Is true love supposed to last throughout your life? Should you feel love for those who have wronged you in some way in previous relationships? And, if so, is it healthy?
Having that loving feeling for previous partners in your life can raise questions in current relationships. It’s a good idea to get clear on what your best course of action is.
A listener of my podcast reached out with a question about love that’s been troubling them. They believe love never dies and that even a brief connection can last forever. They shared their experience of meeting someone years ago with whom they felt a strong bond. The relationship started beautifully but ended when their partner revealed a different side – one that was unkind and disrespectful.
Now, years later, they find themselves missing this person while also recognizing the poor treatment they received. They want to cherish the love that once existed while acknowledging that this person wouldn’t have been a good long-term partner. They’re wondering if it’s possible to hold these seemingly contradictory feelings and thoughts.
This is a great topic because love often changes as we grow from childhood to adulthood. As kids, we have crushes. In our teens, we think we’re in love and can’t imagine anyone better. Then, we reach our twenties and thirties, and our perception of love shifts.
I’ve come to see love as not just how we feel about someone else but how they make us feel about ourselves. When you’re in love or deeply care for someone who makes you feel good about yourself, you feel loved. When they support your happiness, you feel cared for and want more of that feeling and more of them.
This is why I view emotional abuse as the opposite of love – it makes someone feel bad about themselves. Love, on the other hand, supports the other person’s happiness, individuality, and authenticity. When someone does this for you, it comes closest to defining love, in my experience.
Beyond that, love involves having an emotional connection, enjoying someone’s company, and sharing yourself deeply with someone who hopefully does the same. It’s crucial to define what love means to you personally.
For me, I enjoy all aspects of love – falling in love, being in love, and the feeling of love. I’ve thought about what love means to me, how I receive it, and how I give it. I’ve found that the ways I enjoy receiving love are the same ways I give it. When I give love in the way I like to receive it, it feels like a true loving connection.
I believe it’s important to identify what love means to you so you can recognize when those criteria are met.
It might sound like I’m breaking it down logically, and to some extent, I am. But understanding your definition of love helps you recognize when it’s present and when it’s absent, rather than relying solely on feelings.
The feeling of love is real, but it can be hard to measure because it often mixes with other emotions. Our feelings are a combination of our emotional and physical state, which can create a complex message. When you’re in a relationship and have loving feelings for someone, it’s easy to forget about logically defining what love means to you. This can lead to confusion about what love really is.
It’s helpful to outline what love means to you personally. For example, you might say that when someone hugs you and tells you everything will be okay, that’s a loving gesture that makes you feel loved. As you consider what love means to you, you’ll likely recognize qualities you appreciate in others, both past and present.
The tricky part is that we often remember the good feelings from a relationship, even when they were mixed with bad ones. Relationships can be a blend of emotions because they have both good and bad times. If someone who was once loving becomes rude and selfish, you end up with a mix of positive and negative feelings.
This is where the concept of a trauma bond comes in. You might mix the good emotions from a relationship that turned sour with the bad experiences. Our minds and bodies sometimes go into denial about the negative aspects because we don’t want to feel bad. It’s like a protection mechanism that focuses on the good times and how you felt during those moments.
When you primarily focus on the positive, it becomes hard to acknowledge the negative because thinking about it makes you feel bad. You might have been in a relationship with more downs than ups, but because you felt good during the good times, that’s what you hold onto. If your mind minimizes the bad times, you end up remembering more of the good times.
This is why many people stay in or return to relationships where they were treated poorly. Their mental filters have blocked out many of the bad memories and held onto how they felt during the good times. Love can trick us into thinking we had it good when it was only good sometimes.
In extreme cases, you might be in a relationship that’s mostly terrible, but the small percentage that’s good feels amazing in comparison. The contrast is so great that you can’t compare it to anything else. You go from feeling low to being on cloud nine because you’re finally being treated with kindness and respect. You hope it lasts, even though you know it’s usually not like this.
This pattern can occur in relationships where things are consistently bad, and then suddenly, there’s a good day. During that good time, it feels like your dreams have come true. You develop hope that things will improve, and you start thinking optimistically about the future. These good feelings become a strong memory to hold onto when things inevitably go bad again.
The good memories and feelings become very powerful, and they’re what you grasp onto during the bad times. It’s natural to want to avoid remembering the painful stuff because it brings back those difficult emotions. It’s like when someone asks if you remember when a loved one died – you don’t want to relive those painful feelings.
