how can I get over the fact of his features being so similar to my abusers?
Are you working with a T to help you address this?
My partner has a beard. Trigger. Massively. Wasn’t just a reminder, it set off flashbacks and was absolutely something that wasn’t going to just settle. He has self confidence issues though, and I knew that shaving it was going to be a pretty hard thing for him to do. So I worked through it. No magic, just had to continually direct my internal dialogue to reminding myself who I was with, and that
this beard actually belonged to a person I
wanted to be with. Getting myself grounded, over and over!
I also made a point of touching it. He endured quite a bit of me just plain old running my fingers over his face when I was in the right kind of headspace to do that work. Explored it like it was a brand new thing that I was building a relationship with. Me and his beard. Took work, but we got there. Me and his beard get along quite well now.
And then I balanced that with self care - when it got too much? I took time out. We’d had a few conversations about it, and he gets that when I need space? He gives me space.
The other strategy you can engage is exhausting and frustrating but incredibly effective if you persist. The internal dialogue going on is reeeally important. Your head is continuously reminding you “He looks just like...”, right? Listening to that internal dialogue carry on, without interrupting it, is going to make living with this an impossible task. It’s like this grand ‘truth’ that your brain is continually reminding you about, and it can leave you feeling defeated and hopeless.
But you can practice interrupting that internal dialogue, each and every time it starts up, “Actually brain, I’m with ...right now, and I really
like being with him”, and then refocus on what you’re doing, bringing yourself back out of your headspace.
At first, it’s just a constant back and forth, with your brain reminding you that he looks like, and you correcting your brain that actually..., and eventually your brain will ease up, and then with time, it will give up on that internal dialogue tennis match altogether. You’re rewiring the pathways that your brain is trained to take when it gets these reminders. It takes practice and persistence, but you can train your brain to have completely new thoughts when you see these triggers.
It’s not just that he can’t do anything about his features, his physical features are the innocent party here. They haven’t done anything wrong. In fact, you can probably think of some really great things those features have done, like maybe he’s given you some really engaging and loving looks with those eyes...
That’s where your focus is going to need to be. Remind your brain to focus on those good things, each time it wants to go down those old trigger-pathways.
It takes work. It’s not easy. And you will need time out at intervals to give yourself a break. But if he’s worth it? The hard work will pay dividends. Ultimately, there will probably be things that crop up in any relationship that will take your brain back to your abuser. Intimacy makes our head go there, and it’s unfair. But it doesn’t need to make this relationship impossible. You can master
any trigger, it’s just a question of time, work and self compassion.
Hope it works out for you guys:)
