How to have a healthy marriage, when partner grew up parents in a toxic marriage?

SraSB · 2019-12-15T13:53:04+00:00

My husband grew up in a horrible household. He always says it was helpful as it taught him HOW NOT to be a dad or a husband .

kaylazomg · 2019-12-15T13:34:21+00:00

The only way is self-work, self-improvement, self-education and information, couples or family therapy, self or personal therapy, identifying unhealthy patterns and changing them with healthy reactions and behaviors

ShootingDanks · 2019-12-15T16:57:09+00:00

The nice thing about the red pill in relationships is that it deals with reality by accepting personal responsibility. This means that we don't have the excuse of "that's how I was raised, I don't know any better". Adults get to choose their actions.

The first step is always the same: vet well. Some people retain the scars of abusive childhoods and never learn appropriate coping mechanisms. If that's the case, a healthy relationship is simply not possible.

Other factors:

Both partners must be committed to having healthier relationships than what they saw growing up
Learn about relationships, there are a lot of red pill resources for men, women and couples
Be willing to learn from mistakes. Self-improvement is important throughout our lifetimes.
Identify your "triggers" - the things that cause you to revert to bad relationship habits and be aware of them when things get challenging
Take a "time out" moment if needed, to gather your thoughts

One thing to watch out for is that traumatised people sometimes mistake abuse for passion. "He gets like that, because he just loves me so much." This is a fallacy and a dangerous mindset. Similarly, a healthy, stable, drama-free relationship might feel boring to someone used to the extreme ups and downs of the cycle of abuse. The risk is that the formerly abused person will try to manufacture drama to recreate the excitement they associate with relationships.

Seek boring, seek stable, seek drama-free. That requires adhering to the second most important red pill rule: STFU. Hard to do if you're used to winning by yelling.

misscleanex · 2019-12-15T14:16:12+00:00

As long as you don't succumb to your upbringing, at best, you have a perfect idea of what not to do, and it will be very important to never do those sorts of things that happened to you or your siblings to your own children, because having been through it, you know what that is like and you'd never want to put another human through that. This includes trying to figure out what a healthy relationship actually is.

I think also as someone who had less than a gleaming example of good parenting, you start thinking more about how your actions will affect your child or your partner before you act, you're definitely more willing to stop and say "I don't know how to do this" and seek help from others, and in general, somewhat care more. Most of the time, especially if someone is very strong-willed, adversity breeds creativity, character and has a little rage about their upbringing. As long as that rage is channeled into something positive, the results can be quite extraordinary.

Again, granted they don't succumb to their upbringing, sometimes this may cause some issues as well. A parent may give their child things they always wanted as a kid, and their own child isn't interested, it might cause a bit of a sting. Also I think that there is an increase in the likelihood that there will be too high of expectations on the child to perform well, in say, school or sports because the parent always wanted to but couldn't. I also think it's possible that the parent might be more likely to live through their children. From experience, sometimes it's hard to acknowledge feelings of jealousy about your significant other's upbringing and the opportunities that presented them which you never had; it's even harder to cope with that when you feel your partner is taking things for granted.

Source: Had quite the upbringing. Have seen a lot of scenarios play out with my siblings as parents. Most broke the cycle. Only one has not. If you're interested in someone who had a terrible upbringing, I would definitely consider it a yellow flag.

sometimesibritney · 2019-12-15T14:37:35+00:00

The most important thing to remember is that in order for anything to work your partner has to want to do the work. Changing your mindset can only be done by the individual, you can’t do it for him and you can’t make him want to either.

My mother is mentally ill and my parents relationship is toxic. I was always attracted to unstable situations with unstable men. I had to really work through and change a lot of my beliefs. CBT did a lot for me and now I have a wonderful husband whose parents have a very loving relationship. It’s worth it, but not easy.

Theendisnearornot · 2019-12-15T16:07:10+00:00

Neither my husband nor I had good example of healthy marriage. Self awareness is a good first step toward having a good marriage. Understanding how you deal with conflict and emotions is key. And choosing not to follow tha patterns of your parents. It is easy to fall into those patterns when things get hard and it’s difficult to see clearly. So it is definitely a never ending process.

SmoothQuail · 2019-12-16T01:17:11+00:00

Real Time Relationships is a free PDF available online, written by Stefan Molyneux. He gives some great examples of how broken people are created, and how they project their brokenness on the world.

I wish I had read it earlier because I used to get irrationally angry at my partner when he laughed out loud at a video or game on his headphones and didn't know why and struggled with feelings of anger and guilt for feeling angry. Now I know it's because I was conditioned by my dad to always hold my laughter in, because he'd get angry at me if I showed any sign of enjoying myself.

I haven't read the whole PDF but it gives crystal clear examples just in the first few chapters of that sort of thing. It's not enough to know, the broken individual must be willing to change. If they're unwilling to change it doesn't matter. Ideally you would never date someone who has put no effort into changing.

blackred44 · 2019-12-15T19:53:45+00:00

Actually, my partner and I grew up in toxic marriage. It really depends on the individual, if you are resilient enough to see through what went wrong and what can be done better, then most likely you're already halfway to healthy marriage.

I mean well, even if you grew up in non toxic marriage, it doesn't guarantee you will have healthy marriage. Most important thing is: Communication, honesty, resilience, willingness to learn

rthayerf · 2019-12-16T00:54:35+00:00

My ex-boyfriend grew up in a bad environment but learned what not to be from it. I'd say he's an exception. Every other person that I seriously dated in the past grew up in bad environments and only learned to be like their parents. Something that I've come to value is coming from the same socio-economic background as my partner & my partner having married parents.

Sublime-Ry · 2019-12-16T01:13:42+00:00

I grew up in what you would call a dysfunctional household. Although I love both of my parents, they made a lot of mistakes. They separated and got back together twice. My dad drank often and my mom didn’t act as the responsible adult that my sister and I needed. Things got much worse in my life before they got better. As an adult I have forgiven my parents, but it has taught me what not to do in a marriage and as a parent. My husband grew up in a typical cookie cutter family. Parents are still together, didn’t have any traumas. I honestly think we both have learned from one another. We take what we have learned from one another’s upbringing and keep what we think works and leave behind what doesn’t. My upbringing was far from perfect but it has given me a guideline on what I find acceptable for Myself and my children.I’m happy to say my kids have a much happier life then I did and I have a much better marriage then my parents did and although my husband grew up in a normal happy home there is plenty of things they did that we specifically choose not to do. I think if you are self aware, both situations can be used to your advantage in improving your life.

Kinger9191g · 2019-12-18T10:34:28+00:00

Be good to him so long as he is good to you. Do not take abuse to “be a good red pill woman” lol. No human should. Also stay away from parents. Cut toxic people off even family

lumberjackinla · 2019-12-15T16:48:29+00:00

you cant. stop the marriage and run as far as possible

Title	How to have a healthy marriage, when partner grew up parents in a toxic marriage?
Author	SmoothQuail
Upvotes	38
Comments	19
Date	December 15, 2019 11:45 AM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWomen
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/comments/eay2ot/how_to_have_a_healthy_marriage_when_partner_grew/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWomen/how-to-have-a-healthy-marriage-when-partner-grew.299413 https://theredarchive.com/post/299413

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