Are Unresolved Childhood Issues Affecting Your
Present Relationship?
Many of us have a conscious list of what we’re looking for in a partner or spouse… Is he or she attractive? Financially stable? Responsible? Adventurous? And so on.
However, what most people don’t realize is that we all have an unconscious list as well… A list that is outside our awareness but even more important to the happiness and success of our relationships.
What Is Our Unconscious Looking For?
As human beings, we have two basic needs when it comes to healing and growth…
The first is to obtain the emotional attachment, connection, and fulfillment we always needed but have never received. And the second is to develop the ability to accept and express all aspects of our “true” selves, to achieve our full potential, and create healthier relationships with our selves, each other, and the world around us.
In order to achieve these goals, our unconscious looks for love that feels familiar and comfortable yet will also help us to develop parts of ourselves that have not yet been allowed to develop or be expressed.
Now, when we discuss unresolved childhood issues and looking for love that feels familiar, I’m not talking about an exact replica of the relationship you had with your mother or father. Just something close… Perhaps someone who is strong yet also critical like your father, or nurturing yet somewhat passive like your mother, or fun yet emotionally unavailable, etc.
All of us – regardless of how wonderful our parents were or weren’t – have some needs that went unmet in our childhoods, or that weren’t met enough.
We all received messages from our families, schools, society, and parts of ourselves that we need to deal with and resolve to move forward and create the best relationships and lives we can.
How Does Any of This Affect Your Present Relationship?
What all of this means is that you’re likely to choose a partner who will give you love and comfort as well as push your emotional buttons in ways that are familiar, at least on an unconscious level.
You may find your partner incapable of giving you what you need most. And you’ll likely discover that some of the qualities about him or her that most attracted you at the beginning of your relationship you later come to resent… Fun and adventurous starts to feel irresponsible and responsible and stable become boring.
And, over time, you’ll likely find your partner becoming more and more unreasonable in two basic ways:
1) He or she will seem to overreact and get upset about things you feel are minor details, and
2) It will feel like he or she wants you to change who you are and do things that are just not you.
Sound familiar?
While most of us are only too familiar with disagreements and arguments that revolve around sex, money, household chores, and the amount of time partners spend together versus the time they spend apart, it often comes as a surprise that the underlying cause of such disagreements and arguments are partners’ unmet childhood needs.
For example, you may argue with your partner repeatedly about his carelessly tossing the clothes on the floor when he gets home, but the real source of your resentment is not that he expects you to pick up after him but how your own mother passively picked up after you father.
Similarly, if you frequently felt criticized as a child you’ll likely be sensitive to any criticism from your partner and will feel criticized by him or her whether or not that is his or her intent. If you felt smothered, neglected, or abandoned, these feelings will come up in your present relationship.
Most people face only a few of these “core issues,” but they typically arise again and again within partnerships and can overshadow all that is good in the relationship, leaving people to wonder if they have chosen the right mate.
So here’s the good news…
These conflicts are actually a sign of healing and growth trying to occur… Conflict itself is a door to deeper intimacy.
But, it’s up to us to use that conflict constructively and not let it lead to further wounding or shame.
Fortunately, help is available…
As a marriage counselor and licensed psychotherapist, I’ve helped countless individuals and couples acknowledge and heal the unresolved childhood issues that create conflicts in their relationships.
Marriage Counseling and Couples Therapy Can Help
If you feel like you’re in a relationship with someone that may not be the Mr. or Mrs. Right you thought they were, good… You’re likely with the right person!
This only means that your partner and you have likely developed different parts of your personalities more than others and that the two of you can learn to help each other grow.
If your relationship with your partner in some ways mirrors that with your parents – and if it seems your partner is unable to provide what you need most, it likely does – then the emotional buttons they push are an invitation for you to look more closely at the aspects of your self that need healing and development.
And, with some work, the two of you can learn to become partners in each other’s healing.
When you can understand each other’s feelings and “childhood wounds” more empathically, you can begin to heal yourself and your relationship, and move toward a more conscious relationship.
This is where marriage counseling and couples therapy can help…
Couples counseling and marriage therapy can take numerous forms and involve any number of theoretical orientations, including the Developmental Model, Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT), and a Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT).
But, regardless of the specific approach or form, the goal of a couples or marriage counselor is to help both partners identify the communication, thought, and behavior patterns that are contributing to the relationship’s distress.
