How Do Parents Shape Your Love Life?
Our parents model behaviors.
Our relationship with our parents affects how we relate to and understand romantic relationships. We learn how to interact with our romantic partners by watching our parents interact. Lev Vygotsky theorized that during childhood a great deal of learning occurs in contexts with a more knowledgeable other. Our parents model behavior in romantic relationships that teach us expectations and how to negotiate our roles. One of the key things this teaches us is about conflict resolution. Think back to when you were a child watching your parents when they disagreed. Did your parents yell and curse at each other? Did one or both of your parents give the other the silent treatment when they couldn’t get their way? Or did your parents never argue in front of you? Now I want you to think about how you deal with conflict in your romantic relationships. You will probably find many similarities to how your parents handle conflict.
My parents often argued about finances and spending. Both my parents would yell and then my mother would give my father the silent treatment after the argument because it would make my father feel bad. I used to do this all the time in my own relationships to their detriment. I knew that the silent treatment irked my partner and I would purposefully do this to hurt him. Unfortunately, at the time I wasn’t aware that I was doing this on purpose, it just seemed like what I should do. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I watched my mother and father argue that I realized that I was repeating their conflict resolution patterns. I only realized this because I was specifically cataloging their behavior and comparing it with my own (I was auditing a class on relational communication and it was one of the assignments). It took me several months after that realization that I began working on changing my behavior. It caused me so much shame to admit that I was purposefully trying to hurt someone I cared about.
Our relationship with our parents influences our attachment style
We develop our attachment style from our interactions with our parents during early childhood. There are two major attachment styles secure and insecure. People with a secure attachment style would generally agree that they felt parental love and support continuously throughout their childhood. They are much more likely to be emotionally intimate and supportive of their romantic partner. It’s not surprising that these are the people who have the least amount of conflict and most relationship satisfaction
People with an insecure attachment style would generally agree that they did not feel parental love and support continuously throughout their childhood. Insecure can be broken up into 2 major subcategories (Anxious/preoccupied, Avoidant). People who are anxious/preoccupied want a lot of intimacy and feel intense anxiety when their partner is not responsive enough. People with an anxious/preoccupied attachment style are often described as “clingy”. The avoidant attachment style is aptly named since these people work to avoid romantic relationships. People can be either dismissive meaning that they have a strong need to be seen as independent and self-sufficient. They can also be fearful meaning that they have a significant lack of comfort getting close to others. It is far more likely for people with either type of avoidant attachment to express feelings of being abandonment by one or both parents.
Ways to recognize the impact
The first step to recognize the impact of something is always to acknowledge that it is present. This is difficult because it is hard for us to admit where we have issues especially since these are not pleasant things to admit. It isn’t fun to admit to yourself that your parents modeled behavior or led you to develop an attachment style that can sabotage your relationships. You probably wouldn’t think highly of a person who said: “I never learned how to express disagreement with someone without becoming verbally abusive”. However, in my opinion, this is a person who is worthy of our admiration because they not only have the ability to recognize their flaws but they also have the courage to admit them aloud to others even if that means that they will be rejected. While I don’t think its necessary to go around and tell other people about your flaws, it is certainly better to do that than to deny that they are there. I believe this because denying the existence of these issues when they are present only allows them to have the power to destroy your relationships and keep you from what you want.
You may have many issues regarding what your parents modeled or how your attachment style influences you in your relationships. You can become overwhelmed with the amount of things you have to acknowledge and change. The second step is to give yourself some compassion. Instead of trying to fix everything or to fix one issue quickly. Don’t think of this as a race that needs to be completed as soon as possible. You are not competing against anyone else. Just take a moment to realize that you have just accomplished an incredible thing. It would be better to give yourself kudos for taking the time to become reflective of who you truly are. Just getting to a place where you can be objective enough to acknowledge your flaws takes a tremendous amount of hard work and determination. Few have the courage to put in the work required to become a better person. This process can take many tries before you are successful. There will be setbacks along the way, you will sometimes regress into bad habits but don’t let that discourage you. It is very difficult to break habits. Instead of focusing on your failures, focus on your successes and never give up. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to reach your goal so long as you get there in the end.
Make a list of the issues that affect you. Earlier I talked about how my parents modeled an unhealthy conflict resolution style. I broke this down into steps. The smaller the steps the better because it gives you a lot of things to accomplish and celebrate. A few of my steps were yelling and silent treatment. I then made these actionable by using verbs. I will acknowledge my anger, I will ask for a break when I hear my voice start to increase in volume, I will wait to address the issue until my emotions are not intense, etc.
1 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2 Simpson, J. A. (1990). Influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(5), 971-980.