The Role of Childhood Trauma in Infidelity

This article is part of a series exploring how unresolved childhood abuse can shape adult behaviors, making survivors vulnerable to leading secretive lives and engaging in infidelity. When early trauma goes unaddressed, the coping mechanisms developed in response to abuse often carry over into adulthood, influencing emotional intimacy, trust, and communication. In this piece, we’ll examine how coping strategies developed in childhood to help manage the pain and terror of childhood abuse can later contribute to emotional disconnection and ultimately increase the risk of infidelity.

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Children are born into the world completely dependent on their caregivers for survival, protection, and emotional support. From infancy, a child looks to their caregivers not only for basic needs—such as food, shelter, and safety—but also for emotional regulation and a sense of security. The caregiver-child relationship forms the foundation for the child’s understanding of the world and their evolving sense of self. When caregivers are loving and nurturing, available and predictable, children are given the space to develop securely, trusting that their needs will be met. However, when caregivers are abusive—whether emotionally, physically, or sexually—the child’s environment becomes hostile, and the emotional and psychological impacts can be devastating.

In situations of ongoing abuse, the child is left to navigate a world that may be predictably hostile or dangerously unpredictable. A child in such an environment is not equipped with the autonomy or psychological resources to escape or make sense of what is happening. They are trapped in a setting where their survival—both physical and emotional—depends on the very people causing them harm. The confusion and helplessness that arise from being repeatedly hurt by those meant to protect them can force a child to develop psychological defenses that help them endure this threatening environment. 

These adaptive strategies, while protective in childhood, can become deeply ingrained and persist into adulthood, even when the individual is no longer in danger. As adults, survivors of childhood abuse may find themselves in safe, caring relationships but still unable to fully trust or engage emotionally. This is because the survival strategies they adopted as children have become indistinguishable from their core sense of self. These protective strategies, while no longer necessary, cannot simply be “turned off” when the threat has passed. 

What was once essential in dealing with hostile others becomes a barrier to connection with others who are loving and safe. 

The following are five common adaptive strategies that adult survivors of childhood abuse often carry into their adult lives. Although these strategies helped them endure horrific abuse in childhood, they can become barriers to psychological wellbeing, emotional intimacy and self-awareness in adulthood.

Lying and Secrecy

For children living in abusive environments, truthfulness can be dangerous. Being honest about their feelings or needs may have led to punishment, ridicule, or further abuse. To protect themselves, these children may learn to lie or withhold the truth to avoid harm. Secrecy becomes a shield, a way to avoid confrontation or maintain a sense of control in a chaotic environment. 

In adulthood, this pattern often continues. Adult survivors may lie about seemingly inconsequential things or keep secrets from their partners or friends, even when there’s no immediate threat. This behavior is not about deception for personal gain, but rather a conditioned strategy for avoiding perceived harm associated with emotional openness and vulnerability. Unfortunately, this can create barriers to intimacy and trust, making it difficult for survivors to build honest and connecting relationships, even with those who genuinely care for them.

Withholding and Avoidance

In abusive households, expressing needs or desires may have been met with neglect, dismissal, devaluation or punishment. As a result, some children learn to withhold their emotions and avoid vulnerability to minimize the risk of being hurt. They may disconnect from their own desires and become experts at self-denial. This can evolve into avoidance of emotional intimacy in adulthood and avoiding any interactions that might be emotionally tense or lead to conflict. 

Survivors may struggle to express what they want or need from their partner, often choosing to stay silent or withdraw rather than risk rejection or disappointment. This withholding is a protective mechanism, but it can leave survivors feeling isolated and misunderstood, even in close relationships. Avoidance becomes a way of life, making emotional connection elusive or out of reach.

Placating and Appeasement

In abusive environments, placating or appeasing the abuser can be an important survival strategy. Children learn to read the moods of their abusers, often bending over backward to avoid conflict or punishment. This can involve suppressing their own needs or feelings in an attempt to keep the peace. Harmony at all costs becomes the rule. 

As adults, these survivors may continue this pattern, often becoming people-pleasers who prioritize the emotional comfort of others over their own wellbeing. They may find themselves in relationships where they constantly defer to their partner’s needs, afraid of conflict or rejection. This behavior, while adaptive in the abusive environment, leaves little room for their own self-expression and can lead to resentment and emotional exhaustion. Over time, this unbalanced dynamic can erode their sense of self-worth.

Suspiciousness and Anticipating Further Wounding

Living in an abusive environment teaches a child that the world is unsafe and that people, especially those close to them, can cause deep emotional or physical harm. This often leads to heightened suspicion in adulthood. Adult survivors may be hyper-vigilant, constantly on the lookout for signs of rejection, abandonment, or betrayal. 

This hyperawareness is a defense mechanism meant to protect against further wounding, but it often prevents one from fully trusting or allowing themselves to be fully known by loved ones.

Even in healthy relationships, they might anticipate being hurt again, interpreting neutral or even positive actions with suspicion. This hyperawareness is a defense mechanism meant to protect against further wounding, but it often prevents one from fully trusting or allowing themselves to be fully known by loved ones. Their constant readiness for further injury (“waiting for the other shoe to drop”) can create emotional distance, making it difficult for partners to feel close and trusted.

