When experiences from the past are affecting your relationship today

Trauma, betrayal, attachment injuries and painful experiences from earlier in life can influence how we experience our closest relationships. At times, the intensity of what happens between partners cannot be fully understood by looking only at the present.

EMDR can sometimes form part of couples therapy when unresolved experiences are contributing to the patterns, triggers and emotional reactions that keep a relationship stuck.

When the argument isn’t only about the argument

Many couples arrive in therapy frustrated by the fact that they seem to keep returning to the same conflict. The details may be different each time. One argument is about money, another about sex, parenting, household responsibilities, communication, an affair, feeling criticised or feeling ignored. But underneath the changing subject matter, the emotional experience can be strikingly familiar.

One partner may feel rejected, abandoned or unimportant. The other may feel criticised, pressured or as though they can never get things right. One moves towards the relationship looking for reassurance or resolution; the other becomes overwhelmed and pulls away. Both may understand the pattern intellectually and genuinely want it to change, yet when the cycle begins, something seems to take over.

Sometimes the intensity of these moments belongs entirely to what is happening within the relationship now. Sometimes our intimate relationships activate vulnerabilities that developed long before we met our current partner. Experiences of rejection, abandonment, criticism, betrayal, emotional neglect, humiliation or trauma can influence what feels threatening to us and how quickly our nervous system reacts.

A relatively ordinary interaction in the present can therefore carry considerably more emotional meaning than either partner initially realises. Trauma-informed couples therapy gives us a way of exploring both levels: what is happening between you now, and what may be getting activated underneath it. Where it is clinically appropriate, EMDR can sometimes become part of that work.

Something happening today can evoke emotions, physical sensations, images or beliefs associated with an earlier experience. Intellectually, you may know that the present situation is different, while emotionally and physiologically your response can feel as though the old danger is happening again.

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation — commonly guided eye movements or other forms of alternating stimulation — within a structured therapeutic process to help process distressing experiences. The objective isn’t to remove a memory or persuade you that something painful didn’t matter. You continue to know what happened, but what can change is the intensity surrounding the experience and the degree to which it continues to shape your reactions in the present.

Within a relationship, that can sometimes make an important difference.

When two histories meet inside one relationship

Both partners bring a history into the relationship, and this can create extraordinarily powerful cycles.

One person’s fear of abandonment may lead them to pursue their partner when they sense distance. Their partner may have learned that emotional intensity means pressure, criticism or loss of autonomy, so they withdraw. The withdrawal increases the first person’s fear, they pursue harder, and the second person feels increasingly overwhelmed and retreats further.

Before long, neither person is responding only to what the other is doing in that particular moment. Each person’s reaction is intensifying the vulnerability of the other, and two protective systems have become locked together.

Couples therapy helps us identify and change this interactional pattern. Trauma-informed couples therapy also asks what makes each person’s position in the cycle so emotionally compelling. Where unresolved traumatic experiences are significantly contributing to those reactions, EMDR can sometimes help us work with what lies underneath them.

EMDR for relationship triggers

Relationship triggers can be confusing because the emotional response can feel considerably bigger than what appears to be happening. You might become intensely angry when your partner criticises you, panic when they become distant, repeatedly seek reassurance when something feels uncertain, or shut down completely as soon as conflict becomes emotionally intense.

Perhaps afterwards you understand that your reaction was bigger than you wanted it to be. But understanding that doesn’t necessarily stop it happening again.

Trauma-informed therapy doesn’t simply label somebody as “too sensitive”, “overreacting” or “bad at communication”. Nor does it assume that every strong emotional response is evidence of trauma. Instead, alongside looking at the relationship itself, we can become curious about the meaning of the trigger.

Rather than asking only, “Why do we keep having this argument?”, we might also ask, “What happens inside you at this particular moment, and why does it feel so threatening?”

Sometimes that question reveals an important connection between the relationship you are living in today and experiences that happened much earlier.

EMDR, affairs and betrayal trauma

Discovering an affair or significant betrayal can fundamentally disrupt someone’s sense of safety within a relationship. Certain moments can become particularly difficult to move beyond: seeing a message, discovering a photograph, hearing a confession, finding out that a particular event didn’t happen in the way you had been told, or realising that something you believed about your relationship wasn’t true.

Months or even years later, reminders can bring the experience back with extraordinary intensity. A phone notification, an unexplained delay, a particular name or location, sexual intimacy, silence from a partner or a small change in routine can trigger intrusive images, fear, anger or overwhelming distress.

Affair recovery requires considerably more than trauma processing. There may need to be honesty and accountability. Important questions may need answering. The couple may need to understand what happened within the relationship and establish whether trust, emotional safety and intimacy can genuinely be rebuilt.

