231 - Why Your Relationships Keep Triggering You Even After You've Done the Work w/ Patrick Teahan231 - Why Your Relationships Keep Triggering You Even After You've Done the Work w/ Patrick Teahan
Adult Child
Andrea Ashley and psychotherapist Patrick Teahan talk about why old wounds still show up in relationships even after years of trauma work, with plenty of humour and honesty. Their conversation touches on alcoholic families, self-sabotage, moral rigidity and what “good enough” relationships might actually look like.
1:14:07•20 May 2026
Why Healing Work Doesn’t Make You ‘Relationship-Trigger Proof’
Episode Overview
- Healing work helps you choose healthier people, but it doesn’t stop old wounds from surfacing in long-term relationships.
- Childhood trauma often trains people to chase unavailable partners and try to rescue them, replaying old family roles.
- Many survivors turn everything into a moral issue, which can strain relationships and make social media especially triggering.
- Self-sabotage can come from internalised family narratives like “you’re not capable,” pulling people back to familiar low places.
- Therapy and group work can bring someone from drowning in trauma to a more level, human place, without eliminating future growth.
“Therapy work just really brought me up to sea level with everybody else. It made me more human as opposed to feeling like I was drowning all the time.”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober and sane in relationships, even after years of therapy? This candid conversation between host Andrea Ashley and psychotherapist/childhood trauma educator Patrick Teahan is all about why “doing the work” doesn’t magically stop you from getting triggered in love.
Patrick shares how he kept trying to “save his alcoholic mother through the women he dated,” and how a 10‑month relationship in his mid‑twenties blasted open wounds he thought he’d already handled in a four‑year trauma group. Therapy, he says, didn’t turn him into some enlightened guru – it just “brought me up to sea level with everybody else,” so he wasn’t drowning all the time.
The two swap stories on swearing, dark humour and why trauma survivors often turn everything into a moral issue. Andrea jokes about being a “total and complete shit show” and makes it clear this podcast is “not everyone’s cup of tea” – and that’s exactly the point. Both of them argue that real healing means becoming your authentic self, even if that includes curses, sarcasm and a bit of chaos.
They also get into: - Long‑term relationships as a spotlight on old wounds you didn’t know were still there. - What happens when one partner is in therapy and the other is impatiently asking, “Why aren’t you better yet?” - How childhood setups train people to chase unavailable partners and sabotage jobs, love and opportunities. - The grief of realising your parents didn’t want more for you – and the relief of finally wanting more for yourself.
If your relationships keep triggering you and you’ve been blaming yourself for “not being healed enough,” this chat might help you swap shame for curiosity. Could it be that your triggers are showing you where the next layer of healing actually is?
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