The Invisible Wounds: How Combat Trauma Affects Your Relationships
When the person you love comes home changed, understanding the invisible wounds can help you both heal together.
The uniform comes off, but the war doesn’t end. If you’re reading this, you’re likely struggling with how combat trauma has affected your most important relationships—or you’re a spouse, partner, or family member watching someone you love battle invisible wounds that are confusing, infuriating, frightening, and heartbreaking.
I know this terrain intimately. As a trauma therapist specializing in combat veterans and their families—and as the spouse of a Purple Heart combat veteran living with PTSD—I’ve seen how trauma creates invisible barriers between people who desperately want to connect but can’t find their way back to each other.
The statistics are sobering: military divorce rates are significantly higher than civilian rates, and combat veterans are more likely to experience relationship difficulties. But behind every number is a couple trying to navigate the complex aftermath of trauma, often without understanding why everything feels so different now.
Today, I want to help you understand how combat trauma affects relationships—and, more importantly, how specialized treatment can help you reconnect with the people who matter most.
The Invisible Nature of Combat Trauma
When Wounds Don’t Show
Physical wounds are visible—people understand them, bring casseroles, offer help, and expect a recovery timeline. Combat trauma, however, lives in the nervous system, in how your brain processes threats, and in emotional responses that feel foreign even to you.
Your family sees you physically present but emotionally absent. They might wonder why you seem fine at work but come home irritable or distant. They don’t realize that managing hypervigilance, processing traumatic memories, and navigating civilian life takes enormous energy—often depleted by the time you walk through your front door.
The Camouflage Effect
Military training teaches compartmentalization: functioning despite internal chaos. This skill, useful in combat, can become a barrier to intimacy at home. You may hide your struggles so well that your family doesn’t understand the depth of your pain—or they may feel shut out from the experiences that shaped you.
How Combat Trauma Disrupts Relationships
Emotional Numbing and Disconnection
Combat trauma often involves emotional numbing—a survival mechanism in war zones. At home, that numbing can prevent access to the full range of emotions needed for intimate relationships.
Your partner might feel like they’re living with a stranger. You may feel like an observer in your own life, unable to fully engage with the people you love most. This isn’t intentional—it’s your nervous system protecting you from overwhelming emotions.
Hypervigilance at Home
The hypervigilance that kept you alive in combat doesn’t automatically turn off in civilian life. You may:
Constantly scan for threats during family outings
Feel uncomfortable in crowds or restaurants
Prefer sitting with your back to the wall
Be startled by sudden movements or sounds
Feel exhausted after social gatherings
This constant alertness can make you seem distant or on edge, even during moments meant for relaxation and connection.
Communication Breakdowns
Military communication is direct, efficient, and mission-focused. Relationship communication requires vulnerability, emotional expression, and tolerance for ambiguity—skills that may feel foreign after years of military conditioning.
You might struggle with:
Expressing emotions verbally or identifying what you feel
Handling conflict without immediately trying to "fix" it
Sharing traumatic experiences without overwhelming your partner
Asking for help or support
Discussing feelings without feeling weak
Intimacy Challenges
Physical and emotional intimacy require safety and presence—both of which trauma can disrupt. You may experience:
Difficulty being physically close without feeling trapped
Intrusive thoughts or flashbacks during intimacy
Emotional walls are preventing a deep connection
Fear of vulnerability or weakness
Difficulty trusting or feeling safe with your partner
The Impact on Military Spouses
Secondary Trauma
Loving someone with combat trauma can create secondary trauma in your own life. You may experience:
Anxiety about your partner’s or children’s well-being
Nightmares or intrusive thoughts
Hypervigilance around moods and triggers, “walking on eggshells”
Feeling responsible for your partner’s emotional state
Isolation from friends or family who don’t understand
Walking on Eggshells
You might constantly monitor your partner’s mood, adjusting behavior to avoid triggering symptoms. This hypervigilance is exhausting and can prevent you from being your authentic self.
Grief and Loss
You may grieve the person your partner was before deployment, the relationship you had before trauma, or the future you imagined together. This grief is valid but often unacknowledged. You may also grieve the version of yourself that existed before this relationship.
Caregiver Burden
Supporting someone with combat trauma can be emotionally and physically exhausting. Feeling guilty for having needs or sacrificing your well-being is common—and unsustainable.
