For the soul that once had their boundaries shattered by someone they trusted… safety is no longer a given. Love is no longer innocent. Connection is no longer easy. But healing is still possible—and so is the kind of love that honors that healing.

I’ve come to learn—through my own journey and through the sacred stories survivors have entrusted me with—that there are few experiences as tender and terrifying as trying to love again after incest.

When betrayal came wrapped in the arms of someone who should’ve protected you, the idea of intimacy can feel like a cruel contradiction. But we still long for it. We long for closeness. For partnership. For love that doesn’t manipulate us, shame us, or take more than it gives.

The truth is: what an incest survivor needs in a romantic relationship is not a mystery. It’s not a test. It’s not even that complicated. It’s sacred. And it’s rooted in the basic human desire to be safe, seen, and sovereign.

Below are the core needs that tend to arise for survivors in romantic partnerships. Not because we’re “too sensitive,” or “too damaged,” but because we’ve had to rebuild ourselves from the rubble of betrayal. We are not asking for too much. We are asking for the right things.

Emotional Safety: The Soil of Healing

Survivors are not just craving affection—we’re looking for safety. Not just from external harm, but from the subtle emotional violence that often goes unnoticed: lying, gaslighting, blame-shifting, stonewalling.

We need a love that doesn’t require us to shrink or guess or over-function to feel safe.

Transparency & Honesty

We’ve had enough secrets. Too many truths were hidden from us under the guise of love. Now, we need honesty—not brutality, but truth with tenderness. We don’t want to be left guessing about how you feel, what you want, or whether we’re safe in your presence.

Consistency Over Grand Gestures

Flowers die. Fancy dates fade. But the person who consistently checks in, holds space, remembers your boundaries, and follows through on their word? That’s the one who earns our trust. Trust is not built in a day—it’s built in the thousand tiny choices you make when you think we’re not watching.

Non-Reactivity

We’ve been punished for our feelings before. Silenced. Mocked. Abandoned. What we need now is a partner who doesn’t make our emotional triggers about them—but rather meets them with curiosity, not criticism.

“Tell me what just came up for you,” is more healing than “What’s wrong with you?”

The Freedom to Say No

Especially around physical intimacy, we need our no’s to be honored without guilt trips or sulking. Consent must be ongoing, enthusiastic, and free from pressure. Love doesn’t push. It waits. It listens. It respects.

Secure Attachment: Healing the Wound of Abandonment

When your earliest experience of “love” was betrayal, it’s hard to believe that love can stay. That love doesn’t vanish when you’re messy or needy or in pain.

Secure attachment is a new language for us—one we didn’t grow up speaking. We need patient partners who are willing to learn it with us.

Reassurance Without Resentment

Survivors often carry a deeply embedded fear of abandonment. We may need to be reassured more than the average person: “I’m still here. I still love you. We’re okay.”

The key? Reassure without resentment. Don’t shame us for needing the very thing our trauma stole from us.

Open, Repair-Oriented Communication

We need to know that conflict doesn’t mean catastrophe. That disagreement doesn’t mean disconnection. We’re looking for partners who stay at the table. Who are willing to say, “I didn’t get that right, but I want to understand.”

Emotional Availability

We’re not interested in a partner who’s only physically present or intellectually stimulating. We need emotional presence—someone who’s willing to feel with us, not just think with us or sleep with us.

Respect for Boundaries: The Return of Sovereignty

When your body and choices were violated in childhood, you grow up doubting your right to say no. You question whether your preferences are valid. You learn to survive by fawning and freezing.

Boundaries are not just about protection—they’re about dignity. And the survivor in us is learning how to reclaim that dignity one boundary at a time.

No Pressure to Share Everything

We’ve already had our secrets stolen from us. Let us offer our stories, our wounds, and our truths at our own pace. Don’t dig. Don’t push. Just hold space.

Affirmation of Our Choices

Whether it’s our relationship with family, our sexual boundaries, our healing practices, or our spirituality—we need a partner who affirms our agency. You don’t have to agree with everything, but you do have to respect it.

Being Seen and Believed: The Healing Power of Validation

So many of us have spent our lives feeling invisible. Or worse—being told that what we lived through didn’t really happen. That it wasn’t “that bad.” That we’re overreacting.

We’ve carried shame that never belonged to us. Now, we need a love that helps us finally lay it down.

Validation of Past Trauma

Don’t question the accuracy of our memories. Don’t psychoanalyze us. Believe us. Even if you don’t understand everything. Even if it’s uncomfortable. Belief is the bridge to safety.

Celebration of Growth

We are not just survivors—we are warriors. We are healers. We are still becoming. A good partner doesn’t just love who we are—they honor who we’ve been and celebrate who we’re becoming. They don’t focus on our “brokenness”; they reflect our strength.

True Partnership: Shared Weight, Shared Worth

Too often, survivors end up doing the emotional heavy lifting in relationships. We over-function. We people-please. We anticipate everyone else’s needs before our own.

But we are tired. And we deserve rest. We deserve reciprocity.

Mutuality

Love should not feel like labor. We need relationships where emotional labor, vulnerability, and care are mutual. Where both people are showing up. Where love flows in both directions—not just when we’re “easy to love,” but especially when we’re not.

Inclusion

Don’t hide us. Don’t keep us a secret. We’ve already spent too many years hidden in plain sight. Include us in your life—your people, your plans, your prayers. Not because you have to, but because we matter.

Support of Healing

Our healing work—whether that’s therapy, journaling, trauma-informed coaching, somatic practices, or setting boundaries with toxic family—is not a threat to your importance. It’s not something to compete with or feel intimidated by.

Support our growth, even if it changes the dynamics. Especially if it does.

Freedom to Be Our Full, Messy, Glorious Selves

We’re not just trauma. We’re not just wounds. We’re not just pain. We’re joy. We’re creativity. We’re silly, sexy, complicated, intuitive, playful, sensitive, brilliant.

We need relationships where we’re not reduced to what happened to us.

Room for Emotions

We will have triggers. We will have dark days. Sometimes we’ll cry for no reason we can name. The most healing thing you can do is not try to fix us, but just be with us in it.

Hold our hand. Stay close. Let us feel.

Permission to Experience Joy

Healing isn’t just about managing pain—it’s about reclaiming joy. We want to laugh. To dance. To be spontaneous. We want to rest and play and explore, not just survive.

The right relationship gives us space for both: our sorrow and our joy.

In Short: We Need Trustworthy Love

Love after incest is not impossible—but it is sacred work.

We don’t need perfection. We don’t need someone to save us. We’ve already done the hardest work of survival and resurrection.

But what we do need is trustworthy love:

• Love that respects our pain without trying to bypass it.
• Love that honors our pace without rushing or slowing us down.
• Love that shows up—consistently, humbly, and without conditions.

We don’t want a partner who pities us. We want a partner who sees us. Who is not afraid of the shadows we’ve walked through. Who meets us in the fire and says, “You’re not too much. I’m still here.”

That kind of love doesn’t just help us feel safe, connected, and valued.

It helps us come home to ourselves.

If you are a partner of a survivor, thank you for being here. This journey asks a lot of you—but it also offers an invitation to become more compassionate, more attuned, and more human.

And if you are a survivor reading this, please hear me:

You are not asking for too much. You are asking for the love you were always worthy of.

Let your needs be known. Let your truth be spoken. Let your healing continue.

And above all—may you never again settle for love that costs you your safety.