The Cycle

I heard two people arguing on an RTA. Bless their hearts they were trying to keep it down but I heard every word. I gathered that they were going see the male's parents for the first time, he was explaining to the female that they were a little dysfunctional, and explaining why. The female proceeds to pick all the little negatives he was saying about his parents and title him as the exact same thing.

It begged the question, What part do our parents play in our future relationships?

I think the seed is planted early in life. No matter how terrible parents are, their children seem to love them, and want their love back; children want to be taught by them, nurtured by them, loved by them, excepted by them, backed and supported by them and parents for the most part enjoy seeing their teachings and love mold a wonderful human being prepared to face the world. We all subconsciously desire to be like the same sex parent, and find the opposite sex parent in a mate.

The tricky part about this is that there are some really bad parents. The terrible part is, that doesn't stop us from dating the wrong people.

There's also other ways to look at it like, perhaps we want to find someone that has some negative qualities that our parents had, we find those attractive, then we displace the anger and pain and take it out on our partners.


I've had a boyfriend once say "But I put a roof over your head, I feed you, I take care of you." Well, my response to that is whether you agree with me or not my parents finished raising me, I don't need a provider, we aren't married, we don't have children, we don't share a mortgage. My parents provided all of the above to me. If all of the above was all I needed I never would've branched out of their care.

We look for the same things that we look for in our parents as we look for in a mate, with a little extra: we want to be taught by them, nurtured by them, loved by them, excepted by them, backed and supported by them but we also want to grow with them, to teach them, to take care of them, to be needed by them, to be cherished by them. Do you realize what that is? Relationships and the pursuit of them turns into role playing, and we are wanting what we want from our parents and wanting to give what our parents gave us. GOOD OR BAD.

I love my parents, but I desire to be better than them. It would be sad if I didn't aim for better, not because they're bad people but because limiting my life would be terrible.

There are so many direction that this psychoanalysis could branch into: Father's can influence sexuality (homo, hetero) Father's can influence what type of men his girls will date, Mothers can create women haters, Mothers can influence the roles taken in relationships, Mothers can influence the amount of dysfunction girls or boys will tolerate from their partner, Parents as a whole can instill violence and anger as a daily part of life, etc. I could get really carried away, however, I think that at some point in every adult's life we have to distinguish what we learned, what we endured, and how we lived, from what is truly healthy, and from right and wrong. Nothing in life should make us regress.

I believe that relationships should come natural and easy. I think that once we start looking for life long relationships we should cut the umbilical cord and leave our childhood (good or bad) in the past and start our relationships with a clean slate. To carry poison from bad parents would guarantee doom and carrying positive influences from parents aren't as bad but do lead to expectations which as we all know are the one thing that causes disappointment.