Love is a beautiful thing.
It is not perfect, and it is definitely not always a picnic in paradise, but one thing is certain: love is beautiful.
Love shouldn’t feel like a battlefield.
Yet, here you are– caught in a cycle of “almost” happiness and crushing disappointment, never knowing which one to expect next.
You tell yourself it is passion and that all great love stories have some drama in them.
Well, I am here to tell you what some minor parts of yourself must have realized already.
That thing you call love may not be love.
What if you are trauma-bonded?
What if that feeling you have is just an addictive emotional attachment formed through cycles of abuse, intermittent reinforcement, and manipulation?
You may just be addicted to the pain, the chaos of your relationship, and those occasional moments of relief that give you hope for the future.
That’s not love.
It may feel like it, but love is more than just a feeling you have.
Here’s how to know when what you think is love is actually trauma-bonding.
You Think You Love Him, But You’re Trauma-Bonded: 5 Important Signs
1. You are addicted to drama
One day, I came across a post that shocked me on social media.
That day, I realized that many people haven’t experienced love in this generation because the things they call love just seem so weird.
So, she mentioned that her boyfriend broke up with her, and some months later, she met a new guy who was just so good to her.
He was quiet, soft-spoken, and even when he was angry, he didn’t yell or do violent stuff.
She couldn’t relate and sometimes, she would do terrible things to him just to get a rise out of him but it never happened.
Now, she said she was thinking about ending the relationship because she felt that he wasn’t behaving the way a guy was supposed to behave.
I felt sorry for her.
She had experienced toxicity for so long that it now feels like love to her.
The absence of toxicity feels like the relationship lacks passion.
Passion is not drama.
I want you to get this straight because it is very important.
Real love is steady and safe.
It is not a rollercoaster of emotions; at least, not all the time.
This can happen sometimes, but if it happens all the time, there is a problem.
A trauma bond, on the other hand, feels like an emotional thrill ride—extreme highs followed by devastating lows.
So, if you notice that your relationship with him is characterized by the “I can’t leave without you” speeches after frequent, intense, and sometimes violent fights, you are not in love with him.
You are just trauma-bonding.
You always have explosive fights that end in desperate make-ups, and you think it is romantic.
No, it is not.
It is actually toxic.
A major sign that you are trauma-bonding is that you are always exhausted when you are with him.
Love doesn’t leave you exhausted all the time.
Stressful relationships do that.
2. You rationalize the pain
Pain is an occasional visitor in romantic relationships.
Believing that you can have a pain-free relationship is no different from believing in the existence of an actual “Fountain of Youth“.
However, this doesn’t mean that pain should be a constant part of your relationship.
If this is the case, there is something wrong somewhere.
A sign that you are trauma-bonding with him is that he always hurts you, and you always rationalize the hurt.
You say things like, “He is just stressed”, “he doesn’t mean it”, and “If I could love him harder, he will change”.
Newsflash!
You are the one who needs to change.
You need to change how you perceive love.
Stop viewing love through trauma-tinted lenses.
Trauma bonds thrive on justification.
You have become such an expert at making excuses for him because facing the truth that he hurts you would mean you have to leave the relationship.
And leaving feels impossible.
You need to decide on what you truly deserve.
Look into the future and ask yourself if you want to continue receiving the treatment he gives you.
If your answer is “no”, you have to stop justifying his toxic actions immediately.
3. You are uneasy when things are calm
I have never understood how people can feel uneasy when things are calm.
Personally, I love a calm relationship.
No unnecessary drama.
It helps me focus on the relationship and also on developing myself.
I believe that people in normal relationships are the same way.
If you discover that you are uneasy when things are calm in your relationship, there is something wrong.
It’s not just normal.
No one waits for unnecessary drama and controversy to break the peace of their relationship, except when they are in a toxic relationship.
A sign that what you think is actually trauma-bonding is the fact that every time things are going fine, you are uneasy.
You keep on waiting for the other shoe to drop.
You really think that people can’t have peaceful relationships.
And when the other shoe drops, there is this weird sense of relief…
“Ahhh! There it is!”
It is weird for you to always be on edge in your relationship.
True love doesn’t seek to put you on edge.
It puts you at ease.
It is only a toxic relationship that conditions a person to crave turbulence in their relationships because peace feels unfamiliar.
One time, a guy said that he always intentionally picks fights with his girlfriend to make things interesting.
According to him, girls love that kind of behavior.
Well, I told him that he was toxic and that if his girlfriend was cool with it, she must have had so many toxic relationships in her past that his toxicity felt so normal to her.
He didn’t like what I had to say, and that was the last time he ever spoke to me.
4. You isolate yourself for him
A few years back, some females complained about Disney movies like “Beauty and the Beast”.
They said it was advocating for toxic relationships, and while I believe that it was just a fairy tale, I see a lot of what happened between Beauty and the Beast as trauma-bonding.
So, he takes her prisoner at first, and after she “falls in love” with him, he releases her to go home.
Then she comes back and finds him close to death.
You know how it ends.
The part that stands out to me is the isolation.
When a guy tries to isolate you in a relationship, it has never been a great sign.
But it gets even worse because, in trauma-bonding, you isolate yourself from your friends and family for him.
If your friends say he is toxic, you stop telling them the truth about your relationship.
You feel the need to lie to them just to make him look good, and because of this, you start isolating yourself from them.
Your family warns you about him, but you pull away from them because they don’t know him like you do.
When you realize that you are the only one who sees the good in that man, maybe you need to check yourself critically.
You may just be seeing only what you want to see.
You lie to protect his image because exposing him would mean admitting that you are stuck in an unhealthy relationship.
And God forbid anyone knows you are in a toxic relationship.
So, you remain there, stuck in that unhealthy relationship.
A trauma bond keeps you stuck in a relationship by isolating you.
5. You think no one else will get you
“He is the only one who understands the darkness in me.”
“No one else will put up with me like he does.”
Sounds familiar?
This is trauma bond talking.
What darkness is within you that only he understands?
Why would you even think you are so bad that no one else would put up with you?
That mentality is a problem.
It is a sign that you have been subjected to a toxic relationship.
A trauma bond convinces you that your dysfunctional relationship is something special.
“Ooh, he slaps me around, but we settle conflicts quickly.”
You want to think you have something unique going on.
Well, you don’t.
There are several other people in toxic relationships like yours.
Real love would never make you feel unworthy of kindness or tenderness.
Realizing that what you have always called love was just trauma-bonding is the first step towards having a great love life.
To break from this addictive cycle of emotional attachment in a traumatic relationship, you need to ask yourself a question and answer truthfully.
“What would I say if my friend told me they were being treated this way?”
You would tell them to run.
So, why are you not running?
Why are you still walking on eggshells in that relationship?
Trauma bonds fade only when you realize that you have been experiencing a twisted version of love and you decide that you deserve the actual thing.
After that, you take a run from that traumatic relationship, and one day, you will experience a love that feels like peace, not war.
It will feel strange at first, but you will realize that this is what love was supposed to be all along.
That day, you will be thankful you came across this article.
Until then, make this your mantra: I deserve peaceful love.
Tell yourself like you mean it because it is the truth.