by Ava Marie Somers, MACP, CCC
I have been counted. I have done the counting. Perhaps you have too.
We mark some histories down and allow others to reassure us.
But underneath the counting are two more vulnerable questions:
Will loving me require your life to take the shape of my wounds?
Will loving you require mine to take the shape of yours?
Picture someone sitting across from a romantic interest.
Never been with anyone.
On the other side of the table, fingers go still around a cup that went cold ten minutes ago. A held breath.
The smallest pause.
Why? How? What’s wrong with you?
Of course, no one asks the questions aloud. The silence asks them anyway.
At twenty, never having been with anyone can sound like a credential. Purity. The safest, most valued self a partner could offer.
Approaching midlife, what once counted in a person’s favour is now being read as a strike against them.
Now picture another table.
A family dinner. Parents. Siblings. Someone has come home with news.
There is someone. It may become serious.
Then come the questions. A marriage before. A child. More years between them than the family expected. Another culture. A faith not entirely shared.
Nothing scandalous. Just a life that falls outside what the family has come to regard as ideal.
The room goes quiet. A parent sets down a fork. A sibling studies the table.
What? Why? How would this work?
Of course, no one asks the questions aloud. The silence asks them anyway.
Two tables. Two very different silences.
At one, almost no history has become a strike. At the other, more history has become a warning.
And neither table is asking what actually matters.
What the Count Cannot Tell Us
There are many things I could follow from those two tables.
Age. Purity. Family approval. Culture. Faith.
But what holds my attention is the counting.
Never. Once. Twice. A few. Several. More than expected. Too many.
We count because we are trying to predict what choosing this person might mean for the future of a relationship. And somewhere in the weighing, how much, how little, what kind, judgment becomes inevitable. The person is judged as more or less worthy of being chosen and, ultimately, as more or less suitable as a partner.
The amount of a person’s romantic history, whether none or much, is a flawed basis for judging that person’s worth as a potential lifelong partner.
Romantic history is not a measure of woundedness, nor is its absence a measure of purity or suitability.
In fact, the safety we assign to little or no romantic history can become the perfect hiding place for wounds, unacknowledged, unattended to, and still capable of doing real harm.
When we mistake a person’s history for a verdict, we may disqualify someone who has done the work, trust someone who has not, and exempt ourselves from looking inward.
Our judgments do not only reduce other people. They shrink our own lives by narrowing whom we will allow ourselves to know.
The Question Underneath
What do I mean by a wound?
A wound is the lasting emotional or relational effect of an experience that hurt, overwhelmed, or disrupted us. It is not only what happened, but what the experience continues to shape in how we see ourselves, read other people, and enter closeness.
Wounds are not restricted by age, race, gender, class, faith, or romantic experience. Anyone can be wounded.
The same event does not wound every person in the same way, or at all. One person may be profoundly wounded by a single incident. Another may live through many without a lasting wound.
And even a profound wound, or a difficult past, does not permanently determine who someone is now or what kind of partner they can be. People recover. They change. They build healthy lives.
So whether someone has wounds is not what I most need to know.
What I need to know is whether I can remain fully myself beside them.
Two questions help me see the answer:
What relationship does each person have with their own wounds?
What demands will those wounds place on the relationship?
The Relationship with the Wound
It may sound strange to speak of someone having a relationship with a wound.
After all, we usually reserve the word relationship for what happens between people.
But at its simplest, a relationship is an ongoing pattern of influence and response. A wound affects the person. The person responds to the wound, consciously or not. As that exchange repeats and deepens over time, it becomes a relationship.
I see three ways a person may relate to a wound.
Fusion
In fusion, the wound is too close to be seen as a wound. Its influence has become indistinguishable from the person’s ordinary understanding of themselves, other people, and relationships. How it manifests feels normal.
Picture someone who grew up in a home where quiet was the rule. Opinions were not invited. Children learned not to take up too much room. Looking back, the person remembers it as a peaceful home.
