When Trauma Responses Show Up In Marriage (And Why It's NOT a Spiritual Failure)

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I'd prayed. I went to counselling. I read books. I thought I did all "the things" to figure out why I would shut down any time conflict showed up in my marriage. For longer than I can remember I often assumed something was simply wrong with me.

It was after I completed my Coaching training and supplemented that to also become a Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) practitioner and Certified Hypnotherapist that the awareness and subsequent healing came.

What I thought "was wrong with me" was in fact my nervous system doing what God designed it to do - protect me. The issue was that my nervous system was on overdrive that required a level of alertness that was difficult to switch off. I didn't SEE it because it was buried so deep in my subconscious mind.

During the RTT training as students we would practice what we had learned, and so in a session as the 'client' I said the issue I wanted to get to the root cause of was this aversion I had to conflict.

The trauma response I'd developed came from a belief I formed as a 10-yr old girl, when my mother left my dad, me, and my two little brothers. I made an equation in my mind that "when two people who love each other fight, one of them is going to leave." I carried that subconscious belief years into my marriage.

How did it show up?

We'd be shopping for furniture. He'd ask "what do you think of this couch?" I'd say "whatever you think".

He'd ask my opinion about a situation. My comment would end the same..."whatever you think"

I had a deep fear that if we got into a fight over anything, he would leave.

Here's the point of me starting this conversation here. If ANY part of this resonated with you in some small way, if YOU have at any time thought "there's something wrong with me" - it's simply not true. Not one bit.

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