Trauma Relationship Theory (TRT) is an emerging framework that systematically connects childhood trauma experiences to adult relationship behaviors.

This approach recognizes that childhood experiences literally wire our nervous systems for how we approach love, trust, and connection as adults. Rather than viewing trauma-informed relationship styles as personal flaws, we understand them as intelligent adaptations that help us survive and find love under difficult circumstances.

The framework maps how specific childhood experiences create predictable relationship behaviors—like how growing up with unpredictable caregivers might lead to emotional chaos in relationships, or how emotional neglect might create patterns of early independence to earn love.

This framework isn't about pathologizing survivors—it's about understanding the brilliant strategies our young minds developed to maintain essential bonds and stay safe, and how those strategies show up in our adult relationships.

Many trauma survivors spend years in therapy working on their childhood experiences, but struggle to connect those insights to their dating patterns. Traditional therapy often focuses on healing trauma but doesn't specifically address how any given trauma shows up in romantic relationships—leaving a crucial gap in understanding why we keep choosing and attracting the same types of partners.

We created this platform from our own experience as trauma survivors. After years of processing our childhood experiences in therapy—and feeling like we'd done "the work"—we found ourselves still asking: "Why do I keep ending up in the same relationship dynamics? How is my childhood trauma actually showing up in my dating life?" It was incredibly frustrating and disheartening to realize that despite all our therapeutic work, insights and breakthroughs, we were still repeating the same patterns.

The breakthrough came when we started reframing 'trauma' as childhood adaptations—viewing our responses not as damage, but as intelligent strategies we developed to survive and get our needs met. This shift in perspective made us see the whole picture in a new light. Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, our childhood experiences and adult relationship dynamics started making perfect sense.

The work of connecting childhood adaptations to current relationship patterns was both incredibly gratifying and surprisingly challenging. But it also required a level of self-awareness and pattern recognition that took time to develop. We realized we weren't alone in this struggle. Many trauma survivors were having similar experiences. Our therapy addressed both past and present, but little guidance was given on connecting specific early life traumas with specific romantic relationship problems and repetitive patterns. We decided to create a tool that could help others make these same connections more easily.

It's not that psychologists don't connect the past with the present—many therapists do explore how childhood experiences affect adult relationships. But this work is typically done on an improvised, non-systematic basis. Even with extremely common traumas like having a "narcissistic parent" or growing up in a "toxic family," there's surprisingly little agreement in psychology about how these specific experiences manifest in later romantic relationships. The guidance often stops at the general insight that "you'll probably choose partners similar to your parents" without mapping out the specific patterns, behaviors, or relationship dynamics that may emerge and why. There's no systematic framework that says "if you experienced X childhood trauma, you're likely to exhibit Y, Z, and W dating patterns and be drawn to people who have A,B,C traits and complimentary patterns—and here's why this makes sense." Each therapist approaches these connections differently, leaving survivors to piece together their own patterns through trial and error.

Our goal is to bridge that gap—to help trauma survivors understand not just what happened to them in childhood, but how those experiences are influencing their dating choices today. Because once you can see the patterns, you can start to change them.

Trauma dating refers to romantic partner selection and relationship behaviors based on behavior patterns developed specifically in response to childhood trauma. All children develop adaptation patterns—that's how we grow up to become functional adults. Children who experienced childhood trauma develop specific patterns that helped them survive and adapt to their environment. In very simple terms, any dating you do while having unprocessed and unresolved childhood trauma is going to be "trauma dating".

Trauma dating is characterized by being largely unconscious of your relationship patterns and by compulsive repetition of relationship dynamics. We repeatedly choose partners or situations that recreate the familiar ways we learned to get our needs met in childhood. This isn't conscious or intentional—it's driven by what feels "normal" or "like home" to our nervous system. For trauma survivors, there's often no other way to connect—other types of relationships lack the familiar chemistry and attraction.

For example, someone who grew up with emotionally unavailable parents might consistently find themselves attracted to partners who are similarly distant—not because they don't need care, but because they learned to substitute parental care (which was unavailable) with parental approval (which was available) by means of high achievement or reverse caretaking. When direct path to getting our specific needs met is blocked, we try new ways to meet the same need. If all ways of getting that specific need are blocked, we try to find ways to meet our other needs.

Trauma dating isn't a character flaw—it's evidence of how our early experiences shaped our unconscious blueprint for what love looks and feels like. Understanding these dating styles is the first step toward fewer trauma-based relationship choices.

Our tool helps identify these styles by connecting your childhood experiences to your current relationship behaviors, giving you insight into why you might be drawn to certain types of partners or find yourself repeating similar relationship dynamics.

No, trauma dating is very different from dating after experiencing trauma as an adult. This is an important distinction that's often misunderstood in mainstream discussions about trauma and relationships.

When people talk about "trauma dating" in mainstream media, they're often referring to dating someone who has experienced recent trauma, or dating while recovering from adult traumatic experiences like abusive relationships, assault, or loss.

