- When we are drawn to relationships that parallel our relationships with our parents we are often drawn to how we FELT in the relationship and our experience of the relationship.
- This can include the role we take on in relation to the other person, what we expect of them and how they’ll react, and our sense of how we’re supposed to be around them.
- Your experience of a relationship is likely to be unique to you, which means it may not be similar to experiences other people (including your siblings) had of your parent.
- An example: For the parent that had a temper, think about your experience of that, perhaps it’s something like ‘I had to walk on eggshells around her, and I felt like I had to keep her protected from something that might make her too angry. I was often scared or nervous when something might upset her’.
- While your spouse may or may not have a temper, you can explore whether or not there is an experiential parallel in how direct you feel you can be with your partner, or if you feel like it’s your job to keep your partner “in a happy zone” because it’s hard for you to trust they’ll be able to productively manage upsetting information independently. You can also consider how similarly you feel when you anticipate they’ll be upset
- We end up in parallel relationships often because we are drawn to that familiar feeling, role, dynamic, or experience.
- When we build insight and understanding into what our relationship was like for us we can make decisions (in an active way) about whether that served us (or not) and whether that’s an experience we want in our relationship(s) moving forward (or not).
- So when we question, “am I dating my parent”, we want to be on the lookout for both traits between your partner and your parent as well as your experience of each relationship.
- You can end up “marrying your parent” by marrying someone who makes you feel the same way or take on the same role in the relationship even if they have very different personality traits.
- See post for more information and sample questions to ask yourself to help you build this understanding.
For most of us, when we consider whether or not we’re dating or married to “our parent” (as the expression goes) we think about this concept in terms of interests or personality traits. For example: my mother was organized and so is my spouse; my father was a runner and so is my partner; my parent had a temper and so does my wife.
Many of us know we are drawn to what’s familiar, and so yes, we can be drawn to familiar personality characteristics. When I’m thinking about whether or not someone may be replicating an earlier relationship pattern in a current relationship I’m also on the lookout for “experiential” parallels, something I find far fewer people have heard of or considered.
By experiential, I am referring to YOUR experience in the relationship. We’re looking at how our personality interacts with the personality of another person for a unique relational dynamic between us.
For many of us it can be hard to get descriptive in a concrete way about our experience of our parents as the relationship becomes our standard for “normal” far before we have the capacity for words or for memory.
A helpful way to explore this idea is to focus on your experience in the early relationship and your experience in your current relationship and see what parallels arise. Ask yourself questions about your experience, and it’s ok if your responses surprise you.
Samples:
How understood, alone, connected, or important did I feel?
When a problem arose did I feel safe in discussing it? Afraid? Like it was my job to figure it out alone? Maybe it wasn’t my job at all?
How was accountability handled? Who took responsibility for problems or accidents?
When a change needed to be made did I feel like it was my job to adapt, did I expect them to adapt? Did we all work towards making changes?
When something needed to be figured out was I included? Ignored?
These prompts will help you connect with how you felt, the role you took on, what you expect of others, and what the relationship was like for you. We can then use that information to help us change patterns that may not serve us moving forward, and work towards keeping dynamics that did work well for us and our relationship.
Notes:
- If you’re having a difficult time getting descriptive about the relationship (i.e. going beyond “the relationship was good” or “the relationship was bad”) read more about how to find and use descriptive language in ways that help us move beyond words like “good” or “bad”.
- Still having a tough time identifying your experience? When you try and explore it let go of how you think you “should” feel and allow yourself to be present with whatever comes up, even if it feels surprising or uncomfortable.
- This post also relates to a prior post where I cover how our early experiences shape our understanding of what to expect of ourselves and those around us.
- An example of relational experiences that occur with specific personality traits: For the parent who got a lot done, ‘I always knew I could rely on her to take care of things, but I also always felt like she was so busy, or distracted, or not really present with me and so I got used to feeling like she wasn’t totally plugged in to me’. Whether or not your partner “gets a lot done” in the way your parent did, if we were having you pay attention to your experience of the relationship we’d want you to be reflecting on how important you feel when you’re together, and exploring how much you feel like your partner offers you their full attention when you’re together, and how available to you they are.