7/20 - 5 Ways Childhood Trauma Shows Up in Adult Relationships and How to Address It
How Childhood Trauma Shows Up in Adult Relationships
and How to Address It
Connecting the Past to the Present
Have you ever found yourself reacting strongly to something your partner says or does—and afterward, you wonder, “Where did that come from?” Maybe it was a tone of voice, a forgotten chore, or a moment of emotional distance that triggered a reaction that felt bigger than the situation itself. If so, you're not alone—and you might be brushing up against something deeper than just the present moment.
Many of us carry invisible wounds from childhood - traumas - that quietly shape and impact the way we engage and relate in adult relationships. This is especially true when those early years were marked by trauma—whether big, obvious events like abuse or neglect, or more subtle wounds like emotional invalidation, inconsistent parenting, or being forced to grow up too fast. For many of us, these emotional wounds were fairly inconsequential, or so we thought, but they still have a lasting impact on our adult relationships.
In the world of therapy, when we work on and address issues from childhood, it is called family of origin work—looking back at the environment in which you were raised to understand how it influences your beliefs, behaviors, and patterns today. And when we take a closer look, we often discover that childhood trauma doesn’t stay in childhood. It shows up when least expected, in our adult relationships.
What Is Childhood Trauma, Really?
Childhood trauma isn’t just about what happened; it’s also about what didn’t happen. It includes:
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Neglect or emotional abandonment - this doesn't have to be Child Protective Services level of neglect or abandonment. This could be the daily, subtle dismissing of a child's needs, in favor of the parent's own needs or wants. It could mean somehow depriving the child of some necessary attention, because you had to bring work home every night and therefore don't have time for your children or family. It could be dismissing your children's fears or downplaying their excitement.
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Being parentified (having to act like the adult in the home) - This happens a lot for first born children. As the parents continue to have more children, they often have to work harder or longer hours, to make enough money to support the family. And when they do this, they rely on the older children to "help" care for the younger ones. However, this robs the older child of their own ability to have a healthy childhood and forces them to have to make decisions and take responsibility for things they should not have to.
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Unpredictable or unsafe environments - For some children, their homelife is unstable due to their parent's work schedule or their socio-economic status. Maybe the parents can't afford childcare, so they leave their children with whomever they can find. Or maybe they can't afford to live in a nicer neighborhood, so the children stay home alone and hear gunshots and sirens outside. Or it could even just be a parent who suffers from mild depression or ADHD.
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Witnessing abuse or addiction - For some children, they have seen and/or heard domestic violence in the home and are left to guess what kind of mood their parent will be in or whether or not they are going to take out their anger on them next or if they're going to have to break up a fight or call 911. Or maybe their parents have drug or alcohol problems, leaving them either too high or too drowsy to appropriately care for them or to provide safety.
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Being constantly criticized or shamed - This is a trauma that is often overlooked as such. Perhaps the child has a Type A, perfectionist parent or parents. Maybe they always feel like they are trying to meet impossible standards or being compared to another sibling.
These early experiences shape our core beliefs about ourselves and the world. We internalize messages like “I’m not safe,” “I don’t matter,” or “Love always comes with pain.” Over time, those beliefs become the lens through which we view intimacy, conflict, and connection. These experiences become what we know and how we relate to the world, because we've never seen something different.
Common Ways Childhood Trauma Manifests in Adult Relationships
Here are just a few patterns that might trace back to unresolved childhood pain:
1. Fear of Abandonment
If love felt unpredictable or conditional growing up, you may find yourself clinging tightly to your partner or panicking when there's emotional distance. You might interpret silence or disagreement as rejection, even when that’s not the case. This also often includes attachment issues.
2. Difficulty Trusting Others
If caregivers were emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, or untrustworthy, it’s natural to carry skepticism into adult relationships. You might keep your guard up, fearing betrayal or disappointment even with safe people. You may find it difficult to trust or be vulnerable with your partner, causing relationship difficulties.
