The Truth About Spouses With Childhood Trauma

Are you constantly hurt by a spouse who struggles to prioritize you?
Do they avoid setting boundaries with their parents—even when it damages your marriage?

If your partner was raised in a toxic or emotionally immature home, their nervous system may have been wired for survival—not connection. That early programming can lead to deep-rooted abandonment wounds, emotional shutdown, and a fear of conflict that puts your relationship at risk.

Transcript

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

So you believe that you have attracted someone who comes from a toxic home.

You believe,

And maybe even your partner believes,

That they have come from a dysfunctional home.

So let's start off with understanding what is a dysfunctional home.

A dysfunctional home that is void of what a child needs on a consistent basis to grow a healthy sense of self.

So what does a child need?

A child needs to feel seen,

Not just,

Hey,

Johnny,

Good job,

You can tie your shoes.

A child needs to feel seen from the inside out,

The eyes with the windows to the soul.

So when a child looks into mommy's eyes,

That child should not see a blank stare,

Cold eyes,

Or disinterest.

A child should connect with a sense that the person staring back at me really sees my soul.

And a child can feel that because children are naturally connected to the emotional side of life or their emotional body.

They're not all up in their mental body,

They're tied up in their emotional body.

And they guide life with their emotional body.

So a child needs to feel seen like his or her emotions matter.

And this has to be consistent.

It can't be that mommy is available on Monday and then she goes out drinking with her friends after work on Friday,

Doesn't return to Saturday.

And then she's face planted on the couch all weekend and cannot attune to the needs of her children.

Sorry,

That doesn't count.

If anything,

That inconsistency will hurt a child more than anything.

A child needs to feel safe.

Not just mommy locks the doors at the end of the day,

Or daddy puts out the fire,

The grease fire on the stove.

A child needs to feel safe emotionally.

Safe to cry.

Safe to jump around and be a kid,

Color outside the lines.

Safe to say,

I'm angry.

And parents don't take it personally.

Safe emotionally,

Safe spiritually,

Safe physically,

Like boundaries will be honored.

So if Mary doesn't want you going,

Reading her journal,

Then mommy honors that.

So Mary feels psychologically safe,

Emotionally safe.

Children need that.

They need consistency.

They need to be soothed.

So parents need to be attuned to when their child is upset and soothe them.

These are necessary components in a home,

And if you didn't get those things,

If you don't feel safe,

You don't feel seen,

You don't feel soothed,

If you don't feel protected,

If it isn't consistent,

Then you grew up feeling afraid.

And you have to,

There's a sacrifice there.

And what you abandon is the self.

And then what happens is the brain,

Because it doesn't feel safe,

It doesn't feel seen,

It doesn't feel like itself can relax,

Then it becomes hypervigilant.

A survival mechanism kicks in.

Hold on,

I'm getting to why you clicked here in the first place.

And so if we think about what is a dysfunctional family,

Then we recognize that a child from a dysfunctional family is going to end up living their life,

Albeit unconsciously.

That's why I always train my clients in the subconscious realm,

And we map out the brain.

It's a total brain relearning method,

Because speaking about what went wrong doesn't heal you.

What's wrong is neurological.

It's at the subconscious level.

And so when we do this work from that level,

Then we can create shifts,

But it has to be done over time.

But albeit unconsciously,

A child from that type of a home will live in trauma,

Will be operating from a trauma response.

Their Bluetooth signal is always on the lookout for the next potential threat.

We want to understand that patterns rule in the animal kingdom,

In the human kingdom.

We are all animals,

By the way.

Patterns rule.

And so even though I might have a den,

And I might feel safe in my den,

I as a mama bear,

I'm scouring the environment,

Listening for the sounds of a potential predator.

Something that might hurt me or my cubs,

If they hurt me,

I can't feed my cubs.

I can't protect my cubs.

So I have to stay on alert.

Same thing happens to you when you come from a dysfunctional home.

You stay alert.

You function pretty well on high alert.

Adult children of alcoholics,

Adult children from emotionally neglectful homes,

Adult children with narcissistic parents,

We are great under pressure.

We make incredible ER nurses and ER doctors.

We make great firemen,

Fire people.

We make great first responders.

We make great police people.

We're great.

We can put out fires like it's nobody's business.

In fact,

We operate at our best under that type of stress.

Okay?

That's a benefit of growing up in a home that is unhealthy.

But the thing is that you will have a body that's full of cortisol.

You could become an adrenaline junkie.

And then when peace arrives,

You start to feel bored.

You will overeat.

You might even cause a problem,

Pick a fight with somebody or find someone else's fire to put out just to feel normal.

That's not your fault.

So you've attracted a dysfunctional person into your life and your major complaint might be he doesn't listen to me or she doesn't listen to me.

Like,

I feel like they love me and they care about me,

But the minute mommy dearest or daddy dearest calls or the sister or the brother or a cousin or an uncle gets involved between me and my husband or me and my wife,

That's when I feel like he or she just pushes me to the side and they choose the family.

You want to understand what's going on there.

This is a real thing.

It's happening all the time.

And what we want to understand is those of us who marry people who have this type of trauma in their background,

Especially if they had mothers and fathers who abandoned them and then were so overemotional and guilted them and terrified them,

Made them afraid of going against them,

Dear one,

This is going to be a part of your marriage until you figure it out,

Your spouse figures it out,

And someone does something to stop the cycle.