As both partners acknowledge that it’s the patterns themselves that are the problem and not each other, they can begin to develop more helpful and healing ways of interacting with each other, which, in turn, helps the relationship become a safe haven where partners can turn to one another for love and support while remaining simultaneously interdependent yet independent.
Is One Approach Better Than Another?
While many couples and marriage therapists swear by one or more approaches to couples counseling and therapy, just as each of us is a unique individual every relationship is equally unique.
Accordingly, different approaches tend to work better with some individuals and couples than others…
For example, the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy created by Ellyn Bader, Ph.D., and Peter Pearson, Ph.D., founders and directors of the Couples Institute in Menlo Park, CA, is based on the concept that couples’ relationships tend to evolve through a normal series of predictable stages. The couples’ symptoms and problems come about when the partners are not able to progress through these stages. Developmental Theory views couples’ struggles as part of the yearning for psychological growth and wholeness and not as pathology.
The stages parallel some of the stages of early childhood development and are based on the work of Margaret Mahler (Mahler’s Stages of Development), Fred Pine (Theory of Libidinal Object Constancy), and John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Attachment Theory).
Bader and Pearson define the stages of a couples’ development as: Symbiosis, Differentiation, Individuation, Rapprochement and Mutual Interdependence
The therapist, by recognizing the stages and recognizing the stuck places the couple is in, can target interventions in a place that will have an impact in bringing about change. For example, the therapist can help change the couples’ negative cycles and interrupt their defensive reactions. Not uncommonly, partners are triggering trauma in each other, and the therapist helps them stop triggering traumatic responses in each other.
Sometimes one or the other partner brings to the relationship significant early-life decisions or significant early issues that they tend to project on one another. The therapist can help resolve these intrapsychic issues to help the couple get unstuck.
Of course, another important part of Developmental Couples Therapy is helping partners develop new communication and relationship skills.
By contrast, Imago Therapy is different from most couples therapy techniques because it involves the therapist teaching and coaching your partner and you in specific tools that can help you transform your relationship and relate to each other in healthier ways.
Imago is the Latin word for “image” and in Imago Therapy it refers specifically to the unconscious, idealized concept of love that each of us develops during childhood, and which, without work, remains unchanged in adulthood.
In accordance with each of our unique childhood concepts of what love is, we each in turn develop specific behaviors and learn to express or inhibit specific personality traits so we can feel safe and obtain the love we desire.
However, even the best parents fail to meet a child’s every need and expectation. As such, each of our imagos incorporates both the positive and negative behaviors that we associate with our ideal loved ones.
As we consciously seek love in adulthood, we unconsciously seek out people who are similar to our imago and who can thus help us develop the qualities we either inhibited or were not allowed to express in childhood.
An Imago Therapist is not a referee or the keeper of some sacred tools or wisdom. An Imago Therapist’s job is to help your partner and you uncover the underlying issues at work in your relationship and to walk away with the tools, knowledge, and road map necessary to continue the work of creating the relationship or marriage you desire.
Because Imago Therapy is aimed at helping couples re-connect and re-establish a previously loving relationship, it’s not nearly as suitable at helping couples in abusive relationships or in which addictive behaviors play a significant role.
Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), on the other hand, is a fusion of developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, and arousal regulation and is quickly gaining a reputation for treating the most challenging couples.
Research in developmental neuroscience has shown that how we regulate our emotional experiences depends very much on our relationships. And our childhood relationships with our primary caregivers play a large role in how well we can soothe our distress and comfort and be comforted by others.
Accordingly, emotional regulation and mental health are fundamentally relational processes that begin with the attachment, safety, and security we’re provided and develop in childhood.
Your primary relationships in childhood are the basis of the “road map” you use to navigate relationships later in life.
When partners’ maps differ, misunderstanding, defensiveness, isolation, hurt, and mistrust often result.
However, PACT can help your partner and you better understand each other’s relationship road maps and better relate to each other.
Unlike Imago Therapy, PACT places a special emphasis on the role our bodies play in expressing our feelings. For this reason, PACT often begins by helping partners recognize each other’s physical cues (such as body language, facial expressions, voice, and posture) that indicate how threatened or safe and secure each partner feels while discussing specific issues or incidents before working on creating a more effective dialogue.
