Relationships with men as a reflection of relationship with parents

Nonsluttymen · 2021-12-07T05:00:44+00:00

I noticed this in myself, definitely. The pattern was parents and exes all having narcissistic personality disorder or close to it. It’s like we’re recreating those relationships so maybe this time, they’ll finally actually love us for real. Spoiler: they don’t, not even close.

sourcircus · 2021-12-07T05:13:59+00:00

It's definitely plays a huge part in affecting how you deal with other people in your life and what you may potentially seek out for that familiar feeling even if you know it's negative.

There is a lot of "unlearning" to do. I thought I could leave unscathed because very early on I looked at my parents as anti-role models... but due to proximity they have still caused too much trauma.

Give this book a read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson ❤️

Fun_Sherbet · 2021-12-07T04:30:56+00:00

[permanently deleted]

bog_nymph · 2021-12-07T07:10:13+00:00

You are so amazing for recognizing these things and taking accountability for your inner little self where your caregivers could not. Some women NEVER make it this far, and will always wonder “Why me?” Talk about a level up.

You are worth loving, you deserve it, and you shouldn’t ever have to prove that, to anyone. I know firsthand how hard it is to accept that the love you needed from your parents will never ever come, and how hard it is to move forward with that information, especially when it comes to relationships with men.

I relate to this very much. I remember MULTIPLE exes screaming “I’m not your mom, I’m not gonna do what your mom does to you, you can’t treat me like I’m your mom(when standing up for myself)” during arguments. It’s so hurtful but also strangely validating, because at least someone’s noticed the game being played out against me.

However it is not validation. No one gets to treat me like my mom did, no one gets a pass just because they can repeat a pattern when they think I’m not paying attention. And all these losers had mommy issues that were nearly eclipsing my own. Wouldn’t be surprised if they hated my mom for giving birth to me. That’s how sick and crazy these people are.

You are ten steps ahead of your mother and about a billion ahead of abusive men just for being able to recognize the patterns and to share them with us. Thank you for this post!

MissouriBlue · 2021-12-07T08:51:42+00:00

Yes.

I have the escalating pattern over 40 years of abuse that all is tied back to an emotional negligent parent and the other parent was simply checked out of their dysfunctional marriage.

As my damage has compounded by failed relationships, men have taken a left turn at Albuquerque, and my last relationship was a full on Covert Narcissist.

I’ve finally identified my parental issues and I’ll be working on those for the next decade. :(

Rewindsunshine · 2021-12-07T08:43:58+00:00

I came to this conclusion while going through therapy and it hurt so much. I left when I was 12 years old because of the way my mother treated me & was ordered by the court to visit her which resulted in physical and sexual abuse by her boyfriend/husband. I could never get over the fact that not only did she call me a liar when I was brave enough to confront him but that she allowed it to happen to me. I think she enjoyed it. I’m pretty sure she has a personality disorder — Borderline, maybe? Anyways, I believe I have been trying to fix that childhood trauma via all the relationships I have become involved in because they’re very hot/cold like her & it sucks because I hate that she has that power over me but it’s a very important developmental connection. I should actually be proud of myself for surviving her & the abuse. I shouldn’t be placing all this blame on myself when it’s other people who have failed me. Actually, I should be super proud because I have all the things I have always wanted in life — except somebody I believe truly & actually loves me. I can’t put that sort of pain into words. So in that way I can relate to you hugs! and wish you the best in this journey. You are valid. <3

startrekmind · 2021-12-07T09:24:50+00:00

My experience is a bit different. My dad is the most caring and loyal guy I know, a real HVM. But he didn’t teach me that not all guys are like that, so I was under the impression that it’s ok if I’m the one who takes care of the guy all the time.

If there’s something different I’d do if I become a parent one day, it would be exactly just that - making sure my kids know they can’t just blindly trust people out there and they need to assert their boundaries or walk away if they’re not being treated the way they deserve.

EastsideRim · 2021-12-07T08:14:53+00:00

My mother is exactly like this, somewhat minus the first point. I say somewhat, because she makes it clear she loves me.

But I’ve also been a “good” child in terms of education, employment, not struggling with addictions, and such. (But I do not feel confident she would support me if I didn’t do well in those areas so maybe it’s the same as not feeling fully loved and supported?)

