Can a trauma bond feel like love?

[bitsyitsy]

Just this really.

I have some confusing feelings for an ex, who I dumped because he was so toxic and behaved in a lot of very abusive ways, but I struggle with feelings of craving him and missing the good times.

This is particularly confusing because I wasn't in love with him during the relationship, and the relationship was partly lovely with him being really attentive and great and partly absolutely awful with him being very emotionally abusive.

I was really happy to be out, and have a lovely new partner now who is a million times better and who I feel "in love with". So why the cravings and difficulty letting go of the crazy ex?

It's been suggested to me I have a trauma bond. Can this feel like love? IE: longing to see the person, looking back on the good times and almost rewriting history?

Yes. It's escapism. It can take a long time to let go of. My advice is don't dwell on the 'good times' - they weren't real. Those times were spent with an actor.

So it doesn't mean you love the person? I've been so confused. When I was with him, I didn't feel in love, and towards the end I was desperate to escape because it was so awful. Now I miss him and feel really confused about what's in my head. I am wondering if I love him and just didn't realise?

No, you more than likely were just grateful that he had temporarily stopped abusing you. Think of it as a dog being kicked over and over and then suddenly getting fed scraps. The scraps feel like some awesome gift of love but they're actually still shit, they're just not as shit as getting kicked in the face.

It might help you to write down the things he did that made you feel terrible. I assume you have no contact with him? Delete every image, every message. Go cold turkey with his memory. Shut it down as soon as it pops up.

No, I have contact with him every day. We work together. I find it hard to remember him doing bad things as he seems so nice now.

The confusing bit is that I never felt strong feelings for him during the relationship. So why now? Six months after ending?

My new partner is lovely and I feel terrible for feeling how I do.

In my experience, the trauma bond is a very intense feeling of attachment and the need to have the abuser in your life.

Rationally, you know that this person caused you a lot of pain and is harmful towards you but you still miss that person when they are not around. It's not love, but you may either think or tell them that you love them because the idea of them abandoning you pains you.

There may also be times when you hate that person, even though you miss them and there is a strong impulse to get in touch with them.

You long for the times when they were kind and respectful towards you, but that side of them was never real.

It's not love.

Going completely no contact and removing all reminders may help you break the trauma bond.

Try writing down all the things they did that was abusive and you will see that they were never worthy of your time and attention to start with.

Best wishes for your recovery and your relationship with your lovely new partner.

Thank you.

This is exactly how it feels:

a very intense feeling of attachment and the need to have the abuser in your life

Rationally, you know that this person caused you a lot of pain and is harmful towards you but you still miss that person when they are not around.

It's not love, but you may either think or tell them that you love them because the idea of them abandoning you pains you.

There may also be times when you hate that person, even though you miss them and there is a strong impulse to get in touch with them

Can anyone help me with how to handle this with my new partner? He is so lovely. Better in every sense than my ex. I have been honest about how I am feeling (he knows all about the previous relationship) but I have really hurt him by saying I am having confusing feelings for my ex.

He now thinks I can't possibly love him, if I am feeling this way about the ex.

Could you look into getting trauma based therapy or counselling at least to discuss your feelings and process them.

If you can, I would refrain from talking too much about it with your current partner. Even though he may be lovely, it isn't healthy or fair on him. Have you tried speaking to a trusted friend about this instead?

There is a lot of pain there and you will have to work through it to heal properly.

Yes, I will try all that. My head has become so screwed I don't know what's real anymore. I know, on paper, he was abusive and horrible but I seem to forget that and just struggle with the idea of him not being in my life. Like rose tinted glasses. I look back and think I was happy.

I have hurt my BF so much I don't think he will forgive me

Counselling and the Freedom Programme.

You're basically hooked on him like a junkie - the highs and lows of the abusive cycle and the intermittent reinforcement are very powerful psychologically.

Maybe it's not the right time for you to be in a relationship and you need to work on yourself instead? Being in a relationship is not the be all and end all, some time on your own might be helpful.

I think you should also apply for other jobs/ look to transfer. It's not healthy to continue contact.

Because your brain can't start processing the trauma until you're out of the abusive situation.

6 months is no time at all to recover from abuse. How long were you single before starting another relationship? What support have you had to process the abuse?

You might not be in a mental space to be in a new relationship yet.

It does sound like trauma bonding rather than love. Counselling to process the old relationship might help.

I had one boyfriend like this though and I don't think it will ever completely go away, but I don't want to be with him or miss him any more. Interestingly the relationship I had after him was much much more abusive and I did not feel that way about him at all. By the time I left him everything was utterly gone and I have never even felt a smidgen of nostalgia for that relationship. I wish I could erase it (even though I wouldn't have DS1!)

But the trauma bond one - he did horrific things on paper but I just remember him being kind and tender. The funny moments, the good moments, the ones where it felt like we were "soulmates".

Am V happy and stable with DH and don't believe in soulmates any more. We are an extremely good fit and if soulmates was a thing, he would probably fit that description fine. Our relationship doesn't feel as ~mystical and special~, it just feels ordinary and safe. But I like and value that enormously.

@SomewhatSalty That sounds terrible :(. Is there anyway you can go no contact with him?

Yep, people describe a trauma bond as being very intense. Please block him on everything if you haven't already, so there's less chance of you ending up getting hoovered back in.

