Rubbish love life? Blame your parents!* Understanding how your parents’ relationship may have influenced yours

*don’t! Read on to find out why,,,

Have you ever wondered why you seem to keep having the same problems in relationships?

Perhaps you find yourself attracted to people who aren’t emotionally available, struggle to trust someone even when they’re treating you well, or find it difficult to express what you need. Maybe you’ve noticed that your relationships seem to follow a familiar pattern, but you’re not quite sure where it comes from.

What if some of the answers lie in what you experienced growing up, and particularly in the relationship you saw between your parents (or whoever brought you up)?

Blaming the parents may be a cliché, but this isn’t about blaming your parents at all. They were likely doing the best they could with their own experiences, understanding and circumstances, just as you’re doing the best you can with yours. Their relationship may have been influenced by what they learned about love and relationships growing up, including what they experienced between their own parents. This isn’t about deciding who got things right or wrong and apportioning blame, but about recognising that we can all pass on patterns we’ve learned without necessarily realising it.

The relationship your parents had may have influenced what we believe about love, what we expect from other people, and how we behave in our own relationships today. Understanding what you might have learned from those early experiences can help you recognise patterns and begin making different choices. Find out more here.

What did you learn about relationships growing up?

Think back to the relationship your parents had when you were growing up.

Were they affectionate and loving towards each other? Did they show each other respect, communicate openly and work through disagreements?

Or perhaps there was a lot of arguing, tension or resentment. Maybe one person seemed to have more control, or one parent regularly put their own needs aside to keep the peace.

You might have grown up in a household where affection wasn’t openly expressed, where difficult conversations were avoided, or where you never really knew what mood someone would be in.

Of course, not everyone’s experience fits neatly into these examples. Perhaps your parents separated, you were brought up by one parent, or the relationships around you were complicated in other ways.

Whatever your circumstances, you were learning about relationships through the experiences you observed. And even if nobody sat you down and explained how relationships work, you may have absorbed some powerful messages simply by watching the people around you.

How might your parents’ relationship have influenced yours?

The things we experience growing up can shape our beliefs about ourselves, other people and relationships.

For example:

• If you grew up watching one parent constantly put the other person’s needs first, you might have learned that keeping someone happy is more important than expressing your own needs. As an adult, you may find yourself people-pleasing, avoiding conflict or settling for less than you want.
• If affection and emotional closeness were rarely shown, you might find it difficult to express your feelings or feel comfortable being vulnerable with someone. You may have learned to keep your emotions to yourself.
• If there was frequent arguing or tension, you might associate relationships with conflict and uncertainty. As an adult, you may become anxious when disagreements arise, or avoid difficult conversations altogether.
• If one parent was controlling or made most of the decisions, you might have learned that relationships involve one person having more power than the other. You may struggle to recognise when your own needs and boundaries aren’t being respected.
• If relationships seemed unpredictable, you might have learned that love isn’t something you can rely on. This could make it difficult to trust someone or feel secure, even when they’re treating you well.

These are just examples, and they won’t apply to everyone, but they help illustrate how the experiences we have growing up can influence what we come to expect from relationships, and the ways we behave within them.

But what if your parents had a happy relationship?

You might be thinking, “My parents had a good relationship, so surely that can’t be the reason I’m struggling?”

And you’re right. Having parents who had a loving, healthy relationship doesn’t guarantee that you’ll find relationships easy.

You may have had positive examples of love and commitment growing up, but still struggle with confidence, trust or vulnerability for other reasons. Our experiences outside the family, later relationships and individual circumstances can all influence how we relate to other people.

Equally, you may have grown up watching a relationship that looked happy from the outside, but there were things happening behind closed doors that you weren’t aware of. Or maybe your parents’ relationship seemed so perfect that you’re finding it hard to find some who matches that ideal.

The point isn’t to decide whether your parents had a good or bad relationship, but more about exploring what you experienced, what you took away from it, and whether any of those early beliefs are still influencing you today.

Can you change what you learned about love?

Yes you can. Just because you learned certain things about relationships growing up doesn’t mean you have to keep repeating them.

A good place to start is by becoming more aware of the messages you may have absorbed.

Try asking yourself:

• What did I learn about love and relationships from watching my parents?
• How did they show affection, deal with disagreements and communicate their needs?
• What did I learn about what it means to be a good partner?
• Did I feel that relationships were safe, predictable and supportive, or were they something I needed to be careful around?
• Do I recognise any of these beliefs or behaviours in my own relationships now?

Rather than judging yourself or your parents, try to approach these questions with curiosity.

You may start to recognise that some of the ways you behave in relationships aren’t simply personality traits. They may be patterns you learned because, at the time, they helped you make sense of the relationships around you.

And once you begin to recognise those patterns, you can start exploring whether they’re still helpful, or whether there are different ways of approaching relationships that would work better for you now.

Want to explore where your relationship patterns come from?

Understanding how your parents’ relationship may have influenced yours is just one part of exploring your relationship history.

My self-guided interactive workbook Why doesn’t love ever work out for me? includes an exercise to help you reflect on the relationship your parents had when you were growing up, what you may have learned from it, and how those experiences could be influencing your relationships as an adult.

It also takes you further into exploring your relationship patterns, self-esteem, beliefs about yourself and love, and the ways you may have learned to protect yourself emotionally.

Through guided reflection, practical exercises and inner-child work, it helps you begin working through what’s underneath these patterns and exploring how you can start doing things differently.

Explore the workbook

A gentle reminder

Exploring your childhood experiences and your parents’ relationship isn’t about finding someone to blame.

Your parents had their own experiences, challenges and relationship patterns, and they may not have realised the impact some of these things had on you.

It’s also important to remember that your adult relationships aren’t simply a consequence of your upbringing. You have your own experiences, choices and opportunities to develop different ways of relating.

The aim isn’t to dwell on the past, but to understand how it may have shaped you, so you can begin making choices that feel healthier for you now.

If you’d like to understand your relationship patterns more deeply…

Sometimes recognising where our patterns come from is easier than changing them. Individual therapy can give you a safe, supportive space to explore your own early experiences, understand how they may be influencing your relationships today, and begin developing different ways of relating that are tailored specifically for you.

Find out more about working with me

Or, if you’d prefer to explore things in your own time, my self-guided interactive digital workbook, Why doesn’t love ever work out for me?, offers a structured way to reflect on your experiences and begin working through the patterns that may be holding you back.

Explore the workbook

Final thought

You can’t change the relationship you grew up around, but you can begin to understand what it taught you about love, and decide whether those lessons are ones you want to carry into your future relationships.

Sometimes, recognising that you learned a particular way of relating is the first step towards discovering that things don’t have to stay that way.

Until next time,
Becky