The Ripple Effect on Children
When a Parent Is Different
Children are perceptive. They may not understand combat trauma, but sense when something has changed, leading to:
Confusion about a parent’s mood
Anxiety about their well-being
Difficulty forming secure attachments
Behavioral problems or regression
Fear of emotional reactions
The Protective Spouse Dynamic
Non-military spouses often buffer trauma’s impact on children. While motivated by love, this can create unhealthy dynamics and prevent veterans from developing healthy coping strategies.
Deployment and Reintegration Challenges
The Disconnect Between War and Home
Transitioning from deployment to civilian life requires moving from a world where hypervigilance and aggression were survival tools to one that values vulnerability and emotional connection. Families change, too. Coming home isn’t returning to the old life—it’s creating something new together.
Competing Identities
In combat, your identity was clear: warrior, protector, mission accomplisher. At home, you’re expected to be a partner, parent, and civilian—roles that may feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
Why Traditional Couples Therapy Isn’t Enough
Lack of Military Cultural Understanding: Civilian therapists may not grasp military bonds, hierarchy, or reintegration challenges.
Generic Relationship Models: Standard couples therapy may focus on communication without addressing underlying trauma.
Missing Trauma/PTSD Component: Relationship struggles linked to combat trauma require individual trauma work before healthy patterns can form.
My Approach to Combat Trauma and Relationships
Individual Trauma Work
I use EMDR and exposure therapy to stabilize the nervous system and process traumatic memories, creating a foundation for healthy relationship functioning. Services are available for veterans or spouses.
Couples Work with Military Cultural Competency
My couples therapy addresses the unique challenges of military relationships, including:
Understanding trauma’s effect on attachment and intimacy
Communication skills adapted to military conditioning
Addressing secondary trauma in spouses
Creating safety and trust
Intensive Options for Deep Work
I offer 3-hour, 6-hour, and multi-day intensives for couples needing deeper work, allowing breakthrough moments that can take months in traditional weekly sessions.
Specialized Treatment for Military Relationships
Understanding Military Culture: Deployment cycles, bonds, and military identity are inherently understood.
Addressing Both Partners’ Needs: Spouses also experience trauma and deserve specialized attention.
Evidence-Based Approaches: EMDR, exposure therapy, and trauma-informed couples therapy adapted for military populations.
The Path to Reconnection
Healing is Possible
Combat trauma doesn’t have to define your relationships. Specialized treatment addressing both trauma and relationship dynamics can help couples reconnect and build new patterns of trust and intimacy.
It Takes Time and Commitment
Rebuilding relationships requires time, commitment, and specialized support. Both partners need care: veterans need trauma treatment, and spouses need support for secondary trauma.
For Spouses
Your Struggles Are Valid: Feeling grief, frustration, or exhaustion is normal.
You Can’t Fix This Alone: Trauma requires specialized treatment, not just patience.
There Is Hope: Military couples can rebuild—healing is possible with the right support.
Red Flags You Need Professional Help
For Veterans:
Isolation, worsening emotional numbing, anger outbursts, avoiding intimacy, feeling your family would be better off without you
For Spouses:
Constant anxiety, walking on eggshells, losing your identity, depression, and hopelessness
For the Relationship:
Increasing conflict or emotional distance, lack of intimacy, poor communication, threats of separation/divorce, and children showing behavioral problems
Taking the Next Step
Investment in Your Future
Specialized treatment is an investment in your relationship’s future. It’s about finding someone who can provide the care your family needs.
My Specialized Approach
I offer individual trauma therapy, couples counseling, and family therapy for military families. Services are available in person in Colorado Springs and via telehealth to 42+ states, including military hotspots like Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida.
My office includes my service dog, who provides comfort and helps create safety during difficult sessions.
What Makes My Approach Different
Personal and Professional Understanding: Clinical expertise plus personal experience loving someone with PTSD.
Specialized Training: Years of combat trauma and military family dynamics training.
No Judgment: Understanding of military culture without criticism.
Hope and Healing: Evidence of military couples rebuilding relationships.
Ready to Begin Healing Together?
Combat trauma doesn’t have to define your relationships. With the right support and treatment, you can learn to trust again, feel again, and love again.
You’ve shown incredible courage serving our country, and acknowledging your relationship needs help. Now it’s time to show that same courage in pursuing healing together.
Visit my website to learn more about my services, scheduling, and investment options. Your relationship is worth fighting for—and I’m here to help you win that battle.
Dr. Bartel specializes in combat trauma and PTSD treatment for military service members, veterans, and their spouses and families. She provides in-person therapy in Colorado Springs and telehealth services across 42+ states.
