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How To Protect Your Partner's Vulnerabilities · Trauma Free Relationship

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Welcome to Trauma Free Relationship, a podcast that
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provides support and guidance to help heal the wounds of
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attachment trauma. Whether you find yourself
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struggling with unresolved issues in the past or have
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experienced trauma in your current relationship, our goal
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is to provide accurate, scientifically informed
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information as well as the tools to help you create a secure
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connection between you and your partner.
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And here is your host, Tom Philp.
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Let's talk about protecting our partners vulnerabilities.
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So one way I know one sign that a partner is beginning to de
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escalate and learning how to de escalate their cycles is they
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move from a place where they exploit one another's
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vulnerabilities. And by that I mean they push one
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another's buttons, or flip triggers, or poke at each
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other's wounds. To a place where they're
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actually protecting each other's vulnerabilities, and this is
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always a good sign. When I see couples begin to make
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that shift to, well, I know that's a raw spot for my partner
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and I am not going to. I'm not going to exploit that in
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any way or try to trigger that in my partner.
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Because I care about them and I know they care about me.
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So it's a shifting of emotional energy.
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It is a shifting of expectations for one another.
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And it's always a great sign when I see couples begin to make
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that shift from again, exploiting to protecting each
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other's vulnerabilities. And by exploiting I don't mean
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that they are intentionally doing this.
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But what I mean is that the cycle tells them in moments
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where there's lots of energy and emotion coming up, The cycle
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tells them to to push those buttons.
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The cycle tells them that's a good diversion or this is a way
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I can make emotional contact and get my partner to respond.
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Or this is a way I can shut down?
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This argument because I know if I push this button, it'll get a
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reaction, it'll hurt and it'll stop this conflict.
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So when I say exploit, I don't mean that partners are
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intentionally trying to do that. What I mean is that that ends up
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happening because the cycle has come to dominate the
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relationship in the couple, so when they begin to move from a
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place of exploiting vulnerabilities to a place of
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protecting vulnerabilities. It's it's a wonderful sign that
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they're beginning to really de escalate and they're coming
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together against the negative cycles.
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So a vulnerability is as I've mentioned is really just a a
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wound that leaves a person open to being hurt or re traumatized.
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It's a vulnerability is a feeling we get when we step out
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of our comfort zone and begin to take a risk emotionally to
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expose that wound to our partner.
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So a vulnerability is a wound, but if we embrace that wound and
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we speak from a place of that wound and we can begin to expose
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that wound to our partner, that also makes us us vulnerable.
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So I'm speaking speaking about vulnerability in terms of a
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noun. It's a thing, it's a wound that
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was sustained, but it's also an action that we take.
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When we when we expose that potential trauma or wound to
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somebody else, so it's an adjective as well, it it kind of
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works as both, much like a love as a noun as well as an
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adjective. It can be a feeling that I have,
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but it can also be an action that I take and love can be
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behind both those things. So when we move out of our
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protection and expose ourselves emotionally.
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In order to create a deep connection with our partner
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with. By the way, vulnerability is
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really the only way we can create a deep connection with
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another person. There's really no other way that
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I've seen that works as well as being able to expose ourselves,
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open ourselves to the potential of being hurt and having
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somebody else begin to. Respond with compassion and
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kindness and empathy when we are emotionally exposed like that.
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And so again, this is one reason why this is such a telltale sign
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that couples are beginning to move from a place of reactivity
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to a place of de escalation. And their relationship.
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And so when a couple or an individual moves out of that
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reactivity, they move out of a place of protection and they
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begin to expose themselves. This is a huge risk for that
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person. And I'm well aware that it's
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easy for me to sit here on this podcast and talk about
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protecting our partners vulnerabilities if we're not
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seeing our partners vulnerabilities if what we're
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seeing on the outside. Is anger, frustration, blame
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criticism, shutting down, withdrawing those types of
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behaviors? It's really hard for us to
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think, Oh well, they're actually very vulnerable right now and I
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get that. And so that's why we're always
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working in therapy between inside and out with couples.
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What are you feeling on the inside?
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What does it look like on the outside?
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What might that signal be that you're sending your partner?
