work of my own to walk through the abandonment issues and not let them define me.
I would say Tim did absolutely help me overcome fears and insecurities associated with abandonment, but it certainly wasn’t his responsibility or his intent. True love, the agape love from Jesus, heals our hearts. Because Tim loves and loved me with the love of Christ it did help me heal. He didn’t know all that I had been through while we were dating, but it was drawing me closer to the Lord. That was one of the signs that our relationship was healthy and a gift from God.
If your boyfriend’s love is hurting you and not healing you, it is a red flag in my opinion. But as the girlfriend, you don’t want to force him or the relationship to be something it isn’t. You don’t need him to heal, but it should be accelerating the work you are already doing in private with the Lord.
I hope this helps! Praying you receive clarity to understand your own past trauma and for the courage to take baby steps each day.
—P
