The “Little t” Traumas We Carry– and How They Affect Relationships

Trauma is the word we use to describe how we react to a terrible event or a series of terrible events. Trauma is a big word because it refers to a big thing; Trauma deeply impacts every element of a person’s life, from their relationships to physical health.

Trauma can result from any number of situations– the death of a loved one, a tragic accident, abuse, war, or a natural disaster. But trauma is complicated, and it has less to do with what an event consists of, and more to do with how an individual reacts to it.

While you may not have experienced a significant trauma in your life, you may still have found a situation or experience distressing, confusing, or disorienting. These experiences, while not trauma, influence your relationships and your decisions in a similar way — and can impact your life in ways you may not realize. 

They speak to all those things important to relationships, like attachment styles, communication habits, and conflict-resolution skills. 

If you’ve been struggling to understand yourself or your partner, you may need to acknowledge and work through these smaller, but still significant, distressing experiences. These could be childhood wounds or hurts from past relationships, but the odds of them affecting your relationship are high. 

We talked to Jenn Pinkerton, an intimacy coach and Clinical Sexologist PhD candidate, about these “little t” traumas, attachment styles, and other influences affecting how couples nurture their connection. 

Even the little things are going to impact how you connect with another person. “We can also suffer from things that are less in scope, but still hurt us, things that affect our feeling of belonging, our self-esteem, or make us feel we are only valued in one way,” Jenn said. “We bring all of that into a relationship.”

Jenn Pinkerton Explores Deeper Intimacy

Before Jenn was helping people, she was a freelance writer who covered relationships, dating, and related topics. When she got married and started a family, Jenn decided to continue to pursue education for her writing career. 

Once she was in her Master’s program, she realized that as much as she loved writing, her heart was being pulled elsewhere. 

“I recognized how much I liked the act of attending and holding space for people and clients,” she told us. “So I pivoted and established my own practice, which eventually grew to include my online platform and podcast.”

Jenn sees her practice, online offerings, and podcast as the marrying of all of her favorite things. She gets to share her experiences and expertise while helping others discover the relationships with themselves and others they’ve been looking for. 

Jenn is currently pursuing her PhD in clinical sexology while juggling her practice, blog, and upcoming book, due to be released in 2025. “All of these things are about relationships,” she said. “I focus on why we show up the ways we do in relationships.”

Life is built on and around relationships, whether they’re forged at work, at home or in a broader community. We don’t go into new relationships fresh, though. You’ll bring expectations and habits from old relationships into new ones, without even realizing it.

“So much of our success in relationships, whether we thrive or not, has to do with our understanding of our attachment history, understanding what we’re bringing into this relationship, and really looking at how we’re showing up,” Jenn explained.

When we’re struggling with connection, a good first step is to look inward.

Jenn walked us through how couples can individually attend to their own hurts while also focusing on growing as a couple and strengthening their partnership.

It’s Not Just the Big Things

Jenn told us the concept of smaller traumas wasn’t always widely accepted among the mental health community. “People are coming around to embrace this concept, but it used to be a bit more challenging,” she said. “The idea is that all of us suffer from some sort of attachment wound or some sort of trauma.”

People may be taken aback by this idea because of how we understand trauma– we usually see it as a big thing. But Jenn said even seemingly small things can be traumatic and wounding.  

“A lot of people look at trauma as ‘bit T’ only,” Jenn told us. “Meaning an experience of extreme neglect, abuse, violence, or disaster. We think of it on a very grand, large scale that we normally identify something would be traumatic.”

Experiences that aren’t as life-altering as abuse, a violent attack, or another form of ‘big T’ trauma are still going to play a role in how you connect to other people and form relationships. But because these “little t” traumas can exist under the radar, they can wreak havoc on your relationships and leave you wondering why you find yourself in the same toxic patterns. 

“We have to address the underlying root causes of why we are the way we are,” Jenn explained. “Look at your level of resilience and how you recovered from the things that you’ve experienced. What are your coping mechanisms? How did you survive?”

Jenn told us the answers to these questions can reveal what’s preventing you from thriving in your relationships. Unpacking, exploring, and dealing with the “little t” traumas is a path to deeper self-understanding and connection with others. 

Jenn said exploring the “little t” traumas empowers people with the knowledge they need to understand who they are, why they may struggle, and what they can do to live more self-actualized lives. 

“We’ve got to look at what we did to become resilient,” Jenn said. “Until we can understand the why behind ourselves, it’s a lot more difficult to transform. We need to understand the root causes of our behaviors, and actually give grace for ourselves and our partners.”

If you’re in a relationship, exploring these past painful experiences may bring up sensitive topics with your current partner. But the truth is that we all have pasts that include things we wish we could change or take back, and letting your partner in on your struggle can bring you closer together.

“If you don’t know what your attachment style is and you’re not aware of how you’re showing up, that’s going to affect your partner, and it’s crucial for both of you to have that knowledge and information about each other,” Jenn said.

Fighting Pain is Pain

Traumas, whether big or small, impact how we connect to people and form attachments. Many different attachment theories exist, but among the most common is understanding adult attachment in terms of childhood experiences. Jenn calls them core wounds.

Core wounds usually develop in childhood or adolescence, but they can develop later. These core wounds are made from the stories we’ve been told or tell ourselves about who we are, and are at the root of many of the emotional and relational struggles we face.

“A core wound could be the feeling you’re never good enough, that you’re not prioritized enough, that you’re not enough for someone,” Jenn said. These wounds may linger beneath the surface, but when conflict arises, many unhealthy communication habits come from these wounds.

If you’ve ever gotten into what seems like a superficial fight with your partner, but then one of you starts weeping, you may have touched a core wound. Everyday actions, even when not ill-intentioned, can tap into these core wounds and bring all that pain to the surface.

“You’re fighting about something that’s very surface level, but it’s not about that surface level thing,” Jenn said. “It’s about this lower feeling that was triggered by something your partner did that made that core wound potent.”

While attending to your core wounds is a task for you alone, going through the process with your partner can be an experience that brings you closer and strengthens your relationship. The more open and vulnerable you are with your partner, the greater connection you can nurture.

Exploring the core wounds and traumas of any size can be an undertaking. When you work through negative experiences, you can bring all those complicated and unpleasant feelings to the surface again. But it’s essential you feel that pain because feeling it is the first step to working through it.

“We need to feel to heal,” Jenn said. “We can’t avoid our emotions and we can’t shut them down. We have to say I’m going to deal with this, and really understand the feelings around my pain.”