Trauma, like a flood, finds its way into any kind of a crack. If something terrible affects a couple, or any group of people, whatever in the past might have been a potential source of conflict will most likely lead to explosive differences. This is why relationships often break down after a traumatic event.

Trauma strains a person’s sense of their judgement or capability. If you, for example, tend to disagree with your partner over who is right or wrong in certain situations, if you have different approaches to life (which could actually be the secret to a happy relationship in which those different approaches complement each other), you may find yourself feeling more ready to be defensive or attacking after an awful event. Your usual sense of confidence in your approach will have been disrupted by that event. Any uncertainty you may have had about how you do life might become exacerbated; you might fly into a rage when you are challenged, feeling you have done something terribly wrong … shame is such an annihilating emotion, one which often starts to be felt even though it is misplaced. Or you might find yourself burning with a conviction that you are right. You may begin to be inflexible and authoritarian.

Don’t ignore these exaggerated differences. Trust can break down quickly, but takes a long time to be re-established.