When it comes to abuse victims, their minds can play tricks on them. They might experience moments of kindness and care from their abuser, which feel amplified because they’re in stark contrast to the abuse. These good times create strong, positive memories that the victim clings to when things get bad again.
The Healed Being Program helps emotionally abusive people heal and change.
Coming back to the email I received, they said they met someone they really cared about who eventually became rude, degrading, and selfish. And now, even though the relationship ended years ago, they still miss this person. However, they’ve realized that the way they were treated in the end wasn’t loving at all.
It’s important to remember that if an abusive person comes back into your life, you’ll likely experience both good and bad times with them. It’s similar to childbirth in a way – it’s incredibly painful, but many women choose to have more children because the reward outweighs the pain. The difference is that, in a toxic relationship, it’s a constant cycle of ups and downs.
The person who wrote to me said they want to cherish the love that was once there while acknowledging that this person wouldn’t have made a good romantic partner. I think that’s a great way to look at it. You can appreciate how someone made you feel without wanting them back in your life.
When you have strong feelings for someone, it’s often a mix of self-love and love for the other person. If they make you feel good about yourself, you feel loving and positive. But if they’re belittling and degrading you, they’re not a good partner, no matter how good they made you feel at times.
It’s okay to have conflicting feelings about someone who hurt you. You can feel love for them and still know they’re not good for you. You can remember the good times fondly while hating the bad times. This is common in abusive relationships.
I experienced this with my stepfather. He was a violent alcoholic who mistreated my family, but I still had loving feelings for him. If I found out he died, I think it would hit me hard because he meant something to me at one time. I have good memories of him, like when we rode a swinging pirate ship at an amusement park. It was hilarious seeing him so out of his element, and in that moment, I loved him.
Now, I have mixed feelings about him. I don’t want him in my life or near my family because he’s dangerous. He’s like Jekyll and Hyde – kind and generous one moment, but unsafe to be around the next.
So yes, it’s possible to cherish the good memories while acknowledging that someone isn’t right for you. Your feelings can be complex, and that’s okay. You can remember the good times you had with people in your life, even if they’re no longer a part of it. It’s okay to cherish those memories and moments when you felt a strong connection with someone. You might think, “That was a wonderful time. We had amazing experiences together, and I felt really good about our bond.”
But you also recognize that the rest of the time, they were too toxic to be around. This is why you choose to love from afar. It’s not just about physical distance but emotional distance, too. You need to keep yourself safe for your emotional well-being.
You don’t fully invest in loving this person or wanting to create new memories with them. You don’t support that idea, but you do remember what you had. When you think of the good times, it makes you feel good. And that’s okay. You can love people and those times without needing anyone’s permission. You feel good about it because you felt good then, and those feelings are still valid. This is also common in abusive relationships – you might have mixed feelings inside.
You might wonder, “I still love this person, yet they hurt me. Why do I still love them?” It’s because you did love them. You had moments of love, moments when you couldn’t stand them, moments of fear, and maybe even moments of hate.
All these feelings are real and authentically you. They’re all part of you and the human experience.
Loving someone doesn’t mean you have to be with them, near them, or spend your life with them. It just means you loved them at certain times, couldn’t open your heart to them at others, and had to protect yourself at times, too.
You don’t need to retrain your mind to handle this situation. Instead, you need discipline. It’s hard to have love for someone and then just turn it off like a light switch. Some people can do this. But for many, it’s not that simple. You can have caring, loving thoughts about people from your past, especially those you loved.
If someone tells you that you shouldn’t have loving thoughts about a person because they hurt you and you should feel angry instead, you might agree. But you also had good times with them. You don’t need to throw all that away. In fact, it might be unhealthy if you did.
Should You Erase a Painful Past So You Can Move Forward?
It’s important to acknowledge the loving, fun, happy times you had with someone. For example, if you’ve been married for 20 years and find out your partner has been cheating for the last two, you might feel like your whole marriage was a sham and that you wasted 20 years of your life.
It’s okay and normal to feel that way. You’d be angry, thinking you could have spent time with someone who wouldn’t cheat on you. But there’s also the fact that you had 18 years together, with probably some amazing memories.
It’s not necessarily always healthy to forget all those amazing memories and how you felt. Your identity is wrapped up in those memories. They’re an intrinsic part of you. If you had good memories before you found out about the betrayal, why take that away from yourself?
