Your Partner Had a Crappy Childhood — Is the Relationship Paying the Price?
Partners of those who grew up with tragic parenting are shocked by our capacity for self-loathing.
Here’s what I learned in childhood: Parents can choose to raise us or not. They’re not obligated. My mother dropped me off at her parents’ house “for the weekend” when I was four, and never returned. Two years later my father, not yet the alcoholic he’d become, reclaimed me. The resulting logic is obvious: If the two people tied to me by blood, birth, and obligation could ditch me, then I was someone people left. And like all adult children of adversity and addicts, I grew up hyper-independent yet walking on eggshells in romantic relationships, always waiting for the unpredictable yet inevitable betrayal.
We’re Self-Less
We experienced shame-based parenting and so we have a splintered, dislodged sense of self. Your needs matter more than ours. That’s the code. A deep groove was seared into our cognitive belief system: Be what mom wants or lose her. Be what dad wants or he’ll withdraw his love. Play by the rules of the game called Conditional Love. Be perfect. Don’t make waves, comply, be pliable, be pleasant, and above all, internalize that you’re…
