Are you Trauma-Compatible with Your Partner?
How to assess the impact of trauma patterns to identify the right partner for you.
By Jayasree Menon
You and your potential partner have gone through life and may have experienced similar traumas. But does your shared traumatic experience make you compatible with each other? Not necessarily.
Let me share a brief story. This story is not in a romantic context, but I have chosen it because compatibility is important in all relationships. In addition, this story helps you evaluate your trauma compatibility easily, as you need to do that on your own.
My grandma had twins when my mother was two years old. From then on, almost every year, grandma had a baby until there were seven siblings. My mother, being the eldest, has taken on the role of caretaker for her younger siblings since she was two years old. You would expect her to be an experienced caretaker with vast experience and she would love, care for, and nourish her own children. Her daughter, that is me, had to take care of herself from the age of two, thanks to my mother giving birth to another baby.
I never understood these dynamics until I started on my self-discovery journey. I resented my mother for neglecting me, and it was such a hard task for me to raise myself. Although I like kids very much, I never wanted to have my own. In addition, I never take on the responsibility of another human being. You might have guessed that I didn’t do a good job of raising me and I remained that two-year-old my entire life. This is my trauma personality.
Your trauma affects your personality and activates coping mechanisms because the body and brain are wired to survive. You walk around the world with this coping personality, which continues to shape to adapt to survival within your living environment. Your social interactions, workplace dynamics and mating relationships further shape your coping personality, ultimately making the person you are today.
What do you need to look at in any relationship is how that coping personality is influencing your life’s path, desires, and vulnerabilities? In my story, my mother’s trauma and my trauma are similar, yet we are not compatible with each other. I didn’t have a choice in this scenario, similar is the case with many family and workplace relationships. However, awareness helps us to manage expectations and set boundaries to walk on the path of self-healing.
Now, let us look at the mating scenario. When I consider a potential partner, I have to be very careful about my trauma patterns and my coping personality. We all have multiple traumas, but for the sake of simplicity, I am addressing one aspect at a time. You can evaluate comparing the multiple trauma patterns and create a scoreboard to make informed choices.
I need to choose a partner who will take care of me and take my responsibility without expecting me to become his caretaker. Despite being nourishing, I have to be very careful before committing and ensure that I know the other person well, having developed a deep emotional connection with long-term-partnership intentions. In addition, I need to have those conversations about my reluctance or inability to be the caretaker in the relationship and about my decision not to have children. I have to be careful in my choices and communications, understanding my trauma patterns. Otherwise, it would be a recipe for heartbreak for both, and I could feel hurt and used.
People often think having similar trauma experiences makes them compatible in romantic relationships. Let’s take the example of Raj and Simran. They met each other after going through a nasty divorce with abusive partners. They found solace in each other’s shared experiences and felt a deep connection, committing to each other hoping to have a better future. However, their relationship did not turn out as they had hoped.
Raj and Simran’s story offers several important takeaways. First, there was an expectation mismatch, both hoped the other would provide nurturing support, yet neither was in a place of healing to offer it. In addition, their shared traumatic experiences became a source of vulnerability, which inadvertently attracted problems. They were triggering each other, though with no intention. Their unhealed wounds from the last relationship haunted their married life, and they couldn’t build trust and a long-lasting, nourishing connection.
I tried to explain these principles in the simplest manner possible, with no psychological jargon. I want you to pay attention to your trauma patterns and make rational assessments about the impact of your trauma on your personality. Based on your trauma patterns, there’s a set of expectations or needs a person would have from the next relationship. It is important that you get your needs met in the new relationship to ensure long-term sustainability. Instead of choosing someone with similar trauma patterns, make a logical assessment of your trauma compatibility to choose the right partner for you.
