Just the Tip: Sharing Your Trauma with Others 

“When trauma is a factor in someone’s past, how would you recommend sharing that with partners/metamours?”

Last year, on the Wild & Sublime live Chicago show, I got this audience question during the Q&A portion. Time ran out before the panel and I were able to answer it, so I’ll address it here.

How Well Do You Know Your Trauma? 

If you’ve experienced significant trauma in your past, there may come a point when telling intimate partners and perhaps those in your polycule, such as metamours (your partner’s other partners in polyamory speak), can benefit you. Sharing with partners may build emotional intimacy and trust and perhaps even deepen the quality of your erotic life. Remember, though, you’re in charge of determining how much to share, when to share and with whom.

How you share your trauma history depends on a few factors. First, is your trauma just coming to light? If you’re still in a raw place, consider taking it slowly when talking about it with folks other than a mental health practitioner. Your insights are probably still coalescing. 

Or if you have already metabolized trauma, understand your triggers and know how your relationships get impacted, you can share what that looks like. Do you pull away or get overly close? (How you show up in relationships is  popularly known as your attachment style, and you can read more in books like PolySecure by Jessica Fern or Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.)

How to Build Emotional Intimacy After You’ve Had Trauma

When we go to share deep information with others, we’ll have more success if we set the stage. 

Sometimes “when we share something, we have not necessarily shared what we’re looking for,” said Chicago somatic therapist Meggie Twible, whose client list includes those who are polyamorous. “Then the other person hears what we have shared and goes into their own kind way of responding that’s usually well-intentioned and might not be what we actually need. So I’ll ask my clients, what kind of support are you looking for right now? For some people that’s a new consideration, like, oh, what are the options? 

“Oftentimes when conversations have taken a turn that wasn’t anticipated,” Twible said, “it’s because there’s been a misalignment of what’s being sought out and what’s being offered. Making it more explicit can be helpful. You could say, ‘Hey, there’s something I want to share with you, and I’m actually just looking for you to listen to me. I don’t need you to respond much,’ or ‘I’m hoping you might be able to offer some empathy or some reflective listening. Do you have capacity for that?’”

How to Share About Trauma in New Relationships

If we’ve had trauma, we might not know how to share in ways that support us. Oversharing might feel like leaning into vulnerability, but in the past if you’ve found yourself telling new partners everything about your story in the first weeks of a relationship and come away feeling unsettled rather than empowered, that’s a sign to slow down to build some guardrails.

“If you’re noticing an urge to disclose or to share something, do a simple check-in of like, what am I hoping to get out of this?” Twible said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a wrong impulse. Maybe it’s necessary, but create a little space for yourself to slow down to question, ‘Is this urge part of a pattern for me, and is that a pattern I want to choose to continue right in this moment, or is it something I’m actually wanting to experiment with doing differently?’”

Share Your Trauma Story in Stages 

Frame the story first. You don’t have to give nitty-gritty details when sharing initially. A basic overview is fine. Something like, “I had a rough upbringing and I’m working through it. That’s all I want to say right now. I might share more later.”

The next piece is your partner or friend’s response.

“It’s really important to offer just a little bit, and then see: Are there more questions asked?” Twible said. “Does your body feel relaxed and present as you’re receiving a response or as you’re sharing? If you’re not really here while you’re sharing your story, then that ends up being another trauma reenactment too.”

How to Gauge a Partner’s Reaction 

How people react to your sharing is critical to building trust both in the relationship and with yourself. There can be as many reactions as there are people. Remember their responses are about them, not you.

Ways partners might respond and how you can move forward:

Indifference, minimizing, or switching subjects — Does your new partner have trouble paying attention while you’re telling them your experience? Do they downplay the information or change the subject quickly? As I said, this is about their comfortability and emotional capacity, not so much about your disclosure. Based on your initial share, do you think they can be there for you if you tell them more later?

Listening, but then sharing their own experience immediately — People can signal the desire to connect by divulging their own story in response. Do you feel seen by your partner sharing a common issue? Or is it displacing you and making it about them? Of course, this can be a matter of degrees. Check in with yourself and talk about it with others after to get a better read.

Listening, allowing you to finish, offering support — Ideally, you want to be heard. You can gauge the quality of listening by whether the person asks a few questions to clarify things for themselves, like what exactly might trigger you or what might be helpful to support you.

Talking to Others About Your Trauma History

Since the questioner asked about metamours, I’ll assume they’re in a kitchen table polyamory (KTP) arrangement, where partners and partners of partners are in a close-knit polycule, socializing together regularly and maybe communicating easily about emotionally intimate topics.

It’s probably not in your best interest to broach the topic over a polycule dinner. You run the risk of having your experience objectified and treated superficially, no matter how much folks care. Groups in social situations typically don’t have the ability to go deep and hold space for people needing support. 

But if your polycule does have regular group check-ins devised to create support, sharing might work for you. You can follow the suggestion above about simply giving an overview of your situation to gauge responses.

Telling Metamours

Or you can chat individually with your metamours, deciding on a case-by-case basis. But first ask yourself about your motivation. Are you doing it to get support? Build intimacy and bonds? Or some other reason, like using your story to change dynamics if you’ve felt undervalued in the relationships? 

“What are you hoping disclosure will offer you or will do to the metamour or your relationship with your partner?” Twible said. “My other thought is, isn’t this a hinge issue?” (The hinge is the person at the center of a relationship — a V dynamic — who dates two or more partners not romantically involved with each other.) “Meaning, is there something that’s happening in the hinge, like in the way that your partner navigates holding these two that’s feeling not quite right for you, and is it really actually another conversation or something that’s needed with your partner, rather than your metamour?”

If you’re feeling an urgency to share, as mentioned above, don’t pressure yourself. There can be a lot to sift through, and we can get support to do so. Trauma can live in deeper parts of ourselves, and we don’t have to talk about it with people until we’re ready to.

Karen just dropped a Wild & Sublime podcast review of Sex Diaries, edited by Alyssa Shelasky, an anonymous collection of weekly diaries chronicling people’s sex lives and focusing on nonmonogamy. Listen here. 

Have a sex or relationship question you’d like Karen to answer? Or want to be interviewed? Email her at  [email protected]