What Are “Lovetraps,” and How Can They Get You Stuck in Your Marriage or Love Relationship?
Have you ever read your partner’s behavior negatively, only to find you were blowing things out of proportion? If you’re like most humans, that is easy to answer. Past experiences shape how we see the present, even when that perception doesn’t fit reality.
These mental filters are called “schemas,” beliefs that shape how you see yourself and the world. Fear-of-abandonment schemas most likely come from key past experiences when you were hurt or betrayed. These schemas become “Lovetraps” because they create blind spots that block safety and closeness in our relationships.
Closely linked to schemas are emotions: anger, sadness, fear, shame, and the behavioral urges that follow.
The most common “lovetrap” schemas relate to self-esteemm) and relationships (with caregivers, romantic partners, and peers).
Common Schemas in Relationships
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Abandonment: you expect instability, unreliability, or loss of anyone you are close to
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Mistrust and Abuse: you expect significant others will hurt, abuse, humiliate, cheat, lie, manipulate, betray, or take advantage of you
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Emotional Deprivation: you believe that significant others, including your partner and caregivers, will never meet your primary needs for nurturance, empathy, affection, and protection
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Defectiveness or Shame: you feel you are bad, unwanted, undesired, inferior, or invalid
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Social Exclusion: you feel different or not part of any group or community; you minimize similarities with other people and maximize differences, usually with peers and groups
Your parents gave you a basic template for loving relationships.
Sensitivities also develop from painful experiences with siblings, family members, or other significant people.
How Do You Know When You’re Stuck in a “Lovetrap”?
A firing schema pushes you to either go numb or react with anger, fear, sadness, or shame. Emotion moves fast, as a protective response to help you survive the potential of danger or threat.
To understand what’s happening with your partner, regulate your nervous system first. Breathing, muscle relaxation, or focused attention helps integrate your emotional and logical brain.
If you can bring your nervous system down, logical thinking becomes accessible.
When your schema is triggered, you’ll most likely notice that you’re feeling off-balance, disoriented, disorganized, angry, or numb.
The urges that surface may puzzle your partner, since they rarely match the current situation.
With an abandonment schema, where you fear relationships won’t last, your coping strategy of anger that protests against a disconnection with your partner ends up causing more distance and disconnection in your relationship.
The Brain and Body Connection
Your Brain is an Anticipation Machine: Your Past Shapes How You See the Now
Your brain responds to cues in your current relationship with associations from past caregivers, unless your past hurts have been resolved.
With a mistrust schema, your partner arriving home an hour late can feel like proof of betrayal.
As you wait, your body goes into alarm mode, preparing for betrayal.
You may get angry when your partner arrives home, accusing them of misleading or lying to you.
Your anger pushes your partner away from you, and you most likely feel distance instead of closeness and reassurance.
It’s hard for any partner or spouse to respond effectively to the emotion of anger.
In reality, your partner may simply have been running late from work, instead of having an affair.
Many of us are afraid to express our sensitivities or vulnerabilities to other people, especially our partner or spouse.
Your partner can hurt you more deeply than anyone, and you may fear they’ll see your flaws and leave.
Your partner can’t respond well if you’re flooded. Regulation comes first.
Courage and a leap of faith are needed to help you express your sensitivities to your partner so that they can respond in a way that helps you feel better.
esources to Help: Reinventing Your Life & Mindsight
chema therapy, developed by Dr. Jeffrey E. Young, is an empirically validated approach that combines the best methods from cognitive behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and behavioral therapy.
You can read more about schemas and how they may impact you and your relationships in the self-help book, Reinventing Your Life, by Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko. The Loving at Your Best Plan uses schema therapy as a foundation for our approach to improving marriages and love relationships.
Mindsight, developed by Dr. Daniel J.
Siegel, is at the forefront of brain science, using interpersonal neurobiology to help change your brain.
At the Loving at Your Best Plan, we use advanced techniques from the Mindsight approach to help you in your relationship.
Share Your Experiences from Your Marriage or Love Relationship
Do you recognize times when you become very upset, or go numb, when your partner does or says something? Do you recognize what upsets your partner?
Share your experiences of getting caught in your “lovetraps,” and help others in our community to learn from your wisdom.
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Travis Atkinson, LCSW, specializes in evidence-based couples therapy including the Gottman Method, EFT, and Schema Therapy, for couples in NYC and online. Take the first step today.
