World Class Hugs

By Rachel Puryear

Ideally, we would all only fall in love with people who love us back, and who want to treat us well.

Unfortunately, that’s so often not the case – people fall in love all the time with people who don’t care about them, who abuse and mistreat them in all kinds of ways, and have no qualms about a one-sided relationship in their own favor.

We’ve all seen someone else try hard to make a bad relationship work, and how hard they fight even though they’re really miserable and drained. Maybe we’ve even been that person ourselves at some point – and it’s the kind of thing where if you know what it’s like being that person, then you know.

Why do people sometimes fall for someone who’s terrible for them – even making enormous – and unreciprocated – sacrifices to keep it together?

When this happens, it’s called a trauma bond. That’s when someone becomes deeply attached to someone who is harmful to them. Here’s more about trauma bonding in relationships:

It Seems Dreamy and Hot at First

The beginning of a trauma bonded relationship can seem amazing, at least for a little while. The trauma bonded person (that is, the one who has an unhealthy level of attachment to someone who harms them) might be heavily infatuated, and believe they are in love.

Very likely, the other person in a trauma bonded relationship (often called the perpetrator) will gain the trauma bonded person’s trust and win over their feelings – starting by love bombing. Love bombing means to shower the person with (insincere) affection, compliments, gifts, and other positive attention with the intent of making them get attached or winning them over, so that the perpetrator/love bomber can use that to their advantage (as opposed to actually sharing the loving feelings).

Love bombing is a favorite tactic of domestic abusers, con artists, and cults – and it’s highly effective. See more about love bombing here.

The perpetrator will then use a variety of tactics to gradually “groom” the trauma bonded person to accept a one-sided and abusive relationship – this includes isolating them from loved ones and people who would support the trauma bonded person, emotionally and/or financially abusive and controlling behaviors (these usually precede physical abuse), the perpetrator playing the victim to avoid accountability, and more. See more about these grooming behaviors here.

Emotional Manipulation

Alternating with love bombing in a trauma bonded relationship is emotional manipulation – that is, mind games and tactics designed to constantly give the perpetrator the upper hand; and to keep the trauma bonded person confused, blaming themselves, giving in, and feeling as though something is wrong with them – rather than something being wrong with the relationship.

The trauma bonded person will accept the emotional manipulation tactics, even when they are more than capable of seeing through them logically, and recognizing them for what they are. However, their idealization of the perpetrator, as well as their own feelings of inadequacy; tend to stop that from happening. The trauma bonded person accordingly lives in a state of denial around their partner, and maybe even dissociates.

Sometimes onlookers to emotional manipulation will assume that the trauma bonded person is naive or foolish for giving in to the perpetrator. In fact, the trauma bonded person likely suffered from lots of gaslighting and invalidation in early life, to get them to accept abuse and dysfunction. So now, they dissociate a lot – because that’s what they learned. Accordingly, they miss intuitive signals that tell them to set boundaries, or even get out of there.

See more about emotional manipulation tactics here.

Obsession, Dependence, Loss of Self, Emotional Addiction

People can get addicted to more than alcohol and drugs – they can also become addicted to a relationship. More specifically, they can become addicted to the love bombing that gets meted out (in decreasing quantities over time) in a toxic and abusive relationship.

With any kind of addiction – to drugs, a relationship, or otherwise – people lose themselves in it. They are focused on their addiction, and what they’re dependent upon; to the exclusion of anything or anyone else, including who they really are.

Defending Them All the Time, Making Excuses

If you’re at a point where you’re frequently defending someone to others who care about you, and even making excuses for them to yourself constantly; it’s generally a strong sign that you might want to think really hard about this relationship or friendship. And ask yourself if it’s truly good for you, and conducive to who you want to be and the life you want to live.

In a trauma bonded relationship, being their (unreciprocated, and undeserved) advocate will happen often. The trauma bonded person will be in denial about the true nature of the relationship, and won’t want to see the other person for who they truly are. This means they will often defend that other person against criticism and questioning from well-meaning loved ones, and even tell themselves excuses about why the other person doesn’t even try to do better, or seem to care.

Resignation and Submission, Inability to Leave Relationship

After a while, a trauma bonded person in a relationship will often give up – on themselves, on life, on something better. They will tend to follow the path of least resistance, and just go along with what the perpetrator wants. That doesn’t mean they’re really happy deep down, but they can’t quite make themselves leave the relationship.

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