In his New York Times bestseller, Getting the Love Your Want, psychologist Harville Hendrix explains why people who grew up in homes — well, a little like the one in the 2006 flick Little Miss Sunshine — without proper emotional nurturing seek dysfunctional relationships as adults. He explains the low brain — our more reptilian thought process that can’t handle anything different than what it already knows and reverts to fear as its primary gear — and the new brain, the cerebral cortex that is conscious, alert, able to reason and think logically. He writes:
What we are doing, I have discovered from years of theoretical research and clinical observation, is looking for someone who has the predominant character traits of the people who raised us. Our old brain, trapped in the eternal now and having only a dim awareness of the outside world, is trying to re-create the environment of childhood. And the reason the old brain is trying to resurrect the past is not a matter of habit or blind compulsion but of a compelling need to heal old childhood wounds.
Some of you undoubtedly are thinking: “Oh puh-leaze, move on from the naval-gazing-it’s-my-mommy’s-fault theory.”
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You don’t have to grow up in a foster home to be psychologically damaged. Married people aren’t *always* the best candidates to raise children together *either,* particularly when they take their marital marching orders from organized religion, staying together, and irreparably damaging the children because a never married man in a funny beanie in the Vatican says they must.
@prattle, it is sad that you blame religion for the way society thinks. Marriage, traditionally, is the uniting of families. When a man and woman marry, they form the same type of familial bond that one shares with a cousin, or brother. You can not divorce your cousin, no matter how much you would like to. Marriage was suppose to have this same type of framework. Too bad people do not know how to relate to one another, but instead blame, the Pope, or God Himself.
Isn’t this concept basically the opposite of what Harville Hendrix claims is what we need? He says those kinds of relationships are precisely what we need in order to heal those deep wounds from our past. It’s within those relationships that we find healing so we shouldn’t run from those relationships, we should use them as opportunities for growth. What I’ve come to realize after doing a lot of reading and research is that there are basically two schools of thought on this whole idea. One is, avoid these relationships at all cost and force yourself to learn how to enjoy relationships that don’t feel natural to you. Two, stick it out with these relationships because that’s where you’ll experience the most growth and the most healing. I don’t know that one is right and the other is wrong. I think it’s probably more a matter of doing what’s best for us individually now and in the long run.
Hi Janea,
You’re leaving out a crucial discernment tool – availability. If we try to do our re-creating with someone who is not showing up for it, that situation is Fruit Loops – no nourishment, no possibility for it. But if two of us recreate with each other and both stay available and heal consciously instead of trying to do it unconsciously by making the other be different, that’s the Kashi that can nourish satisfying fruit.
I think Harville means that it’s good only if both partners become more conscious and aware and actually grow to provide more of what the other needs, which is also what that person needs to become a more whole human being.
Funny you should mention ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ – one of my personal fav movies from the last few years. Yes, the family may be dysfunctional, but I still felt there was a lot of love in that particular fictitious family.
I do agree with most of your points here though. There is often a tendency for us to attract similar people to those we have grown up with. I was brought up in a loving home(not a perfect one, by any means) by 2 parents who have now been together for nearly 40 years and I always wanted to find someone who I could be with forever, Happily, I did – and we have been together almost 10 years now. On the other hand, I see people who were brought up in broken homes going from relationship to relationship and never finding happiness. Some people break the cycle, others don’t.
I fall into the oldest (of two female) child catagory. Not sure the answers to either how or WHY my parents are still together. But, at age 53…I have given up on trying to please them. My sister could have literally farted in their faces and still could, and they would love it. I’ve hung by my toenails to please them, looking back at it all, and still, as my mother has always so cruelly put it, ‘We practiced on you’.
Well, I don’t want Fruit Loops from a relationship, though had that and Kashi both from
my ex who went off the deep end, but I HAVE
finallllly abandoned my so-called ‘family’.
And wish I could find a support group for myself and all the others (many are men) who admitted defeat with theirs as well. Coincidentally all of us, the oldest child in our families. Men seem to have ‘gotten’ it younger, gotten away and stayed away…why does it take so long for we women to let them stop hurting us?
so, just how do we recognise what is happening and how do we fix it..i had a very horrible childhood(long story) and am now suffering from PTSD from my last relationship,which was extremely abusive..how do i NOT create the same..i just started dating someone and have my guard up,i dont want this to hurt and i want to be with a good person, who us both will have love and respect in the relationship..will I ruin it? what should i watch for ,in myself and him?