The Link Between Trauma and Romantic Dissatisfaction

The unseen impact of trauma on our search for lasting love

Photo by Artsy Vibes on Unsplash

For much of my life, I mistook ardent longing for love. The ache I carried wasn’t romantic in nature, it was the echo of early emotional abandonment. I moved through the world with a relentless hunger for connection, not because I lacked interest in solitude, but because solitude often felt unbearable. Love, or what I believed was love, became a lifeline, a hoped-for remedy for a pain I couldn’t name.

This wasn’t love as mutuality, stability, or genuine intimacy I sought. It was love as survival. Love as escape. I chased connection with urgency, bypassing red flags, abandoning self-protection, and mistaking intensity for intimacy. I didn’t yet understand that what I was reaching for in others was a balm for what had never been given to me in childhood: attunement, emotional safety, and unconditional regard.

Without an internalized sense of relational safety, I lacked the pacing, boundaries, and discernment necessary for healthy relationships. I moved recklessly, choosing from my wounds rather than from clarity. Each time a relationship collapsed under the weight of my unmet needs and unconscious expectations, it deepened the very sense of rejection and loneliness I had been so desperate to escape.