I’ve always put it as “my mother loves me, but she doesn’t like me.”

Reading about narcissistic parents and starting with the book “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” has helped me place this as a known type of behavior and not strictly my mom’s issues.

That said, the analysis of narcissism, and that entire book, offer a very white/western and middle/upper class perspective. Some of these patterns, at least in my case, are embedded in the parenting style of our non-Western culture. I suspect I’m traumatized largely because we are diasporic/immigrant, and her cultural parenting style is patholgized where we live. Whereas if I grew up in the time and place my mother did perhaps the lack of difference between how myself and others were raised would not lead to the trauma.

For example, in my mother’s homeland and of her generation, a parent who loves their child would NEVER compliment them. To keep a child safe from hungry ghosts you would only complain and criticize them. If hungry ghosts hear a child is beautiful or accomplished, they want to take the kid (kill them.) So loving parents offer criticism without praise. Socially, this myth offers a guard against arrogance and individualism, and conditions people toward humility and not standing out, which are highly valued in my culture. Now, my mother does not literally believe in supernatural ghosts doing this - but it’s culturally embedded. Until I took a course about our culture, I just felt she hated me. Now I have a better understanding of why she parented this way. She is not articulate enough to explain this literally - learned helplessness with English language is part of her diasporic trauma - so I had to “book learn” my own culture. Maybe worth considering if similar reasons may be part of your family’s behavior.

I don’t think all traditions need to be kept, but I also don’t want us all to automatically assimilate to western white norms - they aren’t universally superior.

If anyone knows of a book comparable to “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” that addresses people currently making our way in today’s westernized world, while also taking elders/generations and global cultures and class differences into account respectfully, I’d love to know about it.

dragonmonarch · 2021-12-07T05:36:39+00:00

This is absolutely true. I was desperate for attention and affection, which meant I rushed into my first relationship.

my parents' love was/is very conditional and they were neglectful: I accepted him placing conditions on affection
manipulation is a favourite language in my family: I accepted him being manipulative and coercive, including sexually
needs, wants and emotions are verboten in my family: I struggled to even think about what was wrong, that I was unhappy and being abused, did not know how to seek help or feel like I was allowed to have standards.

I collected almost as much trauma in that 1.5 year relationship as I did from my family. I wish I was taught FDS values as a child and teen so badly. My parents are Eastern European and a pickme married to a NVM, so that was never going to be. He was in this mid twenties and she was 19-20 when they met then married after six months of dating. I was born about a year later in the middle of her accounting degree! He has never and still doesn't lift a finger emotionally or physically, though he does provide financially. I'm worried every day that my much younger brothers will become LVM with such a terrible example.

scorchedsouI · 2021-12-07T04:08:07+00:00

I just realized why I was basically born an FDS lady. My mother is a treasure.

asupernova91 · 2021-12-07T08:29:33+00:00

Yes to all of this. And I didn’t see it until I dated someone who tried to gaslight and lie to me the exact same way my mother did my entire childhood. Cue the panic attacks and the omnipresent feeling that something was wrong. Therapy works wonders, also never ever ignore your gut feeling.

saltandvin3gar · 2021-12-07T04:21:06+00:00

Are we the same person? Everything you described is what I've been through both with my parents and in relationships.

I cut my parents off a few years ago when I had an inevitable mental breakdown, realising I couldn't keep repeating the same patterns in my relationships because of how they raised me. I had to change my whole life and break free of the way I was conditioned. It was painful but it was the best thing I've ever done for myself.

bananapanda-mess · 2021-12-07T05:54:12+00:00

I came a realization recently that was really only: “of course I’ve only dated alcoholics and I’m ok with being treated like shit. Look at how I was raised”. I do take some blame with always going to self pity, because my twin sister doesn’t do that. She’s way stronger than me and wouldn’t tolerate abuse that I do. But she’s damaged in other ways, too. So it’s some sort of nature and nurture.

