What Is Trauma Bonding? 5 Signs & How To End The Abusive Relationship Dynamic

When you're in an toxic relationship, leaving your partner is the best course of action to take. But what happens if it feels impossible to extricate yourself? When you can't seem to end it or find yourself coming back time and time again?

Trauma bonding is the formation of an emotional attachment between a person and their abuser, which often makes the victim of the abuse feel compelled to stay in the relationship.

"Trauma bonds are the attachments we have with our abusers," psychotherapist Jourdan Travers, LCSW, tells mbg. "It's when we have fond feelings or miss individuals who have abused us because we've developed a connection to them. One minute things are good, and then the next, they're not."

Trauma bonding frequently shows up in romantic relationships but also extends to dynamics with power imbalances including, but not limited to, abusive parent-child relationships, sex trafficking, military training, fraternity hazing, kidnapping, cults, and hostage situations. The situation can vary, but fundamentally, it's about dependency and having someone abusive fulfill your emotional and spiritual needs. The attachment pattern alternates between devaluation and intimacy. The person you want to console you the most is the one hurting you. 

Trauma bonding has become a bit of a trendy term, but according to psychologist Nadine Macaluso, LMFT, it's often misunderstood, minimized, and even romanticized.

People sometimes think trauma bonding is simply bonding over shared traumas, she notes, or that it's just about overcoming obstacles and hard moments together. In truth, trauma bonding is a feature of abusive relationships.

"A trauma bond begins with promises of love, trust, and safety. During the sweet beginnings phase, you are tricked by their mask of confidence, dominance, and charisma, which inspires you to believe you will be loved and protected," Macaluso says.

When you bond with a partner, your body releases happy chemicals like dopamine (released through attraction) and oxytocin (released through orgasm and hugging), which cements your attachment. However, in a trauma bond, it can keep you "addicted" to them and holding on to the instances they are kind to you.

While the relationship has some happy interludes, for the most part, being with your partner doesn't make you feel alive and rejuvenated. On the contrary, you feel depleted. The toxic relationship is filled with crazy-making behavior because your reality and truth are usually reinterpreted to frame their actions as acceptable. As a result, you fear openly sharing your thoughts, so over time, you say less and share less. 

A key feature of trauma bonding is coercive control. "Coercive control is a pattern of oppressive behavior intended to control someone and strip away their sense of self," Macaluso says.

When subject to coercive control, a person may eventually start to self-perpetuate these behaviors themselves—monitoring themselves, depriving themselves, and isolating themselves. To make it even more disorienting, trauma bonding is characterized by cognitive dissonance, which creates confusion. You may start to twist and view love through pain, therefore filtering your partner's abusive actions as OK and out of a place of love. Even though you try to downplay the fighting, you're still afraid of what your loved ones will think if they really knew. You may keep the true shadow side of the relationship and its problems to yourself out of shame.

Loyalty to the abusive partner is a hallmark of trauma bonding, according to Macaluso. You may try to remember the good and dismiss the bad times to stay in the relationship.

According to Macaluso, trauma bonding often happens because the relationship feels intense—and that intensity can be confused for love. 

"The irregular and unpredictable cycle of cruelty mixed with caring gestures are critical to forming traumatic attachments. No abusive person is mean or threatening all of the time," she explains. "The cocktail of fear and seduction ironically deepens attachment because it provides intensity that escalates attraction and arousal. When you don't understand traumatic bonding, you often mistake intensity and passion for love." 

Both Travers and Macaluso add that attachment issues stemming from childhood can also contribute to the formation of trauma bonds.

"Early attachment experiences lay the foundation for our future self-esteem and how we bond with others. It's where you learn about interpersonal boundaries and what your role in relationships is. You discover your emotional needs and how to fulfill them. You [also] form beliefs about yourself and the world," Macaluso says.

She notes adults with an insecure attachment pattern are more likely to enter into trauma bonds, while the perpetrator often has fearful-avoidant attachment. "Individuals who experienced childhood abuse or absent parents are more susceptible to developing trauma bonds to intimate partners because we unconsciously gravitate to partners and relationships that feel familiar," Travers adds.

Another component that affects trauma bonds can also be personality. In her work, Macaluso has observed individuals, particularly women, who scored high in traits like agreeableness and conscientiousness can be prey to harmful and abusive partners.

If you haven't ended the relationship yet, that's the first place to start. Here's mbg's full guide to leaving an abusive relationship. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224) and confidentially speak with a trained advocate who can help you think through your options and make a plan.

"Healing from an abusive or traumatic relationship doesn't happen overnight. Individuals involved in those relationships need both support and resources; working with a trauma-informed therapist and joining a support group is a great place to start," Travers suggests. 

Go no-contact with your ex so you can focus on yourself completely. Since trauma bonding works within isolation, move to the other side of the spectrum by intentionally connecting with others. Repressing your emotions and pushing away what happened will keep you from processing the relationship, which will keep you spiritually frozen. By sharing openly, it decreases feelings of loneliness as you cultivate restorative relationship practices. 

During your recovery from a trauma bond, developing your relationship with yourself will be essential as you find safety again. "My advice to any and every person: Find out your attachment pattern, understand the basics of your early life relational trauma, and find out what your Big Five personality traits are," Macaluso says. "The more you know, the more power you have. And the more power you have, the less likely you are to choose someone who will take it away from you."

Keeping a journal to privately record your thoughts and figure out patterns may be eye-opening as you return to yourself. Working on your self-worth will help you recognize the difference between unhealthy and healthy attachments down the line. It also works hand in hand with boundary development and higher self-esteem. 

As you're going through the complexity of feeling the grief and sadness, let the trauma and betrayal flow through you, but don't let it shift into self-blame. 

Take a moment to congratulate yourself for beginning to end the cycle. It's a big step to make. As you know firsthand, it's not easy to "just leave" an abusive partnership. Walking away from toxicity demonstrates incredible strength to choose yourself and your well-being first. Be gentle and tender with yourself as you recover from trauma bonding.