The Secret Behind Relationship Triggers: How Attachment Wounds Shape Our Connections

Have you ever wondered why your romantic partner manages to “trigger” you more than anyone else in your life?

There’s reason for that — Romantic partners are the closest thing we have to our early providers or caregivers. They occupy a uniquely intimate and vulnerable role in our lives, enabling them to activate deeply rooted emotional patterns and attachment dynamics.

Here are some parallels:

• Safety: Like our early caregivers, our romantic partners are who we turn to in adulthood as a primary source of emotional safety, comfort, and support.

• Self Esteem: We may rely on our partners for reassurance, validation, and a sense of belonging, much like we did with our parents in childhood. During development, these factors our paramount for survival. According to Richard Schwartz in his book, You are the One You’ve Been Waiting for, self-esteem is founded on feeling valued. If you are seen and accepted, you survive. If not, you may be doomed (Schwartz, 2023).

• Nurturance and Support: In healthy relationships, partners may nurture and care for us in ways that echo a parent’s/caregiver’s role, offering comfort and soothing when we’re distressed.

• Shaping Identity: Just as caregivers influence our self-esteem and worldview, romantic partners play a role in shaping how we see ourselves and our worth.

• Conflict as a Growth Catalyst: Disagreements with partners often mirror unresolved childhood dynamics, offering opportunities to revisit and heal past wounds.

• Providing a Secure Base: Like an ideal parent, a secure romantic partner allows us to explore the world confidently, knowing we have a safety net, or someone to return to for safety and support.

When your partner “triggers” you, what you are really experiencing is an activation of your “attachment system.”

This means that your partner’s behaviors, presence (or absence), and dynamics in the relationship provoke parts of you that seek connection, safety, and security.

This system is responsible for how we relate to (or bond with) others, as well as how we respond to perceived threats or disconnections in relationships. As a result, partners may unintentionally replicate dynamics from our early relationships.

Here’s a secret that will set you free: When your attachment system is activated, it says more about your internal landscape and past experiences than about your partner’s intentions.

While these wounds stem from early relationship and echo throughout our lives, they can be healed.

Now here is the real secret:

Healing happens by turning inward, not outward. When we seek to heal wounded parts through external means, we will always be seeking. We will live in a constant state of craving, never fully satiated. Always looking, never finding.

The beautiful part of healing attachment wounds, is that we get the opportunity to heal ourselves. To “re-parent” our younger, child-like parts, giving them an ceaseless supply of love, reminding them of their inherent worth, and facilitating a sense of trust/safety.

I know it sounds a little abstract, but bear with me…

As a relationship and couples therapist, I myself have been on a journey trying to find the secret to healing attachment wounds. To help myself and my clients work toward secure attachment.

Thus far, I have found the most success with an Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach both personally and professionally. IFS is a therapeutic model that provides a transformative way of healing attachment wounds from the inside out.

IFS teaches us that we all have various “parts” within us: different facets of our psyche that have developed to protect us or to manage emotions and experiences.

Most of these parts were created during times when we were most vulnerable (usually childhood). They carry the burdens of pain or fear, and continue to influence how we act in relationships.

These parts often have their own types of relationships with each other. They may feel at odds with one another — one wanting closeness, while another fears vulnerability.

Esther Perel speaks about the constant dance that is relationships: an interplay of desire and fear, closeness and distance.

Our attachment wounds shape this dance. Yet, when we learn to approach ourselves with compassion, treating our inner parts with curiosity instead of judgment, we begin to shift this dynamic — we invite our inner parts to dance so to speak.

IFS invites us to be the curator of our inner world, recognizing that while some parts are reactive or protective, they are not our essence. It also encourages us to see our parts as well-intentioned parts that were parentified at some point. They took on responsibilities they were not equipped to handle because at the time, it was adaptive. Yet, these parts tend to be frozen in time. Still using the same strategies they used when they were younger, despite vastly different contexts between childhood and adulthood.

The Self — the core of who we are, the part of us that is wise, compassionate, and centered — is ever present, even if it has been absent (or blended with other parts). We all inherently have a core, authentic self, that we can tap into at any time by turning our attention inward with curiosity and compassion.

The practice of IFS allows us to step into the Self and engage with our wounded parts, rather than being ruled by them.

Here’s where it gets interesting:

Healing attachment wounds through IFS requires us to see these parts of ourselves — not as obstacles to love, but as gateways to deeper understanding.

When we can listen with presence and compassion to the parts of us that feel unworthy, scared, or alone, we begin to rewire the internalized messages that these wounds have imprinted upon us. The work is about integration, not perfection. The journey rather than the destination.

IFS shows us how we can tend to the vulnerable, younger parts of ourselves — those parts that were left unseen or unheard. This is not a process of simply replacing negative thoughts with positive ones (which in my experience is a bandaid on the wound).

It’s about meeting the parts of ourselves that were hurt with empathy and allowing the healing to unfold in its own time.

When we begin to heal the attachment wounds within, the way we connect to others changes. We can become more attuned to our partner’s needs and more willing to show up as our true selves. We can free ourselves from the chains of past patterns, learning to embrace the fullness of intimacy, with all its complexity, its beauty, and its risks. This is what Richard Schwartz describes as “courageous love.”

Healing attachment wounds through IFS is a revolutionary act of self-love. It’s a reminder that, at our core, we are already whole. We get to be a parent to our parts. We simply need to listen to the parts of ourselves that need our attention, and offer them the love, care, and validation that they’ve been waiting for all these years.

As we heal, we become more fully capable of giving and receiving love in its most authentic form — grounded, expansive, and connected.

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Attachment Based Therapy Denver, Colorado

IFS shows us how we can tend to the vulnerable, younger parts of ourselves — those parts that were left unseen or unheard, our skilled therapists at Authentic Connections Therapy and Wellness can help you feel optimistic and supported while navigating your feelings around relationships. Follow the steps below to get started.

1. We encourage you to get to know a little bit about our therapists, their specializations, and their credentials. Get to know our therapists here.

2. If you think Attachment Based Therapy is for you, reach out to us! You can use our convenient online consultation scheduling here.

3. Begin the exciting journey of listening to the parts of ourselves that need our attention, and offer them the love, care, and validation that they’ve been waiting for!

We hope to hear from you soon!