Today we are actually going to dive into something very deep, which usually people do not talk about because there are not a lot of awareness and education about it. But it’s around the topic of how your parent’s marriage actually affects your dating life and how you show up in your relationship as well. You might be thinking like, how does your parent’s marriage and their relationship with each other actually affect the way you date? Well, there is a lot of connection to how they have a relationship with each other and how that shows up in your relationship dynamics as well.
So if new here, I am Akash, and I am a men’s relationship coach, and I help men heal with their attachment issues, wounded masculinity, and even trauma for them to have deeper meaningful connection and relationships with women. So in today’s article specifically, I’m also going to pull up some research papers as well which actually show the evidence of how your parent’s relationship can directly have an impact on the way you show up in relationships as well.
1. Your Parent’s Relationship Shapes Your View of Love
So the first thing we need to understand is our parents’ relationship actually impacts the way we view relationships all together. Now think of it this way like when you are growing up, the closest people to you are your parents. Now your parents are supposed to model how love and relationship looks like to you. But if there is no love between them, and if they are constantly fighting, and if you have even grown up in a single-parent household as well, you don’t know exactly what a healthy relationship looks like because you have no example set in front of you.
So even if you are growing up in a household where there is a lot of love between your parents, you are exposed to what a secure relationship looks like where two individuals who are healthy, who have worked on themselves, come together, who are able to communicate in mature ways, have boundaries, and you see the love evolving between them. But the flip side of this is growing up in a household where there are constant conflicts happening between your parents, where they are blaming each other, hurting each other, and there is a lot of chaotic things happening in the household. And when you grow up as a child looking at it, that becomes your perception of how relationships are supposed to be.
Now from the age of 0 to 7, your subconscious brain is wide open for programming. The logical part of your brain hasn’t developed yet, so whatever you are listening to, whatever you are seeing in this age group specifically gets absorbed into your subconscious brain. And that becomes the model of relationships in your subconscious mind.
So even when you grow up, these childhood patterns, these childhood programs are strong within you. So when you start dating, when you show up in a relationship, the way you see relationships and love is how you relate to your parents’ relationship. Unconsciously, you start showing the same patterns even in your relationship as well.
Research Evidence (Love Lab – Dr. John Gottman)
There was a research that was done by the Love Lab by Dr. John Gottman, where he found out that people who genuinely have healthy communication skills and healthy conflict resolution skills specifically grew up in households where they have seen their parents managing conflicts in a healthy way. So in a way, these kids have been exposed to what a secure relationship looks like.
So growing up, it’s easy for them to communicate their needs and even set boundaries in a relationship as well. So if you find yourself often in a relationship where you feel like you’re becoming overly anxious, could it be possible that you’re actually mimicking one of your parent’s reactions when there is a conflict happening?
Even if you are an avoidant person where when there’s conflict you tend to shut down, you do not engage, and you completely dissociate, you might actually be mimicking one of your parents who reacts in a similar way.
2. Impact of Divorce and Conflict
Now the second thing is the impact of divorce and its effect on kids. Now specifically in Indian households, divorce is not a common thing. So kids usually live in a house where parents are not getting divorced, but they are constantly fighting with each other and there is no presence of love. And there is also research that shows that people whose parents are under stressful marriages or have gone through divorce usually approach dating with a tinge of skepticism, criticism, and doubt.
A study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that kids who grew up in such households have lower ability to trust their partner and tend to show more anxiety in relationships. So if you have witnessed betrayal or disloyalty between your parents, that sends a subconscious message that you can’t trust the other person. So in your adult relationships, you show up with skepticism and fear.
3. The Imprinting Effect
Now the third thing is the imprinting effect. Now this happens when we are a child. We actually end up copying our parents’ behavior, and this happens at a very unconscious level. So how your parents are behaving, how your parents are reacting to each other, that becomes our subconscious programming. And that is how we unconsciously show up in relationships.
