Again, Charles Figley, in Burnout in Families, said the most important thing in the family where trauma is an issue is that the primary caregiver—whether that's the intimate partner, the mother or the father—is able to maintain self-care and strong personal boundaries.
I can tell you, as the parent of a child with a traumatic injury, being in therapy has been very important for me, because I so want to rescue her. I so want to make everything okay. Both my husband and I realize that we can't do that. So what's challenging as a mother is not to enable that injury. I can't imagine, if it were my husband, how much more I'd want to enable and just be the impetus for the healing. So that has been fundamentally important for me.
Again, as articulated by Figley and a number of others, the intimate partner or the significant caregiver needs to be actively working on maintaining their personal boundaries and self-care. If it's your intimate partner and you're afraid to leave your children at home alone because you don't know if they're going to be cared for, you know what the reality is.