Love After Divorce: Understanding Trauma's Role In Romantic Relationships, Expert Shares Guidance

Did you know past trauma during divorce affects your future romantic relationships gravely? Here is detailed guidance on the impact of divorce and past trauma on your love life.

Divorces are not an easy path to navigate, the trauma while you are in marriage (Image courtesy: Freepik)

Romantic relationships can be deeply affected by past psychological, and emotional trauma and it also impacts all future relationships. Unresolved issues from past relationships which turn into divorce can seep into current partnerships and any potential relationships, causing distress and complications. Addressing past psychological and emotional trauma is essential for the health of your romantic relationships.

Rebuilding trust, learning to manage triggers, and fostering self-esteem are crucial steps towards healthy prospective relationships. Dr Preeti Singh, Sr. Consultant Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Chief Medical Officer at LISSUN says, "First let us understand that we are observing fairly high numbers of divorces globally and in India, especially in the age range of 30 to 60yrs, a common theme that emerges as a strong factor is people don't want to continue in relationships which are emotionally and physically abusive period, where they have felt violated, added to that could be poor physical intimacy, inadequate communication, difficulty in moderating emotions to name a few."

"But divorces are not an easy path to navigate, the trauma while you are in marriage, challenges of divorce proceedings and emotional and physical exhaustion, leave people with fairly less bandwidth even after the divorce is granted. People are more insecure, have more fears of not landing in similar relationships like their marriage, super cautious, rightly so but this hypervigilance can make you too sceptical sometimes by signing in for the wrong person or maybe pushing away the right ones," highlights Dr Preeti.

Dr Preeti goes on to share a case study about how a bad marriage or divorce can impact a person's idea of finding love again. She dictates, "I had this one client in her early 30s who saw me after her first marriage was over, which was due to physical abuse and left her very traumatised later she found someone, however, she was noticing signs of microaggression in the person, and she was finding it hard to ignore it and was significantly distressed about the same and wanted to call it off. The person she was dating was undergoing divorce proceedings which were a highly strung situation they would not be able to resolve their conflict situations amicably, mostly because of their past trauma experiences which would make them very petrified and anxious, the pain would reflect through anger and passive aggression, fortunately after few trauma-informed individual psychotherapy sessions, the couple was ready for the couple session, where in it helped to see how the trauma responses were not allowing them to be seen as the person they actually were, and the anger and the self-doubts were not letting the relationship flourish."

"So yes there is a lot of hope and one can find the right person but make sure you get to understand how the trauma has impacted you and changed you so that you heal and flourish as an individual and can have a nurturing relationship," Dr Prachi concludes.