Learning, parents mistakes

Key Ideas:

Learning, parents mistakes www.theonlysocialclub.co.za

We’re attracted to people who share the same qualities as our parents. (both good and bad).

We can overcome childhood traumas by working through them in our adult relationships.

We like to think we’re self-aware enough to avoid mirroring the downside of our parents’ relationship. But research has discovered, old patterns may have a stronger hold than we realise.

Forming your own relationship blueprint – how to avoid replicating your parents’ mistakes.

  • Listen to your dialogue: does it remind you of your mom or dad? You may unconsciously mimic them, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect how you want to be.
  • When faced with a parental pattern you would like to change, the key mix is awareness (“There’s this thing I learnt to do”) and compassion (“But it’s okay, I can learn to do something else”).
  • Make the weak point of your parents’ relationship your top priority – so if they never argued and suddenly broke up, focus on your communication.
  • Work on your relationship with your parents. Cut the emotional umbilical cord (so you’re more adult than child around them) and you’re less likely to mimic them.
  • Whatever upsets you most about your relationship is likely to be inherited from your parents. Instead of going into battle over this issue (“if you don’t stop doing x, I can’t go on living”), step back and see it as a learning opportunity.
  • Study other people’s relationships – exposing yourself to other blueprints gives you more choice in how you handle your own.
  • Philandering parents are more likely to produce philandering offspring. You’re less likely to fall into this trap if you remember the pain it caused you.
  • If you’ve become critical, dependent or passive-aggressive like one of your parents, try other responses.
  • Understanding each other’s histories can help both partners to heal childhood wounds.

 

Whatever upsets you most about your relationship is likely to be inherited from your parents.

Research found in the Aug/Sept 2008 edition of the Psychologies magazine