Time does reduce it usually, the more time you have no contact with them the easier it gets, though it can take time.

Thank you. I find it very hard.

These are exactly the emotions that make someone end up going back to an abusive partner.

You might find this FB group helpful www.facebook.com/groups/narcissisticpartners Don't be thrown by them calling the ex 'narcissistic' if you don't see it that way- it's still about abusive guys.

But reading/watching youtubes about narcissists might help you put him in perspective.

Yes it can feel like love but it isn’t.

You are afraid to lose them and as pp have said, it feels like a very strong attachment.
This is why so many people confuse it with love.

Thank you everyone. I have been googling what love is, and it's very confusing as it says "you miss them terribly" or "they make you feel happy" and so on and all those things apply really. I'm unclear what the difference is between love and this force I feel and it's made me so sad.

This is just my opinion but real, healthy love gives you a sense of security. It also can contain elements of common sense i.e. you know you're compatible with your partner in certain ways which make it a realistic prospect. The person makes you feel reassured.

Being 'in love'/fixated on an abuser or person who's toxic for you isn't like that, it gives you no rest and is bad for your mental health and wellbeing. They make you anxious that they might abandon you for instance.

Like, a wife in a healthy relationship might miss her husband if he's away.

A woman in a toxic relationship might pine because the man isn't giving her the care/time that she needs and has her in a dependency/feeling of insecurity or hollowness if she isn't with him.

The difference is subtle but I think a healthy relationship feels more 'normal' and not tainted with pain.

Women in an abusive relationship can describe being addicted to the highs (and sometimes the lows.)

A healthy relationship isn't like that. All relationships/partners can go through rough times, but a partner in a healthy relationship enhances your life relatively consistently.

Could it be that you're not as attracted to your new boyfriend and that's why you're not feeling satisfied, or something like that? When I split with my first love for a while, I had a 'nice' boyfriend I wasn't wildly attracted to.

Sometimes it's maybe just 'unfinished business' and you can lay it to rest by blocking etc as a gesture of cutting ties.

Thank you

My ex, I was not at all attracted to physically or romantically. He was my friend and it turned to more like a FWB thing where he wanted more and I didn't. The sex was quite intense, but mostly drunk with no affection from my side. I was never "into him" during the relationship, but I really enjoyed his company and kindness and felt a kinship with him where we did everything together.

The relationship was intense in the sense we spent 24 / 7 together as he wanted to spend every minute with me and do everything with me and he was in love with me very quickly. I really did see it as FWB as I never felt in love with him or saw us as a couple.

When he was later crazy, it was horrible and I felt really threatened like a rollercoaster where he would be lovely to me and apologise and then switch to doing some awful, abusive crap. It happened gradually from giving me hassle over being online and who was I talking to, and over time escalated to crazy outburts and going through my computer.

I was relived to get away, and for ages afterwards I was scared every time I heard a car pass by in case it was him, drunk, come to kick off.
Until months later when I started feeling a sense of missing the friendship we had as it was so close and I felt so understood and accepted. After that I found it hart to remember the bad stuff, and when he seemed to no longer want me I started feeling as I do.

My new BF, I was insanely attracted to, he is much more my type. He is smarter, more successful and I have butterflies and romantic infatuation. I felt myself "falling in love" and wanted a relationship with a future with him. We get along brilliantly, the sex is amazing, we share interests. It's just a bloody brilliant relationship and I am very much in love with him.

This is why me longing for the other douchebag and at times acting on it by contacting him is making me feel so bad inside. I have no idea why I would feel such intense longing for him when (a) I didn't want him when I had him (b) the relationship TO ME felt platonic (c) he was really abusive towards the end (d) I am crazy about my new boyfriend

OP it could be survivor's guilt.
You rightly left him behind. But it's not a tragedy. It's good you've met someone that makes you happy.
Look forward not back 🙂

I think you need to stop and question what you're doing here actually.

A virtual cold shower for you - What bloody difference does it make even if it was love? (It isn't).

It wouldn't mean you should be with him.

It wouldn't mean it's a healthy relationship you should return to.

Loving him isn't magic and doesn't change anything. And doesn't change him. It's just a waste of energy.

Love is just a type of bond and emotion, and it's not rare or special.
Most people experience it several times in their lives.

And when it doesn't work out, you take some time and you get over it.

Stop this mooning over what you can label what you're feeling, and start actively doing things to break the hold he has.

Change jobs.
Stop contact.
Do the freedom programme.
Work on rebuilding yourself.

@bitsyitsy Don't get fixated on working out whether it was love or not by googling as most of the time, it will tell you that love is a feeling.

True love is so much more than that. A healthy kind of love feels safe and is not full of drama. Being attracted to someone is not the same as love.

I was in a very similar position many, many years ago with a "friend" from work, but in the end I figured that everything was manufactured to gain my trust and make me easier to manipulate and abuse.

The only thing that worked was when he was sacked resigned and I threw his number away, deleted his emails, refused to make eye contact when our paths crossed and eventually resigning myself so that there was no risk of bumping into him on my way to work.

I had recurrent nightmares years later and a lot of guilt and shame, which I went to get counselling for.

Please get professional support ASAP to work on yourself.

I agree that you being in the same setting is not helping you move on. Finding a new job is easier said than done of course, but it would be ideal if you could work somewhere else. Plus counselling. Blocking things doesn't help. You need to address the underlying causes.