3 Relationship Lessons We Learn From Our Parents

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Because we are born as a blank slate, our first home environment largely shapes the foundation of who we are individually. This environment contributes to our personality and our sense of self, as well as who we become in relationships.

If we watched the adults in our home environment conduct healthy interactions, we mimic these ways of interacting with others. Watching the adults in the home handle conflict in a healthy and constructive way teaches the children to do the same with peers and, later, in their own partnerships.

However, if along the way we experienced trauma in our foundational relationships or observed dysfunctional patterns between our caregivers, it likely affected our ability (or inability) to form healthy communication, our ability (or inability) to resolve conflict, and how we relate to others.

For those of us who grew up in dysfunctional homes, most of our parents were survivors of their own trauma and often ended up dealing with their own demons while raising children. Many lived in a time before conversations around trauma were becoming more normalized or in a home where these conversations were frowned upon. Without the luxury of understanding or empathy, many people do not know they are reacting from an unhealthy place, only that their reaction makes sense in the moment.

Still, this knowledge and understanding doesn't always make it easier. In her 2014 book, Running on Empty, Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, Jonice Webb writes that most people: “are very uncomfortable with the notion that their primary caretakers had such a great effect on them. Perhaps acknowledging the incredible power of parents is inherently threatening to us all. If we understand the true impact that our parents had on us, we may feel ourselves alone, disempowered, or even victimized” (Webb 2014, p200).

Her words echo the sentiment that many of my clients feel when they begin therapy: frustrated and powerless. "It's in the past, I should be over this by now," I hear day after day. And I understand their frustration, because I, too, sometimes feel resentment at all of the unhealthy patterns I had to unlearn and what it took for me to do that.

Many people grow up and enter relationships that bring out the same unhealthy dynamics and dysfunctional patterns, mimicking the childhood they haven't yet healed from. It is often after several failed relationships that people start therapy, wondering how to change the patterns they continuously find themselves stuck in.

Despite what Freud would like me and many of my colleagues to believe, not all of our relationships are obvious reflections of our parents. But there are many commonalities, including what behaviors we learn are acceptable and what we think we deserve in a romantic relationship.

Here are three things we learn from our parents about intimate and romantic relationships:

1. What we deserve: Children learn a lot by observing, and they watch everything. Through little eyes, they develop insight into what they deserve in a partnership. If a little girl watches mommy alone and crying again and again, yet refusing (or unable) to leave the man who abuses her, she learns that this is acceptable—or at least excusable—behavior in a marriage. We learn not only what we will put up with in a partnership but also whether we deserve to refuse to allow certain behaviors.
2. What and how to communicate: As humans, we are constantly communicating with each other in many ways that are not verbal—body language, passive-aggressive comments or audible sighs, slamming doors or using silent treatment. When they observe adults within the home using these unhealthy ways to express displeasure and unhappiness, children learn that this is how to communicate. Many of us did not learn healthy ways of managing conflict until adulthood, when we were able to more consciously observe others handling stressful events in ways that felt more comfortable to navigate.
3. What our role is: Our role comes from so many things, starting from outside of our family, but it is solidified inside our family unit. Gender and faith, among other factors, all work together to form expectations of how we should act and who we should become in a relationship. A child born into a faith or culture in which women's opinions are not valued might struggle to be heard inside her own home. If a little boy watches his daddy work long hours, barely having time for himself or his family, he learns that this is the way to be a man.

Healing from our past is not about blame but about learning and understanding. As we grow, we are able to develop insight as we make connections between current unhealthy patterns and childhood experiences. Awareness is the first step to changing any behaviors that are not benefiting.

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