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So when we move out of a place of protection and we expose
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ourselves to our partner, it's really, really important for our
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partner to be able to protect and respond to our
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vulnerabilities. And so how do we actually go and
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respond to our partners vulnerabilities?
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Well, there's a couple of ways that we can do that.
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First of all, we have to understand what our partners
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vulnerabilities are. We have to have a deep
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understanding of what they look like when they happen.
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We have to be able to put it in the context in the person's
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life. And so vulnerabilities can be a
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lot of things. Wounds can have be sustained in
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a lot of different ways. They're they're vulnerable to
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rejection, abandonment, feeling unvalued or not listened to.
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They might have a history of being manipulated when they were
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emotionally exposed. Or they have their feelings
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turned around on them as well. When they were reaching for a
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parent or exposing themselves, the parent took those feelings
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and then somehow was able to turn that back on them and use
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it against them in some way. They might have had a former
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spouse who cheated on them and was not fully committed to them,
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or parents who favored one child over another.
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So these are all types of vulnerabilities.
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And traumas that survivors can carry with them into their
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current relationship. So protecting your partner's
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vulnerabilities starts first and foremost with understanding
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them. And so when you've been with
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somebody long enough, when you begin to peel back the layers of
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their life and and understand their experience.
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You need to have a deep appreciation for those wounds
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that they sustained. And and again, it bears
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repeating, everybody's got wounds.
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We all come into relationships with some scars, whether it's
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full blown trauma and PTSD or whether they're deep hurts and
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things that we didn't get as children, These show up in our
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adult relationships. And so first and foremost.
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We want to understand what those vulnerabilities are.
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You might have an intuitive understanding of those and I
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think that's great. Probably somewhere you have a
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feeling of it. But what I really want you to do
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is be able to articulate that vulnerability.
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You don't articulate it to your partner necessarily, but you
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need to be able to put it into words and understand it in in
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context. Of your partner's life so that
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you really get it and can hear it and and can put words to it
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yourself. So it might sound something like
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this. My partner is highly sensitive
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to being abandoned as a child. Neither of her parents were
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really there for her in crucial moments in her life, and as a
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result, she's felt like no one ever is going to truly show up
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and love her in those moments. At times she feels like maybe
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she's too much for other people and as a result she protects
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herself by trying to cling and and and turn up the heat and and
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push herselves and push others into loving her the way she
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really needs to be loved. And I know in moments when we
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have conflict, when I begin to shut down that that leaves her
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susceptible to being re traumatized.
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In this way, it leaves her to susceptible to being wounded
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again for fear of abandonment. So that might be kind of
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something you say to yourself about your partner.
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We could certainly reverse that and say my husband is very
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vulnerable to fears of rejection.
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He felt often in his first marriage that he could never
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quite measure up. And that it was never good
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enough for his partner. And that no matter how hard he
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tried to please his partner, no matter how hard he tried to push
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his feelings aside and focus on his partners, it never measured
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up. It never seemed to be good
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enough. So it's difficult for him to
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hear anything negative from me, even if I'm just sharing my
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feelings. Because he often hears it as a
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sense of rejection, and I know this about him and I understand
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that. And that's why when I try to
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voice a complaint or a problem, it often sends him.
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Far away from me and I don't get to reach him and he doesn't
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often respond to those feelings because what he hears and what
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he filters is this sense of rejecting that I'm not just
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having an issue or expressing my feelings, but rather somehow I'm
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rejecting him as a person. So I hope those are a couple of
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examples about how we can really articulate.
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Our partners vulnerabilities and understand them at a deep level.
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So that is your first way of protecting your partner's
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vulnerabilities. It is to simply understand what
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their vulnerability is and to be able to put that into context
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and their life and to be able to put it into words that you could
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communicate that to yourself. The second step in this is
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really just being able to not play into.
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Your partner's vulnerabilities by protecting them.
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We don't want to trigger them, essentially, so we don't want to
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go there. We don't want to expose their
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vulnerabilities when we're mad. No matter how angry we might
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get, we always want to be able to moderate our anger to a point
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where we never cross that line into exposing their
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vulnerabilities or triggering those or poking at those.
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We don't want to exploit it. As I've said, tease about it,
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make fun of it or joke about it. Even if we are getting along,
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even if we're in a good place, we don't want to make light of
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somebody's wound. And so that's a way of
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protecting our partners vulnerabilities is not to go
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there, not to expose it unnecessarily.