It’s not really about them anyway. It’s about how you feel about yourself – how you feel inside – and yes, how you feel about them, too. It’s also about the security, warmth, and love you experienced. It’s all intertwined, and while it might feel like they took some of that away, don’t take it away from yourself.
When a relationship turns sour or toxic, it doesn’t negate the good times you had. Those memories and feelings are real and valid. It’s important not to invalidate them because doing so might lead to losing a part of yourself. If you take a long-term relationship and convince yourself it was all a waste of time, forgetting the good and focusing only on the bad, you’re essentially tearing away a significant part of who you are.
Your memories are a part of your identity. If you decide to erase those memories or label them as a waste of time, you might end up feeling like there’s something missing inside of you.
Some people choose to do this because they need to start over and rebuild. However, it’s crucial to be careful about what you decide to let go of. You might have wonderful memories with people who also gave you bad experiences. It’s not always wise to erase everything just because you discovered someone was unkind or abusive.
That being said, if getting rid of these memories and feelings, both good and bad, helps you feel better and move forward, then you have every right to do so. If someone mistreated or abused you terribly, and you find that extracting all memories associated with them gives you a fresh start without the toxic mix of emotions, then that might be what you need.
The key is to do what serves you best. If holding onto good memories helps you maintain a sense of self and growth, do that. If letting go of everything associated with a toxic person helps you heal and move forward, that’s okay, too. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What matters most is finding the path that leads to your healing and happiness.
My partner recently shared something that made me think about past relationships in a new way. She told me she still cares about everyone she’s been with before. She has feelings for them, thinks about them, and hopes they’re doing well. This doesn’t mean she’s in love with them or wants to go back to them. It simply shows she has a big heart and cares about the people she’s shared experiences with.
For a long time, I used to shut people out after a relationship ended. I’d close the door and move on. But her words made me reflect on my own past. I realized I’d be sad if I heard any of my exes got hurt or died. This made me wonder: Is it because I knew them well, or do I still have feelings for them? I think it’s a mix of both.
When we spend time with people and connect with them, those feelings can last a long time, maybe forever. They become part of us, and we become part of them. In a relationship, “I” becomes “we,” and “me” becomes “us.” The other person starts to show up in our thoughts. For example, when I go to the store, I might think, “I wonder if Asha wants yogurt. I’ll get her some.”
If my partner suddenly left me for someone else, I’d be devastated. But how could I erase all the good times we’ve had? It would be tough. I might feel angry and need to work through those emotions. Looking back at my first long-term relationship from decades ago, any negative feelings have faded. I remember some good times, but I wouldn’t date those people again. Still, they hold a place in my heart because they were once part of it.
I’m glad my Asha, my wife, got me thinking about what’s healthy when it comes to feelings for people from our past. I have come to believe it’s absolutely okay to have feelings for those we were once in a relationship with – even the people who may have hurt us. They were part of our lives, and we were part of theirs. It’s hard to completely remove that unless there’s been serious trauma involved.
When you have a loving connection where you can be vulnerable with someone, you share a unique bond. You don’t usually get as deep or vulnerable with friends and family as you do with a romantic partner.
Some people in relationships might get upset if their partner keeps pictures of their exes. They might say, “You shouldn’t have pictures of anyone but me.” I think that’s a narrow-minded view, though I might have felt that way years ago.
Now that I’m older and understand love better, I see things differently. If you support your partner’s happiness and individuality, which is how I define love, you should be okay with them having memories and pictures from past relationships. It’s part of their history!
When you’re okay with this, you’re showing how much you love and support them. When they feel your support, they’ll want more of it and more of you. And they won’t want to let you go.
What’s your thoughts on whether a trauma bonded relationship can ever be one that is worth having?
I came across your article about surviving infidelity (loved it, resonated with me a lot) after my husband a few (together 16 years, married 2) a few weeks ago confessed to kissing a girl on a stag holiday 11 years ago when our child was 12 months old – I’d always had a strong suspicion, so I got brave enough to ask during a moment of self loathing he was having for some other not-ideal behaviour that weekend. Anyway, after a torrid few weeks coming to terms with that, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on our whole relationship and I’m having trouble understanding why I’m still here persevering (and more specifically, whether I’m doing something wrong).