Becoming Internally Removed and Self-Estranged

One of the most painful adaptations survivors of abuse develop is a form of self-estrangement. In abusive households, a child’s psychological needs—such as connection, comfort, and validation—are often denied, manipulated, or even weaponized. To cope with this hostile environment, children may disconnect from their inner emotional world, shutting down their basic emotional needs as a way to protect themselves. The less they acknowledge their needs, the less vulnerable they feel to further wounding. This becomes a survival strategy designed to make themselves emotionally smaller, less reliant on caregivers who are unreliable, uncaring, or abusive.

Once this strategy becomes ingrained, survivors carry it into adulthood. As adults, they may struggle to identify their basic psychological needs or feel worthy of care and nurturance. This disconnection can make it difficult to seek comfort from others, even when it’s available, because their protective mechanisms prevent them from reaching out. Vulnerability—asking for help or acknowledging emotional needs—often feels uncomfortable, triggering anxiety or a deep sense of shame. For many survivors, simply having needs can be a source of shame, as they’ve internalized the belief that relying on others makes them weak or unworthy.

Growing up in an environment where their needs were either invalidated or punished, survivors may come to believe that their emotional needs are inherently wrong or burdensome. This shame becomes intertwined with their sense of self, further distancing them from their true emotional experiences.

Shame plays a key role in this self-estrangement. Growing up in an environment where their needs were either invalidated or punished, survivors may come to believe that their emotional needs are inherently wrong or burdensome. This shame becomes intertwined with their sense of self, further distancing them from their true emotional experiences. Over time, the internalized shame leads them to reject their own needs, deepening the disconnection from their emotional core.

As a result, survivors often feel isolated, even within close relationships. They may long for connection, yet struggle to integrate this desire with their ingrained patterns of self-reliance and emotional distance. This internal conflict leaves them feeling trapped, unable to fully engage in intimate relationships and incapable of allowing themselves the vulnerability required for genuine emotional closeness. The more they push away their own needs, the more isolated and disconnected they become from both themselves and those around them.

Childhood Abuse, Affair Prone Adult: How Trauma Adaptations Can Lead to Infidelity

The survival strategies that adult survivors of childhood abuse carry into their relationships can, unfortunately, make them more vulnerable to infidelity. These ingrained behaviors—though originally developed to protect against emotional or physical harm—can create dynamics that make it difficult for survivors to maintain healthy boundaries, communicate their needs, or foster mutual trust and emotional intimacy. 

When these adaptations remain unexamined and unresolved, they can contribute to relational patterns that may increase the risk of infidelity and betrayal.

Lying and Secrecy

The survivor may create a private world where their thoughts, feelings, desires, and needs are kept hidden, and rarely—if ever—shared with their partner. This secrecy isn’t about concealing wrongdoing; instead, it’s a knee-jerk reliance on privacy as a safeguard, developed to feel safe from emotional exposure. Being known at an intimate level can feel intrusive, even violating, making openness with their partner feel risky rather than reassuring. 

In equating emotional safety with concealment, the survivor may unconsciously hold onto secrecy as a way to protect their sense of security and maintain control over what’s important to them. 

In equating emotional safety with concealment, the survivor may unconsciously hold onto secrecy as a way to protect their sense of security and maintain control over what’s important to them. This pattern, born from a need to feel secure, can paradoxically leave them isolated. Tragically, the very behaviors that once served to shield them from harm may now sabotage their capacity for authentic connection, leading to the betrayal of both their partner’s trust and, ultimately, their own values and needs for intimacy. 

Withholding and Avoidance

When emotional withholding becomes a way of navigating relationships, survivors may unconsciously create an emotional void within their partnership. Avoidance of vulnerability—a phobic reaction to emotional openness and self-expression—blocks emotional intimacy, leaving both partners feeling unfulfilled, lonely and resentful. 

In an effort to protect themselves, survivors may avoid sharing their feelings, desires, or fears. This reluctance, however, often leads to ongoing relational dynamics that leave them feeling chronically disconnected and misunderstood. Their partner or spouse, in turn, may feel emotionally neglected and grow resentful due to the survivor’s lack of emotional availability. 

This resentment further reinforces the survivor’s sense of alienation, creating a painful cycle where neither person feels fully seen or understood. Over time, this emotional distance can make the survivor more vulnerable to seeking connection elsewhere, imagining that another person could break this stalemate and offer the understanding they crave. This, however, is an illusion because they will repeat the patterns of withholding and avoidance until they do the self-work needed to break these patterns. 

Placating and Appeasement

Survivors who have developed the pattern of placating and appeasement often prioritize their partner’s needs over their own. While this strategy may help avoid conflict, it can also create an unhealthy dynamic where the survivor’s needs remain unspoken or unmet. 

