How Childhood Trauma Affects Relationships in Adults

Healthy relationships rely on skills like emotional regulation, honesty, trust, and the ability to safely give and receive vulnerability. But for many adults who grew up without consistent emotional safety, these skills don’t come naturally. They’re not intuitive, they’re learned, often through models we never had.

If you grew up with chaos, neglect, criticism, or unpredictable caregiving, the foundations of healthy attachment may feel confusing or out of reach. What most people describe as “basic relationship skills” may feel foreign, unrealistic, or even impossible.

So if you read lists about “good communication,” “staying calm during conflict,” or “setting boundaries” and feel discouraged, you’re not alone. For many adults with childhood trauma, these are not failures—they’re understandable outcomes of what you lived through.

Childhood trauma in adults shapes relationships

For people with childhood trauma from experiences like abuse, neglect, loss, injury, or illness, and adverse childhood events, the behaviors needed to create secure, calm, healthy, and happy relationships can feel bizarre, unrealistic, unfamiliar, and defeating.

To cope with the emotionally difficult experience of carrying trauma (and oftentimes having it re-triggered without help to process it), children often adopt behaviors like secretiveness, self-abandonment, emotional explosiveness, hypervigilance, or avoidance to try to manage the emotions surrounding their trauma. These behaviors help a child in the short term, but can turn into maladaptive patterns in adulthood that make relationships harder.

Children may also learn dysfunctional relationship habits from their parents, and carry them into adulthood. How can you offer trust and tell the truth when it wasn’t safe to do so in childhood? How can you tell what’s healthy and what’s not when your family didn’t set a good example? How can you keep your temper, how can you forgive, how can you stop over-giving, when the only way to feel safe in childhood was to hide, ignore your intuition, fawn, explode, or suspect?

Childhood trauma in adults shapes their attachment behaviors

Experiencing attachment wounds in childhood through a caregiver who is abusive, withdrawn, overcritical, or neglectful can shape how you relate to others. Those early lessons grow into attachment wounds like preoccupation with others’ opinions of us, rejecting close connections, or a mix of both. 

Without an adult providing consistent, calm responses to your needs, you might struggle to learn how to create safe connections. You can even learn that the connection is inherently unsafe. 

Difficulty with conflict can stem from childhood trauma in adults

Patterns you learned in childhood become the ways you build adult connections, so for those who experienced childhood trauma, trauma and relationships go hand in hand. Childhood patterns of coping with trauma that feels emotionally (and sometimes physically) unsafe turn into adult relationship dysfunction, especially around conflict.

Do you avoid all fights? Do you insist on fixing any disagreements right away, no matter what the other person needs? Do you pick fights so you can be unkind or feel some kind of emotion, even if you’re upsetting the other person? Do you feel so emotionally overwhelmed in conflict that you shut down or explode? Childhood trauma and attachment wounds are likely at the root of these challenges.

Building trust and being vulnerable can be challenging with unresolved childhood trauma

Relationships depend on honesty and openness to form strong, supportive bonds. Trauma and attachment wounds can make it hard to speak openly or be vulnerable with other people, making it hard to form relationships that meet your needs. When there wasn’t any room for your truth in childhood, it’s hard to make room for it in adulthood.

With trauma and relationships intersecting, you may feel like nobody can really understand or help you, so you struggle to build trust. You might feel like you need to chase affection, and it’s always one wrong move from being taken away from you forever. You might feel as if you tell the truth about how you’re feeling, you’ll be told you’re a liar, or you may feel like everyone is lying to you. 

What can you do to build healthier connections when you’re dealing with childhood trauma?

Childhood trauma doesn’t have to permanently shape how you form relationships. By making thoughtful changes and seeking support, you can outgrow the patterns of childhood trauma and choose different behaviors, ones that build strong, rewarding relationships. 

Let yourself play

Fun can be hard to access for people who have experienced childhood trauma. When control and vigilance were the only ways to feel safe, and you couldn’t even trust yourself, fun without worry wasn’t possible. Thankfully, the impacts of trauma may be pervasive, but they aren’t permanent. You can re-teach yourself as an adult that fun is actually safe!

Think about what you enjoy; try not to think of what’s cool, or what you’re good at, but things that you are truly interested in. Now, think of ways you could connect with people while pursuing the things you enjoy. Book club? Hiking? Taking yourself to the movies? Try it, and try to let yourself have fun, without paying attention to what your inner critic has to say.

It might be tough at first to get yourself out there, and you may feel self-conscious, but try to be kind to yourself. These experiences can be reparative, and the connections you build from having them can help you heal your trauma. You can give yourself experiences that allow you to feel safe, and the more of those you have, the less childhood trauma can impact the fun you can have in friendship and partnership. 

Take a look at how you talk to yourself

Childhood trauma can lead to an inner critic that tries to keep you on your toes, so you can never be surprised by traumatic experiences again. You might push people away, because why would they want to be anywhere near someone like you, or you chase people who aren’t treating you well, because you crave validation to try to prove your inner critic wrong. Either way, that voice damages your relationships with others and with yourself.

Next time you hear that inner critic telling you how miserable or worthless you are, try something different. Instead of arguing or agreeing, let the critic talk, and take a mental step back. Notice that your inner critic is pretty loud right now. It has a lot to say. Reflect on what it’s trying to do, e.g.,” I think it’s worried I might get my feelings hurt again.” Try to just observe, instead of agreeing or disagreeing. 

Taking a neutral approach to self-criticism helps you quiet that voice by letting it just be part of your mind, doing what it does, instead of a compelling voice or something to argue with. The other side of this approach is a more active one, where you put effort into noticing things you like about yourself and emphasizing your successes. Make an effort to note to yourself, “I like my hair this way,” or “I did a good job in that meeting, even though I was nervous.” It will probably feel silly at first, but just like taking a neutral stance with your inner critic, practice will make it easier.

When you work on how you treat yourself, you are indirectly expanding your abilities to relate well to others. Instead of constant fear of hurt, you can put effort into noticing the good. And instead of constantly chasing someone who doesn’t treat you well, you can take a step back. No need to argue, you can look for different friends, or a different partner, who is a better fit. 

Heal childhood attachment wounds with Sacramento trauma therapy

Working with a trauma-informed therapist, like Joshua Collver, Samantha Heim or Karen Sackheim at Fair Oaks Behavioral Health, can help you heal your childhood traumas, opening up new opportunities to relate to other people in ways that feel supportive, not suspicious. Therapists create a safe and non-judgmental space where you can start to build trust and show vulnerability, practicing relating to your therapist in ways that can extend to healthier, happier relationships in your everyday life. 

If you’re ready to start finding new ways to know people who help you heal childhood trauma, instead of perpetuating it, connect with us today for a free consultation to get started.