Is Your Relationship Falling Apart? The Unseen Role of Complex Trauma
For many with complex trauma (C-PTSD), relationships are a minefield of hope and fear. You start with a spark of connection, a belief that this time will be different. But before long, that hope can curdle into a familiar dread. You find yourself asking, "Is this relationship healthy? Is it just going through a rough patch, or is it fundamentally broken?"
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. The patterns of complex trauma have a way of replaying themselves in our most intimate connections. The answer to whether a relationship is falling apart often lies not in a single, dramatic event, but in a slow, insidious process that happens internally, often outside of our full awareness.
According to relationship expert Dr. John Gottman, after decades of research, the core issue is surprisingly simple, yet profoundly difficult to address. It all revolves around one internal shift: the closing of the heart.
This is the definitive sign a relationship is in critical danger. But what does it mean to "close your heart," and why is it the default setting for so many with complex PTSD?
The Baggage We Carry: Why We Close Our Hearts
When two people with unhealed complex trauma come together, they bring more than just their individual histories. They bring three sets of baggage:
1. Your Baggage: Your wounds, triggers, and unhealed patterns from the past.
2. Their Baggage: Your partner's own history of hurt and survival strategies.
3. The Relationship Baggage: The new hurts and misunderstandings you create together.
Every day, someone's baggage gets bumped. A trigger is pulled, a wound is reopened, and a conflict erupts. The relationship becomes a constant project of managing pain, hurt, and frustration. The joy and fun are suffocated under the weight of this emotional labor.
"So after a while," as Tim Fletcher explains, "a person [goes], 'This is just... I need some fun in my relationship... This is just all work. I'm done.' And they close their heart."
For the complex trauma brain, closing the heart isn't a choice, it's a survival imperative. It was the primary tool you developed in childhood when there was no way to resolve hurt, no one willing to change, and no one to help you. Today, when you feel threatened, your brain’s default setting is to slam your heart shut. It feels normal, even necessary.
Other reasons for a closed heart include:
An Unwilling Partner: If your partner is narcissistic, gaslights you, or refuses to change, closing your heart can feel like the only way to survive within the relationship.
A Lack of Tools: Without healthy conflict-resolution skills, closing your heart feels like the only available protection from being hurt again.
A Distorted Boundary: For many with complex trauma, who were never allowed to say "no," the only way to enforce a boundary feels like total emotional shutdown—"I must not care about you."
Unmet Needs: When your fundamental needs are consistently ignored, despite your pleas, the heartbreak becomes so constant that closing your heart is the only way to endure the pain.
A Loss of Trust and Respect: The moment trust or respect evaporates, the relationship no longer feels safe. The heart closes in self-defense.
The External Signs: How a Closed Heart Shows Up
A closed heart doesn't stay hidden. It leaks out in ways that poison the relationship. Dr. Gottman's research identifies several key indicators, which act as a cascade of relational breakdown.
1. The Harsh Startup
How do you begin a difficult conversation? Do you start softly? "Honey, when this happened, I felt hurt." Or do you lead with artillery?
A harsh startup is immediately accusatory, critical, sarcastic, or dripping with disrespect. It’s beginning a conversation with guns blazing. Gottman's research found that 96% of the time, you can predict the outcome of a conversation based on the first three minutes. A harsh startup almost guarantees a negative outcome, setting up an immediate roadblock to connection.
2. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
This is Gottman's famous metaphor for the four most lethal communication patterns. They are external proof that an internal closing is underway.
Criticism vs. Complaint: A complaint is healthy: "When you left the dishes out after I asked you to put them away, I felt frustrated. I need us to share this chore." It's specific, focuses on behavior, and seeks a solution. Criticism is global and punitive: "You're so lazy! You never do anything right!" The goal is not to resolve, but to hurt and punish.
Contempt: This is criticism's venomous older sibling. It is the ultimate expression of disrespect—sneering, sarcasm, eye-rolling, mockery. It says, "I am superior to you, and I am disgusted by you." Contempt is fueled by a sense of moral superiority and is the single biggest predictor of relationship failure. Where there is contempt, the heart is not just closed, it has turned to stone.
Defensiveness: When a concern is raised, the response is immediate deflection. "It's not me, it's you!" They blame you, make excuses, and refuse to look at their own role. Defensiveness is a wall that blocks any path to resolution.
Stonewalling: This is the final retreat. One partner, feeling overwhelmed, simply checks out. They shut down, turn away, and act as if you aren't even there. Stonewalling is the sound of the heart's door not just being closed, but dead-bolted. At this stage, the relationship is in critical condition.
3. Emotional Flooding
What happens in your body during conflict? For many with complex trauma, it’s not just anger, it’s a tidal wave. This is flooding—being overwhelmed by intense, often traumatic, emotions.
Your body releases cortisol, your ability to think rationally vanishes, and you are thrown into a fight, flight, or freeze response. You might lash out in a blind rage or flee the scene entirely. Afterward, the fear of triggering this flood again makes you avoid conflict at all costs, leaving issues to fester and the emotional distance to grow.
4. Emotional Distancing and Failed Repair
This is where the internal closing becomes a way of life. You live together but lead parallel lives. Conversations are logistical—who picks up the kids—but never emotional or vulnerable. You feel profoundly lonely inside your own relationship.
Failed repair attempts are the final nail in the coffin. In a healthy relationship, someone might say, "Let's take a time-out, I'm getting too angry," and it works. In a dying relationship, these attempts are ignored or rejected. The willingness to calm down and reconnect is gone, because the desire to reconnect is gone.
The Point of No Return? When the Story Rewrites Itself
When a heart has been closed for a long time, something profound shifts in your memory. You begin to only recall the bad times. You might even rewrite previously good memories, searching for evidence to justify your negative feelings.
This is a sign that the heart is not only closed but is now looking for a way out. It is building a case for leaving, ensuring that nothing—not even a happy memory—can challenge its fortified position.
It's crucial to understand that affairs at this stage are often a symptom, not the cause. The affair happens because the relationship has been broken for years—characterized by loneliness, a lack of connection, and two closed hearts. The real disease is the breakdown that happened long before.
So, What Is the Solution? Do You Just "Open Your Heart"?
The answer is not a simplistic command to "just open your heart." That is neither safe nor wise if the environment is toxic.
The solution is a two-part process, requiring immense courage and honesty.
First, you must look honestly at your relationship and ask:
Are both of us willing to own our baggage and do the hard work to get healthy?
Are both of us committed to becoming safe, trustworthy partners?
Are both of us willing to reopen our hearts?
If the answer is yes from both sides, then there is hope. With the right tools, therapy, and a commitment to healing your individual complex trauma symptoms, you can learn to soften your startup, replace the Four Horsemen with respectful communication, and manage emotional flooding.
However, if your partner is unwilling to change, unwilling to open their heart, and continues to be a source of harm, then the solution is not to magically force your heart open. That will only lead to more pain.
The solution, in this case, is to turn your focus inward, to heal the codependency and people-pleasing that make you fear abandonment more than you value your own safety. The solution is to set a firm boundary, which may ultimately mean leaving.
This is the painful truth that our complex trauma brain often resists. We would rather stay in a painful but familiar prison than face the uncertainty of freedom. But your healing, your safety, and your future ability to have a truly connected, healthy relationship depend on your courage to make that choice.
Your relationship may be showing you the signs. The question is, are you willing to see them not as a sentence, but as a roadmap to your own healing?
Your Journey of Healing Continues
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