When Past Wounds Shape Our Marriage

Issue #0022

Have you ever been so deep in the woods that you lose your sense of direction? Emotions can be like that. Many people bring so many past experiences, feelings, and wounds into marriage that it’s hard to stand within any marital conflict and discern what was seeded in the marriage and what was brought into the marriage from previous relationships.

We can be oversensitive, easily angered, insecure, untrusting, controlling, and/or have dramatic mood swings. Each is a potential indicator that we may be carrying wounds from a dysfunctional family of origin or previous relationship. The problem with past wounds goes beyond our own pain. We tend to either do to others what was done to us or to be so determined that no one else will repeat what was done to us that we keep even our spouse at arm’s length. Either reaction may keep us from fully trusting or being trusted. Past experiences can warp our marital expectations, actions and thought processes, often causing us to weaponize our own wounds. Perhaps we’ve been that way for years and settled into accepting it’s who we are.

It’s not.