Picture this. You’re arguing with your partner about something relatively minor. You’ve made a mistake and now things are escalating. You forgot to get the milk she asked you to pick up. You said you were going to plan a date night and then double booked something else without discussing it first. You offered to make him coffee and then made your own coffee instead and forgot about his.
Now your loved one is upset. Where’s the milk? What about our date night? You didn’t make my coffee?
And suddenly, it’s off to the races. You deny that she ever asked you to get the milk. You spout off a justification for why prioritizing date night was an unreasonable request. You defend why you didn’t make his coffee. And your partner is bewildered and confused. Why aren’t you just admitting the relatively small mistake, expressing remorse, and initiating repair?
Unless your loved one has a severe case of the conflict avoidance dance, your loved one then presses you for accountability. Just admit that you forgot the milk and offer to go pick some up. Just tell the truth about prioritizing work over date night- again- and apologize before rescheduling date night for another night. Just make the goddamn coffee already and don’t get defensive.
But before you can blink, you’re escalating instead of repairing the small breach. You start twisting the truth to try to shirk accountability.
You tell yourself she’s delusional if she thinks she actually remembered to ask you to get the milk.
You don’t like his tone and start attacking him for raising his voice and looking at you the wrong way.
You get cold and stony, avoid eye contact, and start intellectualizing (only you’re not making sense).
And next thing you know, you’re accusing your loved one of exactly what was done to you by your abusive mother- or your neglectful father- or your exploitative ex.
And now your loved one is flummoxed. Because it was just a small thing, and repair could have been easy. A simple “My bad. I forgot the milk. Let me go get it” would have been over in a flash of heat. But now you’re piling unfounded nefarious accusations on the person you’re supposed to love the most, and they’re bound to feel helpless, fight for justice when they’re being unjustly accused, escalate any bad feelings they’d had about the mistake, and likely go on the offensive (fight), or withdraw (flee)- or if your accusations are unfounded enough and mean enough- dissociate (freeze.)
What just happened? We’ll get into more detail about this topic of displacement in an upcoming workshop I’m co-teaching with Harvard psychiatrist Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv. (We invite you to join us for Healing Attachment Wounds in Relationship September 14-15. Learn more and register here.)
But until then, let’s unpack this a little.
Understanding Displacement
We all carry within us the echoes of our past—experiences that have shaped us, traumas that have wounded us, and memories that linger in our minds, bodies, and hearts. These past experiences are not merely historical; they quite literally live in our bodies, minds, and spirits, influencing our present lives in ways we may not even realize. One of the most insidious ways this happens is through displacement—when we unconsciously transfer emotions, fears, and unresolved trauma from our past onto those closest to us, particularly our partners- especially our partners. The more intimate we are with people, the more likely we are to unload the toxic waste dump of our past traumas onto them, when they might have done very little to deserve the emotions that might get elicited.
Displacement is a defense mechanism, or in Internal Family Systems (IFS) language, “a protector part,” that allows us to express emotions that are too hot to handle directly. While it may serve a protective function, it can also cause significant harm to our relationships, leading to false accusations, defensiveness, misunderstandings, emotional distance, and looping conflicts that don’t repair easily. Recognizing when we’re displacing past trauma onto our partners is a crucial step toward healing, since we can’t do better until we understand what’s happening.
Displacement commonly happens when Complex-PTSD survivors experience emotional flashbacks. Your tone of voice sounds like their mother, or you’re wearing red, just like the abuser did, or your attempt to hold someone accountable for their own bad behavior emotionally evokes the same kind of intensely intolerable shame a trauma survivor might have carried, when that shame should have been felt by their perpetrator, not piled onto someone innocent. Rather than feeling that shame, they displace their painful feelings onto you as a way to displace the pain.
The emotional flashback causes you to react to your partner the same way you might have reacted (or wished you’d been able to react) to a perpetrator when you were younger and more helpless. But that person might have no idea why you’re suddenly accusing them of something they haven’t actually done. It can be very confusing for the innocent bystander to someone else’s emotional flashback.
Making Sense of Displacement & Trauma
What do we mean by “displacement?” Displacement occurs when we redirect painful emotions from their original source (usually from a traumatic past) onto a “safe object,” who is usually your safer, more acceptable partner. For example, if your parents beat you when you made a mistake as a child, you might get instantaneously defensive or even go on the offensive if your partner tries to hold you to account after you do something wrong or make a mistake.
Or if you experienced rejection or abandonment as a child, you might unconsciously expect your partner to reject or abandon you, even if they’re not actually doing so. This can lead to unwarranted accusations, heightened emotional responses, jealous reactions when there’s no threat, and avoidable conflict in your relationship, which instead of de-escalating the conflict, makes it worse.
Unresolved, untreated trauma can have a profound impact on how we perceive and interact with the world, and as the safe objects, our partners tend to bear the brunt of that. Trauma is not just an event that happened to us; it’s an experience that imprints itself on our nervous system, influencing our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. When we haven’t fully processed or healed from trauma, we may find ourselves reacting to present situations as if they were the past, displacing our unresolved feelings onto those around us. While it might not have been safe to rage at Mom or Dad, we might find ourselves raging at our partners, when they haven’t really done anything to warrant that degree of rage.
Signs You May Be Displacing Past Trauma Onto Your Partner
Displacement can be challenging to recognize because it’s often unconscious. However, there are certain signs that may indicate you’re displacing past trauma onto your partner:
1. Overreactions to minor issues
If you find yourself having intense emotional reactions to relatively small issues, it might be a sign that something deeper is at play. For example, if you’re just trying to hold your partner accountable for a small mistake he made- and you’re getting blamed for behaviors you’re not doing or getting compared to his worst abuser from childhood, displacement is probably at play.
2. Recurring patterns of conflict
Do you keep getting swept up into repeating patterns you can’t seem to resolve? If so, it’s possible that you or your partner (or both) are displacing unresolved trauma from the past onto your partner in the present, when it might be unwarranted. You might be reacting to them as if they were someone from your past, leading to repeated misunderstandings and emotional pain- and eroding trust and safety in present time.
3. Feelings of unexplained anxiety or fear
Unresolved past trauma can create a heightened sense of threat, even in safe situations and with safe people. Especially if your nervous system is upside down and you register safety as danger- and danger as safe- you may feel frightened when you’re with someone safe, loving, and capable of intimacy- because you’re used to dangerous people, so safe people capable of intimacy can feel terrifying. You may be projecting fears from your past onto your partner, perceiving danger or rejection where none exists.
4. Difficulty trusting your partner, even when he or she behaves in trustworthy ways
Trust issues are a common sign of unresolved trauma. If you struggle to trust your partner, even when they’ve given you no reason to doubt them, you may be displacing past experiences of betrayal, abandonment, or abuse onto them. This can create a cycle of suspicion and insecurity that erodes the foundation of your relationship.
5. Feeling emotionally distant or numb
Sometimes, displacement manifests not as intense emotion- but as emotional numbness or avoidant distancing. If you find yourself shutting down emotionally or feeling disconnected from your partner, it could be a way of trying to limit intimacy or intrusion and thereby protect yourself from re-experiencing the feelings past trauma might bring up in you because of some ways your partner behaves. This self-protection mechanism can prevent you from fully engaging in your relationship, becoming more deeply and safely intimate, and from healing the wounds of the past.
Harvard psychiatrist Jeffrey Rediger and I will be talking about this- and other ways we create unnecessary drama with our partners- in an upcoming Zoom weekend workshop- Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationship.
I’ll be discussing some strategies for breaking out of the displacement cycle in the next blog, so stay tuned!