Our focus is entirely different. We're looking at how childhood experiences create unconscious patterns that shape who you're attracted to and how you behave in relationships—often decades later.

These patterns develop during critical developmental years when your nervous system and attachment blueprint were being formed. A 5-year-old learning that love is unpredictable will develop very specific relationship strategies that they will later use as an adult. While both may use denial, distraction, acting out, running away and many other ways of coping, in general, the responses you develop as a child are of greater longer-term significance than the ones you make as an adult processing a difficult breakup.

For example, someone who grew up with an emotionally unavailable parent might find themselves repeatedly drawn to distant partners—not because of any recent trauma, but because unavailability feels "normal" to their nervous system.

The abuse or neglect people experience in romantic relationships varies in adulthood. Sometimes it's more intense than what they experienced as children, sometimes less. But the original trauma patterns always trace back to childhood. These are the formative years when we first learned what love looks like, feels like, and costs. We make our partner choices based on those early, often unconscious, lessons.

Trauma dating styles are adaptations developed in childhood to meet the fundamental need for love—especially when that love is not safely or consistently available. These are precise, often unconscious strategies for securing connection under difficult conditions.

In adulthood, these strategies become ingrained patterns that shape who you're attracted to and how you behave in relationships. You might find yourself repeatedly choosing the same type of partner or feeling most connected through familiar dynamics—even when those dynamics are painful.

For example, imagine a child growing up with one parent who is overwhelmed—struggling with depression or a personal crisis—and another parent who is absent or overworked. That child may become the family's emotional first responder, learning that stepping in to help is the only way to feel safe and connected. They meet their need for love and belonging by becoming indispensable, but sacrifice their own need to be cared for and protected.

As an adult, this person might take on the role of “the fixer” in relationships—offering help before it's asked for, or identifying problems their partner isn't even aware of. This creates the familiar sense of being loved through usefulness, but never addresses their original wound: the unmet need to be loved simply for who they are. That's why we call it trauma dating—because it creates both attraction and the potential for inevitable conflict.

The fixer may also find themselves repeatedly drawn to partners who were infantilized by their own parents—people who struggle with independence or self-direction, and who unconsciously invite rescuing. But once these partners feel more secure or supported, they may begin to experience the fixer's helpfulness as controlling. They might accuse the fixer of infantilizing or even bullying behavior, arguing that the fixing dynamic reinforces a power imbalance. In this way, both partners are initially drawn together by complementary needs, yet both may also have legitimate reasons for conflict and, ultimately, separation.

Each trauma dating style reflects a core trade-off you learned to make. For instance, if you experienced discrimination based on your skin color, ethnicity, accent, or gender identity, you may carry an unmet need for acceptance. As a result, you might sacrifice stability in relationships in order to feel accepted—chasing the approval you were denied growing up, even as you sense that the people you're drawn to can't offer you real stability. This double bind—having to meet one need at the expense of another, feeling damned if you do and damned if you don't—is the hallmark of trauma relationships.

These patterns aren't character flaws—they're signs of your strength and adaptability. Recognizing your trauma dating style helps you honor its protective role, while also seeing how it might be shaping your relationships today. Here is the full list of our trauma dating styles.

Trauma dating styles and attachment styles are fundamentally different frameworks.

Attachment theory was originally developed to understand infant-caregiver bonds—how babies form their first relationships with primary caregivers. John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth studied how infants respond to separation and reunion with their mothers, creating categories like "secure," "anxious," and "avoidant" attachment.

In the 1980s and beyond, researchers like Mary Main, Carol George, and Nancy Kaplan extended attachment theory into adult relationships. They developed tools such as the Adult Attachment Interview and explored how early attachment patterns shape adult romantic behavior. This research identified five adult attachment categories: secure, dismissing, preoccupied, unresolved/disorganized, and cannot classify. However, popular culture has simplified this into four main styles:

• Secure: Comfortable with intimacy and independence
• Anxious/Preoccupied: Craves closeness but fears abandonment
• Avoidant/Dismissive: Values independence, uncomfortable with too much closeness
• Disorganized/Fearful-Avoidant: Wants close relationships but fears getting hurt

In theory, many trauma dating styles could be mapped onto these attachment categories. But this mapping often oversimplifies complex human adaptations. For example, the Accommodator might appear "secure" by mainstream standards—seeming easy-going and flexible—but their style actually stems from childhood conditions where accommodation meant survival. The High Achiever may also seem secure due to their competence and reliability, yet they're often driven by a compulsive need to prove their worth. Always Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop might be classified as avoidant because of their emotional distance, but this misses their specific fear of unpredictable loss and abandonment. And Come Here, Go Away might be labeled disorganized, but this style is actually a nuanced survival strategy for managing the terror of both intimacy and abandonment.

The key difference lies in approach and focus. Popular attachment theory asks, “How do you generally behave in relationships?” Trauma dating styles ask, “What specific survival strategies did you develop from your particular childhood experiences—and how and when do those strategies show up in your adult relationships?”