The thing is, I’ve recently realised that there’s a name for what I’ve experienced in most of my relationship – trauma bonding – and now I’ve educated myself about it, it makes me feel scared and weird that I’ve stayed in a relationship where I’ve blatantly been abused. But the strange thing that I’m struggling with the most, is that he just isn’t (outwardly) that abuser anymore, even though there’s recent things he’s done that are definitely not OK in a relationship (he uses cocaine socially occasionally, which I’ve always tolerated, and behaves like a completely different/unsettling person whilst under the influence of it – this has now become the number 1 boundary mark he can never cross again and he swears he won’t), he HAS changed and he has worked on himself and his terrible anger issues.
So my question is, can an abuser who (unintentionally) creates trauma bonding, ever truly change and ever be a person worth staying married to? I feel like I’ve been his psychologist and therapist over the years and I’ve helped him identify and change his behaviours, but I’ve had to be put into very intense and traumatic situations to be able to do that for him.
For what it’s worth, the relationship was always 95% brilliant (we are like best friends/sole mates tbf and I know that’s a very trauma bond victim thing to say, but it’s true!) but the other 5% of times were 3% simmering anger and resentment, and 2% absolutely NUCLEAR hysteria, frightening, traumatic, tbf non physically violent (apart from a wrist grabbing incident and a pushing me on the sofa incident) but just very frightening extreme anger and noise and behaviour enveloped with extreme and quite bizarre gaslighting. He is (or was?) a very very angry person who on occasion turned into a complete monster that I didn’t know. These occasions were fairly frequent for 11 years (every couple of months) , infrequent for maybe 3 years (once or twice a year) and then almost non existent for the last 2 (he seems defeated by himself/this horrible self recently).
After confirming the infidelity kiss, we’ve had many deep conversations in recent weeks and I’ve felt confident enough to lay all of these past problems on the table aswell, because I don’t think we can move forward with anything at all unresolved on either side. In the past I’d be scared to ever mention the past incidents, especially as he’d say that I shouldn’t keep bringing up the past when he’s already apologised and it’s been moved on from, but it’s been make or break after the cheating confirmation so he’s been much more receptive. I am fairly perfect in terms of him not having any ‘incidents’ to hold against me, I am functionally and on the surface a perfect wife and homemaker, but he is very bitter about how cold I am when it comes to outward love and intimacy which I appreciate is very true – he is very tactile, I am really not. I find it hard to relax enough to be loving, I have a very overactive mind, I am guilty of him being wayyyy down the list of my priorities. BUT, his wrongs are much more red flag’y – being a past abuser as per the definition of trauma bonding, is really bad isn’t it.
To be fair to him, he’s genuinely now started to admit to his behaviour and I have seen this new vulnerable and wracked with guilt and reflection side to him. It’s not an act to save his marriage, it really isn’t. I’m too switched on to have him fool me, and he’s too rubbish at it to pretend. He’s genuinely devestated at how he’s treated me – I still don’t think he realises the extent and seriousness of how he has, but it feels like recently he’s really starting to realise and reflect and change. He actually looks shell shocked, like he’s just returned from the front lines in a war. This again sounds very trauma bond victim, but I genuinely feel very sorry for him.
So, back to my original question, do you think it’s ever possible for an abuser to change AND for a relationship to not only survive, but flourish once that is left behind?
I love this man deeply. He genuinely absolutely loves and adores me regardless of how he’s treated me, but it’s a juxtaposition to have abused someone you love isn’t it? Or is it? Can a relationship actually survive that abuse? – not only survive, but become strong and loving and forever?
Thank so much for sharing all of this with me. So sorry you went through so many years of struggle!
Can an abuser change? Yes, absolutely. I’ve seen it happen, and I’ve worked with people who have done the hard work to heal and transform. But real change requires the person to do deep, uncomfortable work on themselves. Not just stopping the behavior, but understanding why they did it in the first place, what was driving it, and healing whatever wound or pattern created it. If he’s open to learning more about his behaviors and making sure he is heading in the right direction, he should look into my Healed Being program where I help emotionally abusive people heal and change: https://healedbeing.com/
To your comment on looking shell shocked, that’s excellent. That’s a really good sign. When someone who has been emotionally abusive truly realizes the extent of the harm they’ve caused, that’s often exactly how they look and feel. It’s not an act. It’s the weight of guilt, shame, and understanding that they’ve hurt someone they love. It can be devastating for some people to come to terms with. The fact that you’re seeing this vulnerable, wracked-with-guilt side of him, and that you believe it’s genuine, suggests he may truly be at a turning point. I can only go by what you shared here, but in my experience, this “shell shocked” state of being is very common when empathy kicks in and they become shocked they could be so awful to someone who didn’t deserve it.
