Her Past & Your Future Together
Was your childhood not quite the picture of perfection? Are there more than a few things you’d change about it? If you answered yes and YES, congratulations! You are normal. Few people grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting. In fact, most people can relate to the joke, ‘Adulthood is spent trying to overcome childhood!’
Do you know the messages she heard?
Nearly two decades in close proximity with a single group of people can’t help but shape your personal identity. Growing up, every child is inundated with millions of messages from parents, siblings, extended families, teachers, classmates, neighbors. They are the basis for how we delineate right from wrong; what we should want; how we should behave. These messages essentially shape how we interpret life.
These early influencers also bombard us with messages about who we are. They make us believe we are smart, beautiful, worthy, all of the above or none of the above. Family dynamics in particular have a profound effect on our self-esteem and character. And how we view ourselves in turn shapes how we to relate to others. For better or worse, we tend to internalize thoughts, beliefs and attitudes regarding relationships based on what we are exposed to during those early years.
As a result, your wife’s early relationship with her family molded her understanding of giving and receiving love. If her family was affectionate, then affection and love are at her core. If her family was supportive, then being supportive and love go hand in hand for her. If she grew up with resentment, then for her, resentment and love go together. This perspective needs to be at the forefront of your mind when you relate to your wife every day of your marriage.
Do you know her expectations?
Our childhood models create conscious and unconscious sets of expectations about what it means to be a wife or a husband. We also form standards for our spouses to live up to in his or her role. These expectations touch every single aspect of your marriage – romance, affection, meals, holidays, money, vacations, work, and parenting, to name just a few big ones. For example, if in your childhood home, your mom got up early and cooked breakfast every single day, on some level you will bring this expectation to your wife. If your wife sleeps late on a Saturday, you may find that subconsciously you’re disappointed in her, or even angry. If, for example, your wife’s dad was excessively romantic, your wife may wonder why you don’t come home with flowers more often. She may not recognize where her expectations come from but these childhood experiences are her internal guidance system. They are her frame of reference for your marriage.
If both of you picked up the same expectations from your families, it isn’t likely to be a source of major conflict. Likewise, expectations that you are aware of usually don’t figure into marital friction. If a woman had a father who was emotionally distant, she likely was determined not to marry someone similar. She and her husband discussed emotional intimacy at length before marrying. It’s when you have hidden expectations and they don’t mesh with those of your mate that problems can bubble to the surface. You may never have talked to your wife about how her parents divided household duties or how they celebrated anniversaries. These unrecognized, sometimes minor, sometimes major expectations can be grist for the argument mill throughout your marriage.
Experts have found that these underlying expectations are directly tied to the level of satisfaction we experience in our relationships, as well as the ultimate success or failure of our relationships. So take the time to discuss with your wife the expectations that each of you imported into your marriage from your families. Which ones are met? Which ones are not? How reasonable are they? Remember, no mate will ever fulfill every single one of your desires in marriage. Try to be realistic in your expectations moving forward. Do this by maintaining perspective and by keeping the channels of communication wide open.
Do you know why she fights the way she does?
Psychologists warn that when tensions are high, couples are more likely to revert to habits or strategies they observed in their childhood homes. If your wife witnessed silence as a way of dealing with conflict, her first instinct will be to do what was modeled to her. The same goes for you. Going with what was modeled isn’t necessarily bad, but chances are that what was modeled to you was different from what was modeled to your spouse. And if you grew up in any sort of normal family, there was at least a little bit of dysfunction that may pop up in to your marriage when things get rough.
To improve your marriage, experts say it is critical to prepare for the inevitable times of stress. When upset, take a deep breath and try to put yourself in your wife’s shoes. Try to replace defensiveness with perspective. Listen to what your mate says. Show her respect. Remember that being rational and making small changes can make a big difference.
The lessons of the past are often what lay just beneath the surface of every issue you face as a couple. Understanding each other’s upbringing and subsequent personalities becomes an important key to unlocking the puzzle that is marriage. As you attempt to blend your two unique identities and relationship styles in the future, always remember how those unique approaches came to be. During impasses, don’t merely throw up your hands and decide you are incompatible. Try to maintain the perspective that you are two different people whose personalities have been shaped by different experiences. This will help open a new chapter with the woman you married.
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Loading …Tags: Communication, Conflict, Family, For Men
5 Responses to “Her Past & Your Future Together”
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After 30 years of marriage we are at the point where battle fatigue may be the reason for the peace in the marriage. I can list her problem areas and have articulated them in detail as well as disussed them until blue in the face with what needs to change and it does not happen. She has refused to change, improve or even work on it. She just keeps apoligizeing all the time.
Compounded by the fact that she is medically disabled and retired in a wheel chair with MS makes old issues to be more pronounced and addes a long list of new issues most marriages don’t face.
So I am at the point where I have been asking myself why do I want this stress in my life? The anwser is my faith and my promises I made which puts me between a rock and a hard place. Somday soon I will break the rock.
I know that this article was intended for men ,but when I read it I realized my marriage didn’t begin to heal until I told him I was sorry for not knowing how to treat him in the role of father &husband.I didn’t have a father figure or a good picture of a husband to my mother. My mother was the mom ,dad , & every thing. Ipushed him out ,Expected him not to be there.I realized it ,admitted it & things changed.The article is true!
Great insight! Often times we rush in with our eyes wide SHUT. We during our courtship will see this differences; and during the infacuation stage of romance, be thoroughly convinced that it is different between you. After 27+ years of marriage and 2+ years of dating; it seems that it is only now that these type of issues are comming to the forefront. Perhaps it is the fact that the children are all now leaving the nest and there is time to focus on these issues. Or perhaps they have just become too previlent to be ignored. It is helpful to have this insight and perspective; so that communication and connection can be made with more accuracy. Thank you for helping to make sure that the “Big Picture” is there to keep us from making one thing or the other; all things.
Mike
The information you shared here helped me understand why after a twenty year marriage things went down hill over a long period of time instead of the perception of it going bad very quickly. I never understood that a persons childhood experiences have such a drastic effect on their marriage even twenty years into it. In our case I still see light because with my spouse, who by the way we are in the middle of divorce, I still see the beautiful person who I met twenty one yaers ago, and all of the bad parts of our marriage just don’t seem that bad. My spouse is more beautiful than ever because of all of the good and bad times we shared and the difficulties we stood against and even the knowledge of who we both have become. I do believe in soul mates and I had mine for twenty years and they are (even with both of our short commings) the most beautiful person I could hope to be a part of their life. Thank you for those yaers and I pray you find what you are looking for….I found what I was looking for twenty plus years ago. God Bless….
Where was this article all this while? It seems this article was directlly channelled to my case. I use to have terrible arguments with my partner nearly every day until I came across this article and apply the method of listening to her and putting myself into her shoe, then I start discovering her inside as well as my. Thanks….