These differences aside, the Developmental Model, Imago Therapy, and PACT can all be extremely helpful at helping your partner and you uncover and overcome childhood issues that are negatively affecting your relationship.
Just remember, your emotional buttons are your buttons. If you choose to find a different partner, at some point those same buttons are going to be pushed again.
And, if you do choose to look for a new relationship, until you work on your self and come to terms with your own unresolved childhood issues, you’re likely to continue attracting partners that meet your same unconscious requirements. So it makes sense to do the work where you are.
This doesn’t mean people should never get divorced. But it does mean that many divorces are unnecessary if only the partners would have done the work on the undeveloped parts of themselves necessary to avoid repetitive relationship disappointments.
In the end, no matter who you’re with, your relationships won’t change unless and until you do. At some point, healing and growth need to occur and the conflict you experience in your relationship is the means of making that change happen.
Couples and marriage counseling can help you make the unconscious conscious, transform unresolved childhood issues and relationship conflict into opportunities for healing and growth, and connect more deeply and lovingly with your intimate partner.
However, what most people don’t realize is that we all have an unconscious list as well… A list that is outside our awareness but even more important to the happiness and success of our relationships.
What Is Our Unconscious Looking For?
As human beings, we have two basic needs when it comes to healing and growth…
The first is to obtain the emotional attachment, connection, and fulfillment we always needed but have never received. And the second is to develop the ability to accept and express all aspects of our “true” selves, to achieve our full potential, and create healthier relationships with our selves, each other, and the world around us.
In order to achieve these goals, our unconscious looks for love that feels familiar and comfortable yet will also help us to develop parts of ourselves that have not yet been allowed to develop or be expressed.
Now, when we discuss unresolved childhood issues and looking for love that feels familiar, I’m not talking about an exact replica of the relationship you had with your mother or father. Just something close… Perhaps someone who is strong yet also critical like your father, or nurturing yet somewhat passive like your mother, or fun yet emotionally unavailable, etc.
All of us – regardless of how wonderful our parents were or weren’t – have some needs that went unmet in our childhoods, or that weren’t met enough.
We all received messages from our families, schools, society, and parts of ourselves that we need to deal with and resolve to move forward and create the best relationships and lives we can.
How Does Any of This Affect Your Present Relationship?
What all of this means is that you’re likely to choose a partner who will give you love and comfort as well as push your emotional buttons in ways that are familiar, at least on an unconscious level.
You may find your partner incapable of giving you what you need most. And you’ll likely discover that some of the qualities about him or her that most attracted you at the beginning of your relationship you later come to resent… Fun and adventurous starts to feel irresponsible and responsible and stable become boring.
And, over time, you’ll likely find your partner becoming more and more unreasonable in two basic ways:
1) He or she will seem to overreact and get upset about things you feel are minor details, and
2) It will feel like he or she wants you to change who you are and do things that are just not you.
Sound familiar?
While most of us are only too familiar with disagreements and arguments that revolve around sex, money, household chores, and the amount of time partners spend together versus the time they spend apart, it often comes as a surprise that the underlying cause of such disagreements and arguments are partners’ unmet childhood needs.
For example, you may argue with your partner repeatedly about his carelessly tossing the clothes on the floor when he gets home, but the real source of your resentment is not that he expects you to pick up after him but how your own mother passively picked up after you father.
Similarly, if you frequently felt criticized as a child you’ll likely be sensitive to any criticism from your partner and will feel criticized by him or her whether or not that is his or her intent. If you felt smothered, neglected, or abandoned, these feelings will come up in your present relationship.
Most people face only a few of these “core issues,” but they typically arise again and again within partnerships and can overshadow all that is good in the relationship, leaving people to wonder if they have chosen the right mate.
So here’s the good news…
These conflicts are actually a sign of healing and growth trying to occur… Conflict itself is a door to deeper intimacy.
But, it’s up to us to use that conflict constructively and not let it lead to further wounding or shame.
Fortunately, help is available…
As a marriage counselor and licensed psychotherapist, I’ve helped countless individuals and couples acknowledge and heal the unresolved childhood issues that create conflicts in their relationships.
Marriage Counseling and Couples Therapy Can Help
If you feel like you’re in a relationship with someone that may not be the Mr. or Mrs. Right you thought they were, good… You’re likely with the right person!