If he’s truly healing and changing, there are specific things to look for because real change isn’t just about feeling bad, it’s about consistent, demonstrable shifts in behavior and attitude. Watch for these signs:
Transparency. He should be willing to share what he’s thinking and feeling without you having to pry it out of him. He should be open about his triggers, his struggles, and what he’s working on. If he’s hiding things or being evasive, that’s a red flag.
Humility. This means he accepts that he’s been harmful to you. Not just once in a vulnerable moment, but consistently. He doesn’t get defensive when you bring up past incidents. He doesn’t minimize what he did or try to justify it. He doesn’t say things like “you shouldn’t keep bringing up the past when I’ve already apologized.” A truly humble person who is healing will understand that you need to process what happened, and they’ll give you space to do that without making it about them.
Vulnerability. He should be willing to expose his insecurities, fears, and shame without trying to protect his ego. This means admitting when he’s wrong, acknowledging when he doesn’t know something, and being willing to look at the ugliest parts of himself. It sounds like he’s showing this now, and that’s good! But it needs to continue, not just in these intense moments after the infidelity came out, but in everyday life.
Accountability. He takes full responsibility for his actions without blaming you or circumstances. He doesn’t say “I only got angry because you did this” or “I wouldn’t have reacted that way if you hadn’t…” He owns it completely.
Consistency. This is the big one. Anyone can be remorseful for a few weeks. Real change is demonstrated over months and years. Does he continue to show up with humility, transparency, and vulnerability even when things calm down? Does he do the work even when you’re not watching?
Active healing work. Is he doing things to address the root causes of his anger and behavior? This can mean working with someone who can help him understand why he became that person in the first place, be it therapy or a program like mine. But being his psychologist and therapist over the years is definitely not your job, nor should you have to volunteer for that role. You shouldn’t have to be put into intense and traumatic situations to help him become a better person. He needs to do that work himself, with support outside of the relationship if necessary. The victim of abusive behavior should not also be the one who heals the abuser. You will dump a lot of energy into him when all of that needs to go into yourself.
Now, if he still doesn’t realize the extent and seriousness of how he’s treated you, that might come out later. But it should be something you can both bring up and talk about.
I’ve had members of my program ask me if they should create a list of everything they’re sorry for and hand it to the person they’ve hurt. I tell them not to. Not because they shouldn’t apologize and be aware of all they’ve done, but because no matter how much is addressed on that list, it will never cover it all. They could list a thousand things, and the victim of their behavior will ask, “What about that time…” and it will prolong the healing process.
If the victim of this behavior, however, asked for a list like this, then by all means, they should follow through. But I would rather the person who’s been hurt bring up individual hurts and events to the perpetrator of the behavior, if you want to, so that you can talk about those specific times for more clarity.
This means if you’re feeling hurt by a specific past action, and you choose to bring it up, he needs to be open (and humble and vulnerable) to talking about it fully, even if he has no actual excuse or reason he did what he did (healing abusers often can’t figure out why they did what they did, they have to process quite a bit. Listen to my episode on this subject right here: https://loveandabuse.com/why-they-dont-stop-hurting-you-when-they-see-you-hurting/). No excuse doesn’t mean it’s excused. But it does mean that’s more he needs to work on.
True healing requires full accountability, not just feeling bad about it. He needs to understand the impact of his actions on you, not just feel guilty about being “a bad person.” Hopefully, as he continues to heal, that understanding will deepen over time as he continues to reflect and grow.
Now, about trauma bonding. Yes, it’s real, and yes, it can make you feel like you’re crazy for staying. But trauma bonds can be broken. They’re not permanent. The question is whether the relationship can transform into something healthy once the trauma bond is addressed. That requires both people to do their own work. Being cold and having him way down your list of priorities might be a protection mechanism developed to survive the relationship. It’s worth exploring that in yourself. In other words, if you felt fully safe, trusting, loved, supported, and knew he had your back 100%, would he be that far down the list? Your answer to that will help you understand your priorities.
