How Childhood Trauma May Affect Your Dating Choices

I consider myself a very honest and authentic person, both in my personal and my professional life. There is one thing about me that I rarely share even to the people closest to me. That is the amount of trauma I experienced growing up. This wasn’t just the typical childhood stuff that many people have experienced, my trauma came in the form of physical, mental, and emotional abuse at the hands of one of the people I looked up to the most.

And unfortunately, not until I was willing to look head-on at my trauma, many of my past relationships replicated the dysfunction I was familiar with. It pains me to write about this, but I have come to a point in my life where I feel that it is important to start sharing my experiences with others, most importantly the painful ones to help others going through the same thing.

Far too many of my clients come to me with stories similar to mine, or in many cases even worse, so I feel now it’s time to start letting the rest of you out there who are dealing with past or present real-life trauma know that you are not alone. I believe you can change your results and implore you to not give up on love. Today is the day you can start doing something different about how you approach dating. Be more mindful and conscious about your dating choices. This may sound daunting, even impossible to you right now, but because I was able to change my toxic dating patterns, I know you can too.

So how does one own, accept and move on from some of the worst, some of the most sorrowful, the most agonizing experiences in your life? It starts with healing, a decision to learn new habits, and gather tools to make choices that lead to a new path. So here are five steps for you to use to help you on your path forward.

1)  Understand Your Programming, Speak Compassionately to Yourself

I still find it incredible that I was the person being abused and I actually felt like I was the person at fault. This became my narrative for every relationship I would encounter and would put myself in dangerous situations because I believed my negative narrative. I came to realize later in life that this is not all that uncommon. That victims of abuse often feel like they either deserved what happened to them or simply tried to explain away, why their abuser had to do what they did.

This flawed blame game is understandable, but unacceptable behavior for someone who wants to heal. What my father did was wrong… period. I forgave him, but I will never forget. I did later learn that he too experienced abuse as a child, but this fact, by no means does this excuse what he did to me.

Years later after lots of therapy, coaching programs, and support, I was on my path to healing. I accepted the trauma I experienced as a part of my life and therefore, part of who I am. I woke up every day affirming my value outside of what happened to me.

I began to reprogram my thoughts by stating out loud in the mirror that I was worthy of love, I am strong, I have boundaries and deserve love and to have respect. Eventually, my compassionate inner voice took over which set me free to change my bad dating choices and pick a partner that treated me with tremendous love and respect.

These negative judgments about myself still linger today, when there is a relationship conflict, I always start with “what did I do wrong?” However now, I stop beating myself up and speak more compassionately with myself.  The reprogramming of thoughts is a lifetime of work of being mindful, not believing the negative story I’m telling myself especially if it takes me away from living the life I want and deserve.

Because I was so compassionate with myself, this move forward also allowed me to do the previously unthinkable; I called my father whom I had not spoken to for 2 years, apologized for things I had said and done to him in the past (unrelated to the periods of abuse).

I also made a conscious choice and empathized with him. I understood that he was abused, wished he had not experienced that pain, and that I still loved him. I came from a non-judgmental place. I shared with him all that I had learned and he embraced everything. This allowed my father and I to slowly move forward in our relationship and eventually work to a place to discuss the abuse.  He broke down into tears, shared his guilt, and for the first time profusely apologized to me. He promised never to lay a hand on me again and he never did. We began to finally make amends for the past. Today, we are as close as any healthy father and daughter relationship can be. He told me he loved me for the first time as an adult and our close bond has never stopped since that moment.

2)  Be Vulnerable – Brené Brown is One of my Heroes.

She is a research professor, writer, speaker, and one of the foremost experts on the importance of being vulnerable. In her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead she defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure” and that, “vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity.” I like to think of it as owning your shit and your choices.

Traumatic experiences do one thing very well inside the minds of the traumatized; they are incredible builders of walls. Walls that keep others from getting in and keep one’s true self from getting out. I know it did those things to me. Unfortunately, with these walls often comes a lack of vulnerability. That’s because those of us who have experienced trauma often feel embarrassed or ashamed about what happened to us.

This leads us to not want to talk about it or share too much, despite the fact this is exactly what we need. When you make the choice to be vulnerable what you are doing is grabbing a big, steel hammer and you are bashing away those walls. Blow by blow you are freeing your mind, your body, and your soul from the pain and the sorrow that those traumatic experiences have created. It is important to share with someone you really trust or a mental health professional as to when you open your heart you definitely need a safe space for this.

3)  Make a List of Relationships Past

When it comes to relationships, traumatic events, such as abuse or addiction almost always lead to poor life choices.  These choices can actually be incredible tools in your quest to help understand where you have come from and where you are going.  That’s because they leave patterns if you know where to look. And this starts by creating a list of all your past relationships.

I know for me, I dated men who were controlling, verbally abusive, and emotionally available.  Making this list has another perk too. It allows you to take a step back from yourself. It may be painful to bring up old wounds, but reflecting on past mistakes with compassion will help change negative patterns in how you pick future partners. Once you have created that list, then rewrite each behavior into a positive one so that you can focus on bringing in what you DO want rather than fear what you DON’T want.

4)  Do Not Look for Others to Heal the Pain

Although I am a relationship coach who has had the privilege of helping many people who have experienced trauma in their life find a path to love, I can tell you I am not the person who did the real work. Sure, I offer up important tools and a compassionate, non-judgmental ear, but I did not fix the singles I worked with. No, they did it themselves.

Trauma is not any of our faults, but it is our responsibility to heal from it and not pass it on to others. Many singles I work with understand this idea. They took on their trauma head-on, reached out for support not only through a therapist but with me as well, they wanted to heal and learn what a good relationship looked like. They accepted the tools given to them and implemented them into their lives.  The rest, as they say, is history.  I must be honest, not everyone who undertakes this path makes it. For some, it may be timing and they will try again at a different time. Some others, they are just not ready to dig deep, be vulnerable, and stay the course to real healing.

Whatever the reason, I do not fault them or my confidence in my ability to truly help those in pain. No, I am a believer that we all have a path and that does not always include success on the first try. That being said, for the ones that do stay the course and do the work it not only improves their dating life but their life in general. They become transformed in a way never imagined, and soon are able to experience the life they have always wanted and have always deserved.

5)  Know Your Relationship Non-Negotiables

Non-negotiables are basically the core values you must have in a relationship for it to work. They are relationship deal-breakers. Most people have 10-15 of them and they are not trivial things like height or body type, rather important relationship-building blocks like: being treated like a priority or being with someone who is honest. If even one of your Non-negotiables is not met, the relationship will fail every time.

That is how incredibly powerful they are. For those of you who have experienced trauma in your life, trust is often one of the big stumbling blocks in your relationships, either trusting too much or not trusting enough. The great thing about non-negotiables is that they are a perfect tool for you to use to measure your trust levels with someone.

Every date you have, every moment you share with someone you like will be a time for you to see if your core values really line up. This Non-negotiable screening and testing process will give you true relationship clarity.  Simply put, those who continue to meet you’re the core values on your list will continue to build your trust, those who fail to meet even one of them will be easily removed from your dating future.

If you have worked with a therapist and have healed through your trauma and now want to learn healthy relationship skills to attract a quality partner I am here to help. I believe in my heart, you can choose a different path and experience the love you deserve. Schedule a Free Relationship Readiness Review with me here.