3. Overreacting to Conflict
In childhood, if conflict meant danger—yelling, silent treatment, or even violence—your nervous system might become dysregulated during adult arguments. What feels like a “normal” disagreement to one partner might feel like emotional survival to the other. Or you may not know how to have a "normal" disagreement and conversation about conflict because the only way you've ever seen conflict being managed is through yelling or violence. Or maybe, if your childhood involved the silent treatment, you've learned to do what you can to avoid conflict, instead of addressing it. All of these reactions are over-reactions, based on your child hood experiences.
4. People-Pleasing or Avoiding Your Needs
Some children learn to earn love by being helpful, invisible, or always agreeable. As adults, this can look like people-pleasing, fear of setting boundaries, or feeling guilty for having needs. These same adult are often found apologizing when they feel like they haven't met their partner's needs or wishes. They become fearful when they feel like they've let someone down. And forget about boundaries. If they try to set boundaries, they are fearful of what "might" happen or that it will cause a bigger problem they will have to fix or that their partner may get angry with them. This turns into a pattern of just "going along to get along", but ignores your needs. And if you ignore your needs too long, then resentment and anger often build, causing damage to the relationship.
5. Repeating Familiar Roles
You may find yourself unconsciously playing the same role in your adult relationships that you played in your family of origin—like the fixer, the peacekeeper, or the scapegoat. These roles can be hard to break free from without deeper reflection. When you've played the same role all your life, it's hard to break free. It becomes habit...a deeply engrained response to what is going on around you. But all it does is perpetuate the problems, instead of dealing with them. It make take work with a skill therapist to help break these negative patterns.
Why This Matters
Recognizing how your past is shaping your present doesn’t mean blaming your parents or living in the past. In fact, I never encourage clients to "blame" anyone else. We can identify where or how our reactions began, but it does nothing to solve the current problems.
But recognizing how your past is shaping your present does mean taking responsibility for your own healing. It’s about creating space to say, “This happened to me, and it impacted me—but it doesn’t have to define me.” It is about putting in the hard work to change how you interact with yourself and with those around you.
When we can acknowledge and name the wounds from our childhood, we gain the power to stop acting them out in our adult lives. We begin to respond rather than react. We can communicate our needs, set boundaries, and seek intimacy without fear of rejection or engulfment. I've found that this takes hard work and dedication. Most people have to reach some sort of rock bottom, to be ready to confront their childhood traumas. But once you begin to flip the script, you'll notice yourself feeling a lot better, a lot more free, and more comfortable in your own skin. And by doing this, the important people in your life will also have to learn how to behave differently, because they can no longer interact with you in the same way, if you don't respond in the same way. And there may even be some anger when you begin changing the interactions. But all of those things are healthy steps toward change.
Healing Is Possible
Family of origin work is about honoring your story, your past, and understanding its impact. Working with a therapist can help you identify these patterns, process the emotions behind them, and build healthier ways of relating. Many times simply gaining an understanding of what happened in your past and releasing yourself from any guilt and shame, goes a long way in healing from those past wounds. And developing new habits for interacting with others and for setting and maintaining boundaries for yourself are crucial.
You’re not broken—you’re responding in the way your nervous system learned to protect you. But with intention, support, and grace, you can build new relational habits rooted in trust, safety, and connection.
If you do choose to pursue professional counseling to help, it's a good idea to begin thinking about or journaling some of what you're noticing now, so as to be able to convey that to your therapist. This will help them help you navigate through and past these feelings.
Questions for Reflection or Journaling:
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What patterns in your relationships feel familiar from childhood?
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When do you feel most reactive or emotionally “flooded”?
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What were the unspoken rules in your family growing up?
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What beliefs about love, trust, or safety might you be carrying from your childhood?
Final Thoughts
Understanding how childhood trauma shows up in adult relationships is a powerful step toward healing—not just for yourself, but for your current and future relationships. As we learn to connect the dots between past and present, we begin to move from survival to secure connection. Once you're able to make this shift, you will notice a profound change in how you feel, usually more at peace and comfortable with yourself. Less anxious.
If you're navigating this journey, know that you're not alone—and healing is possible.
If you'd like to see any of my previous blog posts, please click here.
If you're interested in couples or individual counseling, please visit my website and schedule a free 15 minute consultation - www.brittaniedmillslmft.com.
I provide online individual and couples counseling throughout California, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida.
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