This imbalance often fosters growing resentment, leaving both partners increasingly dissatisfied with the relationship. The partner who is constantly appeased may begin to expect this deference, contributing to a skewed power dynamic where they feel entitled or indifferent to the survivor’s needs. The survivor, in turn, struggles to reveal their true self because they remain trapped in a cycle of fawning, placating, and appeasement, hiding behind a veil of compliance to avoid conflict or rejection.

In an affair, they might imagine they can finally express their true feelings and be seen and appreciated for who they are—something they believe is impossible within the confines of their current relationship, where placating has become their primary mode of interaction. 

As a result, the survivor never allows themselves to be fully known, which creates an ongoing barrier to genuine connection. Over time, this lack of emotional authenticity can lead to feelings of emptiness and frustration. In their search for emotional fulfillment, the survivor may become more prone to seeking validation or intimacy outside the relationship. In an affair, they might imagine they can finally express their true feelings and be seen and appreciated for who they are—something they believe is impossible within the confines of their current relationship, where placating has become their primary mode of interaction. This longing for emotional freedom, combined with the deep-rooted habit of withholding their true self, can make the survivor more susceptible to infidelity.

Suspiciousness and Anticipating Further Wounding

Survivors who have grown accustomed to anticipating harm or rejection may become hyper-vigilant in their adult relationships, always on guard for signs that they will be hurt again. This constant suspicion erodes trust and intimacy, setting up a self-fulfilling cycle of pain and emotional withdrawal. The survivor’s heightened vigilance can cause them to misinterpret their partner’s actions, leading to frequent accusations and assumptions of betrayal, even when there is no evidence to support these fears. Even the slights and missteps that are commonplace in long-term relationships may be seen as evidence that the other is untrustworthy. 

As a result, the partner who feels unjustly accused or constantly scrutinized may become resentful and emotionally disconnected. This disconnection can lead them to withdraw or act in ways that unintentionally confirm the survivor’s fears. This emotional distance, in turn, reinforces the survivor’s belief that they will eventually be hurt, feeding their suspicion and driving further emotional detachment.

In some cases, the survivor may try to “beat their partner to the punch” by engaging in an affair as a preemptive safety measure. Convinced they will be betrayed, they rationalize their own infidelity as a form of self-protection, a way to take control of the pain they are certain is coming. By enacting their own betrayal, they maintain the illusion of control, believing it will shield them from the anticipated devastation of being hurt again. Unfortunately, this dynamic deepens the emotional rift in the relationship, ensuring that the very outcome they feared becomes inevitable.

Self-Estranged and Internal Shutdown

When survivors become disconnected from their basic emotional needs, it creates significant challenges in forming deep and lasting emotional connections in their relationships. The very survival strategies that once protected them in abusive environments—such as cutting off from their own feelings and desires—become barriers to intimacy as adults. Estranged from their true selves, they may not even fully understand their own need for emotional closeness, support, or comfort, making it difficult, if not impossible, to express these needs to a partner. 

 Cut off from their inner emotional life, they lose access to the essential elements that create a sense of inner vitality, aliveness, and meaningful engagement with others. Without these core emotional experiences, relationships may feel hollow, lacking the depth and connection that fosters true intimacy and fulfillment.

This internal shutdown often leaves survivors feeling chronically unfulfilled in their romantic relationships. They may experience a persistent sense of emotional emptiness or flatness, even in otherwise stable and loving partnerships. Cut off from their inner emotional life, they lose access to the essential elements that create a sense of inner vitality, aliveness, and meaningful engagement with others. Without these core emotional experiences, relationships may feel hollow, lacking the depth and connection that fosters true intimacy and fulfillment.

This disconnection can lead to an endless search for the “ideal partner”—someone who will finally “get” them, fulfill their emotional void, and make them feel whole. But this is an illusion. 

Since the survivor hasn’t connected with their own feelings and worked through their childhood trauma, they are seeking something external to resolve an internal issue. No partner, no matter how empathetic or attentive, can bridge the gap that exists when someone is emotionally shut down from within. This unrealistic expectation can lead to constant disappointment, and survivors may bounce from one relationship to another (or one affair partner to another), believing that the next person will finally be the one who understands them completely and free them from the internal prison of self-estrangement.

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These adaptations, while once crucial for survival in a hostile environment, can unintentionally create conditions in adulthood that leave one to becoming affair prone — even with spouses/partners who are loving, dedicated and responsive.

These trauma-based adaptations are potential roadblocks to emotional intimacy and personal growth in adulthood. The challenge for survivors is to gain insight into these deep-seated defenses and understand that while they once served a critical purpose, they may no longer be necessary in the present. Healing requires unlearning these patterns and developing new ways of engaging with oneself and others—ways that are rooted in safety, trust, and emotional honesty.

The process of healing from childhood abuse is not about blaming oneself for these once-adaptive behaviors, but rather, it’s about acknowledging the impact of early trauma on one’s adult life. Through therapy, self-reflection, and supportive relationships, survivors can begin to dismantle these defenses, reclaim their emotional lives, and build healthy connections based on trust, openness, and mutual care.  

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Rich Nicastro, PhD is a clinical psychologist based in Austin, Texas. He has over twenty-five years of experience working with individuals and couples. He offers teletherapy to clients throughout the United States.