Can a relationship survive abuse and become strong and loving? I’ve seen it happen many times, but it requires the abuser to fully own what they did, understand the impact, do the deep healing work, and, again, consistently show up differently over a long period of time. It also requires the person who was hurt to heal from the trauma, rebuild trust slowly, and decide if they even want to stay. Not because they’re trauma bonded or feel sorry for the person, but because they genuinely want to be there.
Are you doing something wrong by persevering? I don’t think so, but there are some hard questions to sit with. Are you staying because you love him and believe the relationship can be healthy, or are you staying because you’re trauma bonded and feel responsible for his healing? Are you staying because you want to, or because you’re afraid of what leaving would mean?
Those questions can be hard to answer while you’re still in what I call the fog. That’s when you are still in a reactive, walking-on-eggshells mode, waiting for the other shoe to drop. After the abuse stops and you’ve worked on yourself, it can take anywhere from two to six months for the fog to lift, where you finally have your own thoughts and aren’t preoccupied with what the other person will say or think. If you are still in that fog, you may need to alone time, or at least time to yourself where you are free to make decisions on your own and do what you want and need to do FOR YOU so that you can start to reconnect with yourself again.
Give yourself permission to focus on yourself for a while. Don’t focus on whether he’s changing or whether the relationship will work or not, but focus on what you need to heal from the years of walking on eggshells and experiencing those nuclear moments. You deserve to feel safe, valued, and prioritized. You deserve a relationship where you don’t have to be perfect to avoid an explosion. You also need time to reconnect with who you are at a deeper level. And also rebuild your power so that if you do see any signs of abusive behavior returning, you can tell yourself, “Nope. I won’t tolerate that ever again,” then make a decision from that space.
A relationship is worth having if both people are actively choosing it from a place of health, not from a place of fear, obligation, or trauma. Right now, it sounds like you’re still figuring out which place you’re in.
These episodes are going to be very helpful for you:
https://loveandabuse.com/what-change-really-looks-like-when-the-emotional-abuser-heals/
https://loveandabuse.com/what-are-the-chances-of-an-emotional-abuser-healing-and-the-relationship-surviving/
https://loveandabuse.com/when-the-emotional-abuser-reaches-back-out-after-theyve-healed-and-changed/
https://loveandabuse.com/breaking-the-trauma-bond-can-be-hard-as-hell/
https://loveandabuse.com/can-you-ever-go-back-to-who-you-were/
I hope this helps. Stay strong.
Thank you so so much for replying. I’ve just wrote a huge long reply out and lost it when my screen lock came on!
The jist of what I wrote was that he has aleady started to navigate himself through the journey you suggest in your reply. Just last night during dinner, he spoke without much promoting at length at trauma he had endured during his teenage years. His dad had an affair and left his mum (reconciled 2 years later) and my husband ended up living a double life until his mid twenties (including a few years of first meeting me) in gang-life on the streets where he was lucky to not be killed or be in prison by now. He endured many traumatic experiences living that double life, even his family (and me) were unbeknownst to them, also in danger. He basically survived by the skin of his teeth, but carries around a lot of baggage from that very severe period of his development and life. I love his dad a lot, he himself is a changed man – a great father in law and brilliant grandad to my sons, but he’s been an abysmal dad (and husband) and role model and i do think he totally let my husband down at times that he needed him the most. He never told my husband he loved him until recently.
My husband is the most loving guy ever, he’ll do anything for anyone, he’ll literally do anything for me, he’d die for me, he’s intelligent (he’s an engineer – the best in his field right now) a good dad, just the kind of guy people tell me I’ve won the lottery to be married to. But he’s very damaged and he’s passed that on to me which is inexcusable. I think the penny has finally dropped – sadly it came to the final tipping point of me finding out about his past infidelity which was the only thing left that he hadn’t done to me. So the only way CAN be up now, he’s hit rock bottom and he knows it.
I’ve sent him your article ‘does vulnerability increase love and connection’ because it was almost written for him. I asked him to read your article ‘surviving infidelity’ the other day and he said it was deep but he found it really useful for perspectives and how to move forward. I think reading the vulnerability article is the perfect follow up for him to truly put that destructive version of him truly behind him, and start being the version he truly is which is just himself with no need to live his life/persona for other people, just himself and in a true way.