EMDR doesn’t replace that work. But when particular discoveries, images or memories remain intensely distressing, EMDR may sometimes be useful as one component of a wider programme of affair recovery and trauma-informed couples therapy.

The aim isn’t to make the betrayed partner comfortable with what happened, minimise the betrayal or make somebody forget. It is to reduce the extent to which particular traumatic experiences continue to overwhelm the present while the couple undertakes the much broader work of understanding what happened and deciding what their relationship becomes next.

Childhood trauma and adult relationships

People are often surprised by how strongly childhood experiences can reappear within adult relationships. Growing up around unpredictable anger may make conflict feel dangerous. Repeated criticism may leave someone extremely sensitive to perceived disappointment. Emotional neglect can create a deep sensitivity to feeling invisible, unwanted or unimportant, while experiences of abandonment can make distance within a relationship extraordinarily difficult to tolerate.

Childhood experiences can influence us in the opposite direction too. Someone who learned that emotional closeness was unpredictable, intrusive or overwhelming may become highly self-reliant. When a partner seeks more emotional connection, their instinct may be to create distance rather than move closer.

These responses often developed for understandable reasons. The difficulty is that strategies which once helped us protect ourselves can become problematic inside an adult intimate relationship.

This doesn’t mean that every relationship problem originates in childhood, nor does understanding somebody’s history excuse controlling, abusive or harmful behaviour. But trauma-informed couples therapy allows us to ask an important question: What did each partner learn about love, closeness, conflict, trust, safety and vulnerability — and where are those lessons appearing in the relationship today?

When we understand what a reaction is protecting against, it can become easier to develop different choices.

EMDR and attachment wounds

Our expectations of relationships develop through thousands of experiences of connection, separation, reassurance, disappointment, safety and vulnerability. Experiences of abandonment, rejection, humiliation, betrayal, emotional neglect or inconsistent caregiving can influence what we expect from other people and how quickly our threat system responds when an important relationship feels uncertain.

For this reason, I often think about couples therapy as taking place at two interconnected levels. The first is the relationship between you today. We work with communication, conflict, intimacy, trust, emotional connection and the patterns that repeatedly pull you apart.

The second is what each person brings into those moments. That can include childhood experiences, previous relationships, attachment injuries, trauma and the ways each person learned to protect themselves emotionally.

The aim isn’t to turn couples therapy into two individual therapies taking place simultaneously. The relationship remains at the centre of the work. But it can be equally limiting to behave as though two people enter a relationship without histories. Where those histories are strongly influencing what happens between partners, EMDR can sometimes provide a way of connecting these two levels of the work.

What does EMDR look like within couples therapy?

I don’t automatically use EMDR because a couple has experienced trauma, and I don’t use EMDR with every couple I work with.

The starting point is understanding the relationship: what has happened between you, the difficulties that brought you to therapy, your patterns of conflict and connection, significant emotional triggers and the relevant history that each person brings into the relationship. From there, we can consider whether unresolved trauma appears to be meaningfully contributing to the problems you are experiencing today.

In some circumstances, aspects of EMDR can be carefully incorporated into the couples work. In others, it may be more appropriate for one partner to undertake individual trauma therapy with a separate therapist while our couples work continues alongside it.

That decision depends on a number of factors, including the nature and complexity of the trauma, emotional stability, safety within the relationship and what we are trying to accomplish therapeutically.

EMDR is one tool within my couples therapy work. It isn’t the therapy itself, and my primary focus remains the relationship between you.

Trauma-informed couples therapy for complex relationships

I specialise in working with couples whose relationships have often become considerably more complicated than simply needing to learn better communication skills.

Couples come to me with longstanding conflict, emotional disconnection, affairs and betrayal, powerful emotional triggers, trauma, attachment difficulties, ADHD and autism, and relationships where previous attempts at couples therapy haven’t created the change they were hoping for.

My work brings specialist couples therapy together with an understanding of trauma, attachment and the nervous system, drawing on my training and experience in trauma-focused approaches including EMDR.

For some couples, the work is primarily relational. We need to change how they communicate, handle conflict, repair after difficult interactions and remain emotionally connected. For others, we need to understand the cycle that has developed between them and what happens inside each person when that cycle begins.

Sometimes we discover that something happening within the relationship today is touching an experience that began years, or even decades, before the couple met. When that happens, working with the past can sometimes become an important part of changing the relationship in the present.

Frequently asked questions about EMDR and couples therapy

Can EMDR be used in couples therapy?

Yes. EMDR can sometimes be incorporated into couples therapy when unresolved trauma, distressing experiences or powerful emotional triggers are meaningfully contributing to the difficulties between partners.

It isn’t appropriate for every couple or at every stage of therapy. Careful assessment, sufficient stability, emotional safety and appropriate pacing are particularly important where complex or developmental trauma is involved.

Can EMDR help with relationship trauma?