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We might wait for our partner to be able to expose that
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vulnerability, to be able to bring it up in a way that feels
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safe for them. And that leads us right into the
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3rd way, which is being able to make the relationship safe and
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secure enough that our partner can feel that they are safe to
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expose that vulnerability to you.
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And that means that you have to get yourself into a place.
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Where you can hear that and that's that's difficult
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sometimes, especially in the middle of conflict with our
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partner. Often times when one or both
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partners have been triggered, it's very difficult for one
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partner to be able to regulate themselves, calm down enough,
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get back to baseline enough that they can be cognizant of the
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fact that that. And vulnerabilities been
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triggered in their partner. So that's why it's so important
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to have timeouts at times. That's why it's so important to
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learn as a couple how to reduce those cycles de escalate them so
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that we can get into a place where the emotion doesn't
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dominate. Especially the negative emotion
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doesn't dominate the relationship, and as a result we
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end up inadvertently exploiting each other's vulnerabilities.
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This means that if your partner's shutting down, you
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don't push too hard to resolve the issues, you give them some
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space. It means that if your partner is
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attacking or criticizing you, that you respond to the emotion
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they are feeling behind the attack and not to the attack
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itself, which is often fear that that is exposing that.
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So I think about it a little bit like this, if your partner had a
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broken leg. Would you expect your partner to
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get up and go run a marathon with you?
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Would you expect your partner to get up and go get themselves a
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drink of water, or go get themselves their dinner or cook
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it for the whole family that night?
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Probably not. You would have a great deal of
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understanding and compassion for your partner, who very well may
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be laid up in bed with a broken leg, and if they did need to get
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up, you would stand next to them.
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You would put their arm over your shoulders, you would wrap
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your arm around their waist and you would help them bear the
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weight of that hurt leg. So they didn't hurt it even
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worse. And so when we're protecting our
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partners vulnerabilities, this is a little bit of what we're
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doing. We recognize that that our
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partner and us too to some degree.
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Have a broken leg. Now, it's not a wound that we
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can see on the outside, which is what makes vulnerabilities so
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tricky because they're hidden sometimes beneath layers of
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protection. But they're there, they're below
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the surface. And so we want to come alongside
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our partner and help them bear that weight when they are
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triggered in their vulnerabilities.
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And so we want to be able to wrap our arms around them and
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help. Walk them to a better place
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where they are not so wounded and so susceptible to being
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wounded as well. So protecting our partners
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vulnerabilities means first knowing what those
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vulnerabilities are, being able to really articulate those areas
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of of wounding and weakness in our partner And and by weakness
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I don't mean that it's weak that we have a vulnerability.
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I just mean that it's sort of a chink in the armor.
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It's a susceptibility to being wounded.
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It means that we don't exploit those woundings and and that
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pain in our partner even in times of conflict.
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And it means that we actively reach out to protect them, come
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alongside them. And help carry them until they
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are healed or till they are much better.
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So I hope this helps in terms of being able to understand our
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partners vulnerabilities, how they move from a place of
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protection to a place of vulnerability when they're
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exposing that and in doing so how we want to come alongside
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them and help them with it. And and I'll say this to
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conclude, it's really important. When I see both couples do this
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and it's it's just amazing to watch this happen through our
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work on the couch with couples where they will almost
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automatically move into this place where they protect each
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other's vulnerabilities together or you'll see them preference
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it. Now I'm going to I'm going to
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say this, but I don't mean I don't mean this as a criticism.
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And you'll see that acknowledge. Oh OK no, I understand.
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Go ahead. It's all right.
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And so again they they pre empt something that if they if they
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even get into an area that feels like they're going to be poking
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in a little wound, they want to preface their intentions for
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their partner and in doing so that's a way to protect.
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So couples that move from a place of volatility and
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reactivity to a place where they de escalate.
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Move from a place where they exploit their partners
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vulnerabilities to a place where they protect their partners
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vulnerabilities. I hope you found this helpful
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and TuneIn next time we've got lots more stuff for you.
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Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to
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Trauma Free Relationship, a podcast for the healing of
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attachment trauma. You can find us on Facebook,
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