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Does your experience with family life have an impact on the way you form new bonds?

AoifeAoife Community Manager Posts: 3,228 Boards Guru
edited December 2018 in Sex & Relationships
Hey everyone,

This month's discussion topic is about the effect your parents relationship might have on your own relationships. Does your experience with family life have an impact on the way you form new bonds?

Share your thoughts below :) 

- Aife
Maybe somethings don't get better, but we do. We get stronger. We learn to live with our situations as messy and ugly as they are. We fix what we can and we adapt to what we can't. Maybe some of us will never fully be okay, but at least we're here. We're still trying. We're doing the best we can. That's worth celebrating too ❤

Comments

  • Past UserPast User Posts: 976 Part of The Mix Family
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • JellyelephantJellyelephant Posts: 1,908 Extreme Poster
    I definitely think it does.... especially the bonds you form with your parents in your early years. For example in Bowlbys attachment theory demonstrates this. I have been reading a great book called "why love matters" and its all about how those early relationships with your parents influence your development and ability to form stable relationships as you get older. 

    A good example of this is borderline personality disorder, which I am diagnosed with. My therapist agrees that BPD is basically a result of attachment trauma. If you do not form a secure attachment when you are a baby, or experience trauma, it can affect the development of your brain and the way you relate to others.... which is a big problem in people with BPD. 

    For example, according to my therapist my mum neglects me emotionally..... she doesn't model ways of coping, she doesnt listen to my feelings, she is very dismissive etc and my dad physically abused me. All these things together mean I struggle to have healthy relationships these days, and I especially struggle with professional relationships because I constantly seek a mother figure to "look after me" and I become very attached. Everything is extreme with me. I worry about people abandoning me and become very distressed if I think they might. 

    I have literally just wrote all that and re-read the OP and realised I answered completely wrong thing lol but is interesting so not gonna delete sorry haha. 

    Anyway I watched my dad abuse my mum and was never modelled an appropriate relationship so I have no idea how to go about it these days and what is ok or not in a relationship. 
    The sun will rise and we will try again 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Fruit loop Deactivated Posts: 2,762 Boards Guru
    Honestly my parent shave had an effect for the good.

    I think my dad constantly reminds me to make friends and relationships with people who appreciate me but can hold their own? 

    My mum is definitely always reminding me to get people That love me for who I am and never upset me on purpose.

    I feel through their mistakes and countless imperfections I've learned what not to do, instead of learning the same behaviour but most importantly how to thrive in my relationships regardless But knowing what is and is not okay. And not taking the punches but rather communicate and fix things. While having the strength to leave if I need to :)

    In terms of actually forming them I feel I make my relationships quite wisely again thanks to my mum and knowing who will stick around and who will just leech I guess?  X
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