Potentially. “Relationship trauma” can refer to very different experiences, including betrayal, abandonment, emotional neglect, traumatic previous relationships or experiences that occurred within a current relationship.

The first step is understanding what happened and how it continues to affect both the individual and the relationship. Where particular memories or triggers remain highly distressing, EMDR may sometimes form one part of a broader therapeutic approach.

Do both partners have EMDR?

Not necessarily. Sometimes one partner has a particular experience or trauma that is having a significant impact on the relationship. In other situations, both partners have histories that contribute to the pattern between them.

The therapy should be guided by what the relationship actually needs rather than by an assumption that both people should receive the same intervention.

Can EMDR help after an affair?

It can sometimes be useful when particular moments connected with an affair — such as discovering messages, images, disclosures or other details — remain intensely distressing or easily triggered.

EMDR does not replace affair-recovery work. Repairing a relationship following betrayal can also require honesty, accountability, answers to important questions, an understanding of what happened and the gradual rebuilding of trust and relational safety. EMDR may be helpful with particular traumatic elements of the experience while that wider couples work takes place.

Can EMDR help us stop arguing?

EMDR isn’t designed simply to stop couples arguing. Conflict occurs for many reasons, and having frequent or difficult arguments doesn’t automatically mean that trauma is involved.

However, when an unresolved experience is contributing significantly to the intensity of a person’s reaction during conflict, processing that experience may reduce some of the emotional charge surrounding the trigger. Couples therapy can then help both partners develop different ways of responding when those difficult moments arise.

Can trauma cause relationship problems?

Trauma can contribute to relationship difficulties, but it is rarely helpful to assume that trauma explains everything.

Earlier experiences can influence how we respond to conflict, closeness, criticism, rejection, intimacy, trust and separation. A trauma-informed couples therapist therefore considers these experiences alongside what is actually happening within the current relationship rather than viewing every difficulty through a trauma lens.

Can trauma cause relationship problems?

Trauma can contribute to relationship difficulties, although it is rarely useful to assume that trauma explains everything.

Earlier experiences can influence our responses to closeness, conflict, criticism, rejection, intimacy, separation and trust. A trauma-informed approach considers these influences while remaining equally interested in what is actually happening within the relationship today.

What if my trauma happened before I met my partner?

This is one of the reasons someone’s earlier experiences can become relevant within couples therapy. An interaction happening today may activate an emotional experience that originated many years earlier. Your current partner may not have created the original wound, but an intimate relationship can inadvertently touch it.

Recognising the difference between what belongs to the present and what is being carried forward from the past can sometimes be extremely helpful for both partners.

Do I need to describe my trauma in detail?

Not necessarily. EMDR does not always require someone to provide a detailed verbal account of everything that happened.

Trauma work should nevertheless proceed carefully, with attention to emotional safety, stability and a person’s capacity to remain sufficiently present during the process.

Is EMDR suitable for complex trauma?

EMDR can be used when working with complex and developmental trauma, but this type of work can require particularly careful assessment, preparation and pacing.

The goal isn’t to reach traumatic memories as quickly as possible. Establishing sufficient safety, emotional regulation and stability can be an important part of deciding whether trauma processing is appropriate and, if so, when and how it should take place.

Should I have individual EMDR or trauma-informed couples therapy?

It depends on the nature of the difficulty.

If the primary issue is your own trauma and its effects extend well beyond your relationship, individual trauma therapy may be more appropriate. If trauma is contributing significantly to a relationship pattern involving conflict, trust, intimacy, abandonment, betrayal or emotional disconnection, trauma-informed couples therapy may be useful.

There are also circumstances where I recommend that one partner undertakes individual trauma therapy with another therapist alongside our couples work.

I specialise in couples therapy and do not currently offer standalone individual psychotherapy or individual EMDR therapy.

Specialist trauma-informed online couples therapy with Ruairi Osborne

I work online with couples throughout the UK, Europe and internationally, including couples living across different countries, nationalities and cultures.

My work is particularly suited to relationships where there is more happening than a straightforward communication difficulty — including longstanding conflict, emotional disconnection, affairs and betrayal, attachment difficulties, trauma, powerful emotional triggers, ADHD and autism, and relationships where previous therapy hasn’t produced the change you hoped for.

The starting point isn’t to assume that everything is caused by trauma. It is to understand your particular relationship: the pattern that has developed between you, what each person experiences when that pattern begins, what has happened within the relationship itself and, where relevant, what each of you may be carrying from earlier experiences.

Sometimes the difficulty in front of us is primarily about what is happening within the relationship today. At other times, the relationship is also touching experiences from the past. Understanding the difference, and knowing when we need to work with one or both, can become an important part of helping a couple move forward.

Tuesday to Friday: 17:00 – 22:00

(Max. of 4 appointments per day)