Last night he asked himself why he stayed in that gang life where it wasn’t him and he hated it and could’ve died, but he also couldn’t live without it. I mentioned it sounded like trauma bonding and he agreed. I asked him if he knew what that was and he said yes. I then asked him if that’s how he treated me – a trauma bond – for the majority of our relationship up until recently, and he said yes. I don’t think he can feel any more guilt than he does now – I do really think the only way is up and it’ll bring us so much closer together – it has already – with his new vulnerability and openness, I already feel safer around him, and already feel like I want to start loving him properly again instead of me carrying around all this bitterness and fear forever more. It’s kind of like we’ve just met for the first time again, it’s so strange but feels so organic and natural.
I’m going to keep reading and listening to all of your articles because nothing has ever resonated so strongly before (and I read a LOT about psychology and relationships) but already with just 2 articles you’ve changed my life and probably my husband’s. So thank you!
It sounds like you’re both in a very raw, vulnerable place right now, which I realize can be both hopeful and scary at the same time.
What you’re describing about his past makes a lot of sense. Trauma from his teenage years, living a double life, gang involvement, a father who wasn’t emotionally available. All of that shapes a person. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it does explain some of the anger, the emotional volatility, and the trauma bonding he created in your relationship. People who’ve been through that kind of survival mode often don’t know how to process emotions in healthy ways. They react, they explode, they protect themselves by controlling or shutting down. And they pass that trauma on to the people closest to them, which is exactly what happened to you.
The fact that he’s starting to connect those dots himself is a very good sign. The fact that he can admit he trauma bonded you the same way he was trauma bonded to that gang life shows he’s starting to, hopefully, understand the pattern. That’s not something everyone can do, especially not this early in the process.
It’s possible you’re in perhaps a “honeymoon phase” of healing where everything feels organic and natural, like you’ve just met for the first time. You’re feeling safer around him. He’s being vulnerable and open in ways he never has been before. That’s really great. But, as I’m sure you know, it will also be temporary if the deeper work doesn’t continue.
I’m sure you’re feeling a sense of relief that the truth is finally out and relief that he’s finally being honest and maybe now things can be different.
That relief can feel like love. It can feel like connection. It can feel like everything’s going to be okay now. But relief isn’t the same as healing. Healing takes time. It takes consistency. And it takes both of you doing your own work, not just together, but separately.
You mentioned that you already feel like you want to start loving him properly again instead of carrying around all this bitterness and fear. Don’t rush it. This is a one-day-at-a-time approach. You’ve been through years of walking on eggshells, years of nuclear explosions, and years of being cold and distant as a way to protect yourself. That didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t heal overnight either.
You need time to process what happened to you. You need time to rebuild trust in yourself, not just in him. You need time to figure out who you are outside of survival mode. And you need to make sure that the version of him you’re seeing right now, the vulnerable, open, reflective version, is the version that sticks around six months from now, a year from now, five years from now.
I’m not saying he won’t change. I’m saying change takes time to prove itself. And you deserve to give yourself that time before you decide to fully open your heart again.
Keep checking in with yourself. Does feeling safer mean you’re actually safe, or does it mean you’re hoping you’re safe? Does it mean he’s consistently showing up differently, or does it mean you’re relieved that he’s not exploding right now? Those are different things, and it’s important to know the difference.
I also want you to be very careful about taking on the role of his healer again. You said he’s already starting to navigate the journey I suggested, and that’s great. But make sure he’s doing that work for himself, not because you’re guiding him through it. You’ve already spent years being his therapist. You’ve already been put into intense and traumatic situations to help him become a better person. That shouldn’t continue. He needs to do this work on his own, with support outside of the relationship if necessary.
If he’s reading my articles and finding them useful, that’s a huge step forward in the right direction. But he also needs to be actively doing something with that information. Reading is one thing. Applying it is another. And sustaining it over time is another thing entirely.
Keep learning and reflecting, absolutely. But also give yourself permission to slow down. Don’t rush into “loving him properly again” just because things feel good right now. Let him prove, over time, that this version of him is real. Let yourself heal at your own pace. And most importantly, keep checking in with yourself to make sure you’re staying because you want to, not because you’re relieved that things aren’t as bad as they used to be.
You deserve more than “not as bad.” You deserve a relationship where you feel safe, valued, and loved all the time, not just in the moments after a crisis when he’s being vulnerable. And he deserves to become the kind of person who can give you that, not just for a few weeks or months, but for the rest of your lives together.
I love how you’re approaching all of this and exploring it. I love that you are being honest with yourself about where you are. I wish you much strength and healing through all of this.