Years later, the sound of other people’s full presence feels unsettling. A loud laugh. A strong opinion. Footsteps across the room. Soon, the people around them are being asked to soften. To lower their voices. To become easier to live beside.
Nothing in the person says, This is the old house.
What they are doing feels reasonable. They are simply protecting the peace.
Deference
In deference, the wound can be seen, but the relationship between the person and the wound is organized by rank. The wound occupies the higher position.
The person knows why a loud laugh, a strong opinion, or footsteps across the room feel unsettling. They can connect the discomfort to the house where quiet was the rule.
I know this comes from how I grew up. I know it may not be fair.
But knowing is not the same as changing. The discomfort rises, and the household still becomes quiet. Other people soften, lower their voices, and take up less room.
Over time, deference can begin to sound like identity.
This is just who I am. Take me or leave me.
The wound is recognized. Its authority remains.
Stewardship
In stewardship, the relationship between the person and the wound is organized by care and responsibility. The wound is held. Direction, choice, and authority remain with the person.
A loud laugh, a strong opinion, or footsteps across the room may still feel unsettling. The person recognizes what is happening.
This is touching something old.
The wound may not disappear. But it is attended to. The person learns to settle, to ask for help, and to choose what happens next.
The discomfort may ask for a pause. A quieter moment. Some understanding. But it does not get the final say. It does not determine how much room everyone else is allowed to take up or how the household must function.
The wound can speak. It does not drive.
What the Wound Asks of the Relationship
No wound remains entirely private once the wounded person enters a romantic relationship, especially a marriage.
So it would be incomplete to examine only the relationship a person has with their own wound. We also have to account for what that wound asks of the relationship, and what it may cost the people inside it.
One Possible Cost of Fusion: The Burden Shifts
When a person cannot see their own wound, the burden of recognizing and responding to it can shift to the person beside them.
That person may be living with effects the wounded person cannot recognize. Their account alone may not be enough. So they begin doing the work of making the pattern visible.
Names the pattern. Explains its impact. Gathers evidence. Teaches. Compensates. Tries, again, to persuade.
Eventually, the relationship can become a second career. So much attention goes into managing what the other person cannot see that the person beside them begins losing touch with their own needs, their own voice, and themselves.
One Possible Cost of Deference: Relational Life Narrows
In deference, the wound is no longer hidden. The person can see it. Name it. Speak about it in detail.
But awareness does not always give someone access to change.
Over time, that gap can harden into hopelessness. The person sees what the wound is doing but does not know what would help them move differently.
For some, relational life narrows through withdrawal.
Maybe relationships are not for me.
The concern is not the absence of a relationship. It is the surrender of a connection the person may still desire because the wound has made intimacy feel impossible.
For others, the relationship forms, but the connection can only deepen as far as the wound allows.
The wound becomes the primary language of intimacy.
You tell me what happened to you. I tell you what happened to me.
There is recognition. Relief. The comfort of being understood. But disclosure can become repetitive and uncontained. The other person is asked to keep receiving the pain, while nothing develops beyond its telling.
Two people may know each other’s injuries in extraordinary detail while knowing very little about who they are beyond them.
What Stewardship Asks: Room for Both
In stewardship, the wound may still ask things of the relationship. Patience. Comfort. Time. Understanding.
These are ordinary asks. They are made in the open, and the person beside them can answer them honestly. An ask leaves room for a yes, a not now, or a no. The answer may shape what happens next, but neither person has to disappear in order to give it. The wound does not get to decide the outcome by itself.
When the wound is stirred inside a relationship, stewardship becomes visible through three relational practices:
- Negotiation: Allows the person to name what the wound is stirring without making the other person’s need disappear. “I do not want you to give up what you need. How can we work this out together?”
- A responsible pause: Creates time to process without abandoning the conversation. “Can we pause here and agree to return to it tomorrow?”
- A willingness to choose differently: A new choice allows the person to move in a different direction while the wound is still speaking. “Part of me wants to pull away. I want to stay in this conversation and hear you out.”
Back at the Tables
Go back to the two tables.
At one, almost no history has become a strike. At the other, more history has become a warning.