JadeBaby2211 · 2021-12-07T15:51:57+00:00

Same with me. I also reject the notion that I attracted shitty men because of my childhood trauma, when I just didn't have the skills and neural pathways to know that I have the power to reject them. My last relationship showed me just how hard my trauma brain works to secure "love", the denial and emotional amnesia were intense. I'm stepping up my trauma recovery game through myofascial release and psilocybin therapy, and im finally getting great results! A lot of trauma responses are involuntary, if you find yourself getting angry at yourself for tolerating your mistreatment, know that you were doing your best, and now you have the opportunity to choose better❤

CoriFend07 · 2021-12-07T05:24:04+00:00

I thought I was writing this post as I read it

Such a horrible realization but a necessary one

Wishing you the best as you navigate this journey. It’s a doozy

misandryisnotreal · 2021-12-07T13:53:01+00:00

Family systems theory, y’all.

OP, the first step to breaking a cycle is recognizing that it’s happening—proud of you for honoring yourself with healing ❤️

BBQCoolRanchQueen · 2021-12-07T14:02:20+00:00

Same story here. Having to justify your very existence and having to prove you're "worthy of love" really resonated deeply with me (the whole list did, but those 2 points really stood out to me). This gave me a really bad case of pickme-itis. So I stayed with emotionally unavailable LVM and downright abusive NVM because I had such a low sense of self worth stemming from childhood. I glued myself to any man who'd have me because I truly believed that I wouldn't have a chance with another.

Fast forward to my mid 20s and a divorce from a creepy middle aged NVM and a few years of therapy, I learned I was valuable and worthy. It helped having a therapist who taught me to de-center men from my life and be happy being on my own and to be the author of my own life. I discovered FDS a year ago and wonder if she was subscribed, because a lot of her advice I could pull from our handbook.

TikiTikiTata-chalala · 2021-12-07T11:53:30+00:00

I noticed the same thing in myself. I would put up with trash treatment and hear my mother's voice if I ever though too speak up "don't be difficult, you always have to be difficult", and "you can't ask people for things like that" -i ended up staying way to long with a situationship bc I was acting how I had to at home to not stir the pot/start a fight. It was like I purposefully cut off my feet to preemptively appease him.

MsXxSelfDestructxX · 2021-12-07T19:01:06+00:00

this one hits so hard. The previous generations of our parents were ok treating women a certain way but now we are wising up and healing instead of accepting less than

InternalEmu1477 · 2021-12-07T07:51:39+00:00

See the YouTube channel school of life, they have some videos on parents and romantic relationships. Attachment is the word to look for

freedom3437 · 2021-12-07T20:27:28+00:00

Are you me? We are literally in similar points in our journeys. I finally woke up to the reality that my mother has a personality disorder that has only gotten worse with time; I think it's narcissistic personality disorder or personality disorder NOS. As a child, I was totally parentified and my boundaries were grossly violated as she would sob about her misery literally all my life. Because I am sensitive and empath, I learned that being in relationship meant caretaking, self abandonment, and aligning with the other person's needs. Only as her behavior became more and more selfish and cruel, as her verbal and emotional abuse was unabated, did I begin to realize she was actually harmful.

Also, my dad is an enabler and is submissive. Only now am I beginning to see that she is emotionally abusing him too and yet he tolerates it. I internalized his process and replicated that with my two relationships to LVM/NVM.

I left an abusive marriage over 2 years ago and I've been in therapy and on my healing journey since. I totally see the parallels of what I learned about relationship with my mom and how I got into that marriage. It's all hitting me in the face now in my healing journey, and I am stupefied, amazed, stunned, distraught, and extremely angry for what I went through.

So I can totally relate.

I love my Dad even though I'm angry at him for enabling her all these decades. For the sake of contact with him, I am LC (low contact) with my mom, because he refuses to leave her due to his rigid belief that one can't leave a marriage. I don't know if there'll ever be a point that I have to cut them both off, but the thought of cutting off my Dad is deeply painful.

For those of you who have toxic family, how do you approach the whole "meet the family" or "tell me about your family" question in the dating/relationship journey with a HVM? Not that I am even dating now, but I hope to one day find a healthy partnership as I continue to heal.

thediverswife · 2021-12-09T23:01:10+00:00

Look up ‘repetition compulsion’ if you haven’t already. It’s all about redoing the same relationship dynamics you grew up with in the hope that you’ll finally fix things and get what you missed.

Title	Relationships with men as a reflection of relationship with parents
Author	cicerii
Upvotes	336
Comments	36
Date	December 7, 2021 3:44 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/rapug9/relationships_with_men_as_a_reflection_of/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/relationships-with-men-as-a-reflection-of.1088230 https://theredarchive.com/post/1088230

Comments