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Child Development
Are You Repeating Your Childhood Dynamics in Romance?
Four patterns that can block adult romantic intimacy.
Posted February 23, 2021 Reviewed by Matt Huston
If you have not fully explored your childhood hardships—what was lacking or overabundant, what needs went unmet, what pained you that you have papered over—then you’re at risk of repeating the past in adulthood.
Perhaps at first blush, you say, “I had a great childhood,” and that parents, after all, are only human and most of us have flaws. But defending your “perfect childhood” may, years later, land you in a therapist’s office saying: “I don’t know why but I feel like my wife doesn’t even know me,” or “My whole life I never feel as if anyone is there for me,” or “I can’t believe that I am the only one doing all the work and my husband just checks out,” or “My spouse and I are good partners in life but we have absolutely no romantic spark.”
Over the course of psychotherapy, people typically discover that issues in their relationship actually started long ago in childhood. Identifying what you’re re-enacting can be the beginning of a new pattern of love and intimacy where your needs and your partner's needs are more fully met.
Here are four common patterns that block emotional intimacy in romantic relationships.
1. The Emotional Blocker: If you received little emotional intimacy from your parents and caregivers in childhood, then it becomes hard to give it to yourself, let alone others, in adulthood. If, when you were growing up, your parents did not take a consistent interest in getting to know you, understanding how you feel about things, or reflecting back your likes and dislikes, then you may be an emotionally unavailable partner.
Children who are emotionally neglected are often praised for their achievements but otherwise left alone to figure themselves out or to understand their emotional world. Over time, these kids can develop a tendency to take care of themselves and not really deal with others on an emotional level.
Consider if your emotional needs went unmet in childhood and if as a result, you block your partner out from knowing your more vulnerable/intimate self. Also, consider whether you take the time to understand your partner emotionally.
These tendencies can be corrected by identifying your emotional deficit, talking about your feelings, and working to better understand the deeper emotional aspects of your romantic partner.
2. The Incapable: If your parents struggled to hold you accountable, to enforce consequences, to help you do the hard things in life, then you may let yourself off the hook too easily. Perhaps your caregivers were overwhelmed, distracted, or just had a hard time tolerating upsetting you and so they never really forced you to do the hard work in life.
As a result, you struggle to be a fully functioning adult and your romantic partner may feel they have to shoulder the responsibility of adulting all on their own. Instead of being fully responsible, you outsource your tasks, responsibilities, emotional needs, self-accountability onto to close others in your life. When events come up that are hard, you throw up your hands and expect your partner to fix things for you.
If this describes you, then you may not have a truly close relationship with your partner but something more akin to a caregiver/child attachment. For real sparks to fly, you need to put on your big kid pants and take control over your life, your choices, and your overall functioning.
3. The Over-functioner: If your parents weren’t fully functioning adults, then you may have filled in the gaps on their behalf. The over-functioning adult often grew up in an environment where adults were not willing or able to fully take care of their children and adult responsibilities. This lack of parental functioning can result from ongoing medical conditions, drug or alcohol addiction, financial or job stress, or a mental illness.
Whatever the cause, the child develops acute anxiety at recognizing that their needs or even safety requirements are not being met on a consistent and predictable basis. Many children in this situation start to compensate and take control of the environment the best they can. Some start doing laundry, making meals, or soothing upset parents, all to no avail.
If this describes you, you may feel in adulthood as if you do everything and there is no one ever there to truly take care of and love you. This is an intimacy blocker because as opposed to feeling loved and cherished by your partner, you feel used. Recognize if this pattern describes you and stop the cycle by treating that underlying anxiety. Mindfulness meditation and psychotherapy can be very helpful in this regard.
4. The Pleaser: Perhaps you grew up being the lauded one in your family. You have a charismatic personality, you do well at work and school. People gravitate to you and typically like you, and you want to keep it that way. Your caregivers praised you, and that praise kept them off your back. You avoided conflict because you never gave people any reason to have a problem with you in the first place.
Now as an adult, you struggle to tell your partner what ails you, what you need that they might not like, or what you need to say but perhaps they won’t want to hear. You bottle your negative emotions, and so in a way, your partner only knows the pleaser part of you and all the rest is a giant black box.
Over time, a person in this situation starts to feel lonely and adrift. A lack of meaning permeates.
If this describes you, remember that love feels good when we show our partners all of ourselves and are loved more for it. See if you can take a risk and start communicating the things that you struggle with about yourself and your partner. When done mindfully and respectfully, sharing makes us feel as if we can be our full selves, and this is the biggest gift of love.
For more on developing a healthy love map, check out my workbook Toxic Love — 5 Steps.
To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