Where sometimes you might have even thought that, okay, these are things I hate about my parents, but these are exactly the things that I’m doing as an adult as well. Because that is the only model of relationship you have been exposed to. You don’t know any other way. You don’t know any other way of expressing love, and you don’t know any other way of managing conflicts because you have constantly been exposed to unhealthy and toxic dynamics even in your household as well.
Whereas if you grow up in a house where there was harmony, there was peace, then that would be the way you would show up even in your relationship as well. Now this imprinting effect is actually much more powerful in your childhood years, especially from the age of 0 to 7.
As I said, your subconscious brain has not been completely developed at this point. So if you’ve never seen your parents actually showing affection towards each other and showing that kind of love and having a good life with each other, you would find it also hard in your relationship to show love towards the other person. Because you don’t have that kind of program existing in your brain. You don’t even know what it is to actually engage in that kind of relationship dynamic all together.
4. Attachment Styles & Your Parent’s Relationship
The fourth thing is attachment styles and the impact of your parent’s relationship on your attachment style. So attachment style is basically how we approach intimacy and closeness in a relationship.
So let’s say if you’re growing up in a household where there are a lot of chaotic things happening, and if your parents even got separated, now the thing in this specific scenario is they are struggling with their own things, but you as a child probably would have got caught up in it. There were so many times where you would not have healthy emotional outlets to express your needs to your parents. And sometimes, as kids, we also tend to internalize the feeling very unconsciously that the reason my parents are fighting is probably because of me.
And this happens at a very subtle level when you are a child, and this then becomes your unconscious programming. So let’s say if you are someone who felt unsafe in these kinds of situations, you can either develop an anxious attachment, you can develop an avoidant attachment, or you can even develop a disorganized attachment, which is a combination of both.
Now if your parents were available towards you and if they showed you consistent care and affection, then you will grow up with a secure attachment style. But let’s say if that care was inconsistent when you were growing up, you were not shown affection as a child and then you develop insecure attachment styles. Now anxious attachment style is when you have abandonment wounds, and you are constantly living in the fear that someone would end up leaving you.
And on the other side, avoidant attachment style is when you excessively focus on being independent. You feel like you cannot rely on anyone else because that person will end up leaving you. This is also a program that you formed in your childhood because you probably never had anyone to actually rely on growing up. Which is why you ended up becoming hyper-independent and built so many walls around yourself that it’s hard for you to let anyone in now.
5. Healing & Breaking These Patterns
Now these attachment styles are not set in stone. It is completely possible to break them, and it is completely possible to get over them if you actually put in the effort and work on healing yourself. Also, how exactly your parent’s relationship was with each other, you can make two sections:
For example, ask yourself:
- How your mother showed up in the marriage?
- How your father showed up in the marriage?
- How did they resolve conflicts with each other?
- What were the patterns that they both showed which actually triggered the whole situation and made it worse?
And then you need to analyze yourself. Look at how you show up in relationships. See who you resemble more. Because once you find that clarity, that okay, my behaviors are not coming from my internal self, but they are actually influenced by other people, that is when you take your power back. And you can consciously start rewiring these unconscious patterns.
My Final Message
Just remember one thing, You are not doomed by your parents’ mistakes. Because if they had a bad relationship, that does not mean that you will have the same kind of relationships. But yes, it does mean that you might have to work consciously a little harder to break these patterns.
Relationships are all about growth and showing up as the best version of yourself. A relationship should ideally not be two broken people coming together. Because if you don’t work on your trauma, your abandonment wounds, your attachment issues, you will unconsciously attract a partner who reflects those wounds back to you. And you will recreate the same dynamic that existed in your parents’ relationship. That is why a relationship requires two conscious people who are willing to do the work to make it work.
So I hope this article was insightful for you to understand your patterns and where they originate from. And I hope you are able to reflect and work on these patterns. Thank you so much, and I’ll see you guys in the next article soon. Thank you!