When you marry somebody who has this type of trauma,

When presented with the choice to pick you,

Who they feel they don't have this trauma with,

Who they feel on an unconscious level pretty secure with,

Like,

Where are you going,

Right?

Even if they don't say it,

It's like,

Where are you going,

Right?

I'm such a good partner.

I don't aggravate you,

Like,

Where are you going?

There's this full sense of security in the adult child with trauma when it comes to their spouse when they have this unconscious issue and continually over time,

They choose the family,

The dysfunctional family over the spouse that is super supportive,

Super caring,

And super understanding.

The danger that the adult child runs in this situation is that that's exhausting,

And there's just so long someone who's married to somebody who does this and does not break through this,

Who is codependent on their family,

Albeit subconsciously,

And they work this trauma out or they reiterate this trauma with their family of origin,

Albeit subconsciously,

There is a spectator that is paying the price for that,

The spouse who loves them,

The spouse who can put them first,

The spouse who is considerate.

So there is a consequence,

Like that spouse may get tired of you not breaking through.

I hear it often that the spouse that is married to the adult child is so frustrated,

Like,

Simple,

Simple things become really big things unnecessarily.

So for instance,

You have the spouse who says,

The healthier spouse says to the codependent spouse,

You know,

Your cousin invited us over for that block party,

But remember we have an engagement and we're not going to be able to make that block party.

The codependent spouse freezes because that means that they have to tell their sister or their mother who they have this traumatic situation with,

Or this unhealed wound with,

This abandonment issue,

This attachment issue with,

That they can't make it to that block party.

The codependent is already thinking,

Oh no,

What's my mother going to think?

And how can I appease both parties?

Because the codependent struggles with selfhood,

The codependent struggles with boundaries,

And below the veil of consciousness,

The codependent will be triggered by the fear of upsetting the dysfunctional family of origin.

They will struggle with telling mommy,

No.

They will struggle with telling their sister,

No.

Telling their brother,

No.

Telling uncle Jack,

No.

Telling uncle Marvin,

No,

Whatever.

They will struggle with setting the boundary and being able to stand in that place and honor the union that they have with their healthier spouse.

They're really going to struggle.

And so if you're married to someone like this,

It does help you understand that it's not you.

That being married to a codependent person,

It comes with certain challenges.

The codependent is very worried about what other people think.

The codependent does not have a full autonomy.

The codependent may even struggle to say no to you,

Except when in a fight response.

And they're just so terrified of what mommy might say,

Or what the aunt might say,

Or what their father might say,

That they freeze in that situation.

And then with you,

They fight because they're stuck in the trauma response.

It helps you as the healthier spouse and partner to recognize,

Wow,

This is a pattern,

Right?

I'm pushed to the side.

That might be why.

That might be what my partner is struggling with.

So now it's up to you then to understand what's happening,

And you could support your spouse through it and help them realize that they're in this trauma response,

That they're recycling their trauma,

That it's unnecessary,

And that they have to individuate.

Even the Bible talks about the man leaving home,

His mother's home.

And so you have to individuate.

Every child has to pull away and become their own autonomous person.

And we all have to learn to figure out where we are,

What we want,

What our values are,

What's important to us,

Who are the most important people to us.

And certainly when you get married,

There has to be some pecking order here.

Like you're a spouse and you become a we.

I've always told my children,

We now have six children together,

Anthony and I,

And I always tell them that when you become married,

You better hope that you're operating from a we,

Because if there's a me in this marriage,

A house divided cannot stand alone.

That doesn't mean you lose your autonomy,

But it just means that you recognize that moving into this very sacred union of we,

You too have to be at the top of that totem pole when you start making choices.

The adult child who is struggling with making these choices is pulling mommy up into the position where his wife should be.

Ain't gonna work.

And especially in this day and age,

Because young women,

They're very different.

They expect to be treated as a partner.

You know,

Back in the day,

Women of my generation,

Generations before,

Like we weren't so clear-minded about this.

The younger generation is seeing it.

And same thing,

Same thing with,

With a woman.

So if you're going to pull your daddy into the place where your husband's supposed to be,

He's going to have an issue with that.

And so it's so important that we understand what's going on first.

You can't fix a problem that you can't see.

I always say you can't fix a hole in the wall that you can't see.

And we're looking for answers to problems we haven't yet identified.

And that's why on my platforms,

I talk a lot about,

Well,

This is the problem,

Dear one.

Like everyone wants to give you a solution without really identifying the core problem.

So when we get clear about what the problem is,

It's like,

Okay,

So I can,

I can address it from many,

Many different angles.

I as the healthier partner can help my partner understand,

I think this might be going on.

And from that dynamic,

I understand why you shut down when your mother challenges a decision that you and I have made.

And I want you to look at it.

I said this to my ex,

It didn't work.

All he did was dig his heels,

Heels in deeper and tell me that I was crazy.

He accused me of trying to,

Um,

How do we put it?

Oh,

You just don't want me to have anything to do with my family.

I was just like,

Wow,

That's what he's perceiving here.

That's not what,

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is we're a family and then your family's over here.

We have to do what's best for our family.

I want to make sure we were on the same page.

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Thank you Lisa🙏😍