This reveals a crucial limitation of attachment theory: it focuses mainly on relationship dynamics within the primary caretaker-infant dyad, while trauma dating styles span 10 core areas of human experience: Relationship Roles, Love, Body, Reality, Belonging, Safety, Trust, Conflict, Loss, and Boundaries.

Attachment theory primarily covers only a few of these areas—and tends to emphasize simplified patterns that form in infancy and early childhood. This leaves vast territories of human adaptation completely unmapped. For example: how you process reality after gaslighting; how do you deal with boundaries after narcissistic abuse, how your body responds to touch after medical trauma; how you navigate social belonging after a refugee experience or discrimination; how you handle relationship conflict after witnessing domestic violence; how do you trust your partner having grown up with a drug or alcohol addicted parent, how you cope with loss after the death of a non-primary caregiver like a grandparent, sibling, or close friend; how you relate to authority and safety after growing up in high-crime neighborhoods? Are all these children going to be "insecurely attached"? If so, is there anyone out there who is truly "secure"? These trauma-based adaptations are not usually addressed in the popularized version of the attachment theory.

In recent years, some researchers have made dedicated efforts to extend attachment theory to better reflect the richness of human adaptation. For example, P. Crittenden's work in "Assessing Adult Attachment" (2006) offers a Dynamic Maturation Model for understanding attachment behavior, specifically in the context of trauma and difficult childhood experiences.

Our approach honors this richness of experience. We recognize that someone may feel “secure” in one relationship but experience deep challenges in another—depending on which childhood adaptations are being activated. We also understand that behaviors labeled “insecure” may actually be highly adaptive responses to challenging environments such as war, displacement, poverty, or unsafe family systems. In such contexts, hypervigilance, emotional guardedness, emotional unavailability, extreme independence, and quick fight-or-flight responses can be vital tools for survival and success.

Instead of asking, “Are you securely attached?” we ask: “What specific survival strategies did you develop in childhood or adolescence, and how and when do those strategies show up in your adult relationships?” This trauma-based lens honors the complexity of your unique experience, moving beyond the binary of “secure/insecure” and offering a more nuanced understanding of your adult relational patterns.

Our approach is proprietary framework developed specifically for this platform by app developers and fellow trauma survivors who experienced challenging early lives. We're not psychologists—we're people who wanted to build a supportive, empathetic resource for others like ourselves.

Our methodology is straightforward: we compiled a database of hundreds of adverse childhood experiences and mapped them to various adaptations that might be developed in response to unmet childhood needs. We then traced how these adaptations may show up in adult romantic relationships. This framework is built on the idea that humans are incredibly adaptive—we create resourceful, often brilliant strategies to survive and find connection, even in the face of early-life adversity

We were inspired by Imago Theory by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D., which explores how we're unconsciously drawn to partners who will trigger the same childhood wounds—and through conscious relationship work, we can potentially integrate the denied, lost and missing parts and heal those wounds together. You can learn more about their work in their book "Keeping the Love You Find" or explore Imago Relationship Therapy.

While we've done our best to create a useful tool for self-discovery, we recognize that each person's journey is uniquepossible perspectives—patterns based on common themes in trauma survivors' relationships—not definitive answers or absolute truths.

These styles reflect patterns we've noticed in ourselves and others with similar histories. They're grounded in personal experience, not clinical diagnosis. We don't know your exact story or where you are in your healing process. Some of these patterns may resonate deeply, while others may not—and that's perfectly okay.

While this tool offers valuable insights, for personalized guidance, we recommend connecting with professionals through resources like Psychology Today or speaking with a licensed therapist or coach. For additional support, consider exploring resources from organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). If you're going through a particularly difficult time right now, consider waiting until you have more emotional resources or professional support in place. Here's a list of crisis resources:

• Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24/7 crisis support)

• 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 (sexual assault & domestic violence)

• Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 (depression & anxiety support)

• Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800 (ages 5-25)

🇺🇸 USA:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 (24/7)

• RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-HOPE (24/7)

• Crisis Text Line: Text 'HOME' to 741741

• National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)

🇨🇦 Canada:

• Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566 (24/7)

• Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (ages 5-29)

• Crisis Text Line: Text 'TALK' to 686868

• National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-866-887-0015

🇬🇧 United Kingdom:

• Samaritans: 116 123 (24/7 crisis support)

• NSPCC Childline: 0800 1111 (ages 5-19)

• Rape Crisis: 0808 802 9999

• Mind Infoline: 0300 123 3393 (mental health support)

🇳🇿 New Zealand:

• Lifeline Aotearoa: 0800 543 354 (24/7 crisis support)

• Youthline: 0800 376 633 (ages 12-25)

• Sexual Abuse HELP: 0800 623 1700

• Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757

If you're experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please reach out for immediate help. These resources are available for support during difficult times.