This only means that your partner and you have likely developed different parts of your personalities more than others and that the two of you can learn to help each other grow.
If your relationship with your partner in some ways mirrors that with your parents – and if it seems your partner is unable to provide what you need most, it likely does – then the emotional buttons they push are an invitation for you to look more closely at the aspects of your self that need healing and development.
And, with some work, the two of you can learn to become partners in each other’s healing.
When you can understand each other’s feelings and “childhood wounds” more empathically, you can begin to heal yourself and your relationship, and move toward a more conscious relationship.
This is where marriage counseling and couples therapy can help…
Couples counseling and marriage therapy can take numerous forms and involve any number of theoretical orientations, including the Developmental Model, Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT), and a Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT).
But, regardless of the specific approach or form, the goal of a couples or marriage counselor is to help both partners identify the communication, thought, and behavior patterns that are contributing to the relationship’s distress.
As both partners acknowledge that it’s the patterns themselves that are the problem and not each other, they can begin to develop more helpful and healing ways of interacting with each other, which, in turn, helps the relationship become a safe haven where partners can turn to one another for love and support while remaining simultaneously interdependent yet independent.
Is One Approach Better Than Another?
While many couples and marriage therapists swear by one or more approaches to couples counseling and therapy, just as each of us is a unique individual every relationship is equally unique.
Accordingly, different approaches tend to work better with some individuals and couples than others…
For example, the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy created by Ellyn Bader, Ph.D., and Peter Pearson, Ph.D., founders and directors of the Couples Institute in Menlo Park, CA, is based on the concept that couples’ relationships tend to evolve through a normal series of predictable stages. The couples’ symptoms and problems come about when the partners are not able to progress through these stages. Developmental Theory views couples’ struggles as part of the yearning for psychological growth and wholeness and not as pathology.
The stages parallel some of the stages of early childhood development and are based on the work of Margaret Mahler (Mahler’s Stages of Development), Fred Pine (Theory of Libidinal Object Constancy), and John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Attachment Theory).
Bader and Pearson define the stages of a couples’ development as: Symbiosis, Differentiation, Individuation, Rapprochement and Mutual Interdependence
The therapist, by recognizing the stages and recognizing the stuck places the couple is in, can target interventions in a place that will have an impact in bringing about change. For example, the therapist can help change the couples’ negative cycles and interrupt their defensive reactions. Not uncommonly, partners are triggering trauma in each other, and the therapist helps them stop triggering traumatic responses in each other.
Sometimes one or the other partner brings to the relationship significant early-life decisions or significant early issues that they tend to project on one another. The therapist can help resolve these intrapsychic issues to help the couple get unstuck.
Of course, another important part of Developmental Couples Therapy is helping partners develop new communication and relationship skills.
By contrast, Imago Therapy is different from most couples therapy techniques because it involves the therapist teaching and coaching your partner and you in specific tools that can help you transform your relationship and relate to each other in healthier ways.
Imago is the Latin word for “image” and in Imago Therapy it refers specifically to the unconscious, idealized concept of love that each of us develops during childhood, and which, without work, remains unchanged in adulthood.
In accordance with each of our unique childhood concepts of what love is, we each in turn develop specific behaviors and learn to express or inhibit specific personality traits so we can feel safe and obtain the love we desire.
However, even the best parents fail to meet a child’s every need and expectation. As such, each of our imagos incorporates both the positive and negative behaviors that we associate with our ideal loved ones.
As we consciously seek love in adulthood, we unconsciously seek out people who are similar to our imago and who can thus help us develop the qualities we either inhibited or were not allowed to express in childhood.
An Imago Therapist is not a referee or the keeper of some sacred tools or wisdom. An Imago Therapist’s job is to help your partner and you uncover the underlying issues at work in your relationship and to walk away with the tools, knowledge, and road map necessary to continue the work of creating the relationship or marriage you desire.
Because Imago Therapy is aimed at helping couples re-connect and re-establish a previously loving relationship, it’s not nearly as suitable at helping couples in abusive relationships or in which addictive behaviors play a significant role.
Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT), on the other hand, is a fusion of developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, and arousal regulation and is quickly gaining a reputation for treating the most challenging couples.
Research in developmental neuroscience has shown that how we regulate our emotional experiences depends very much on our relationships. And our childhood relationships with our primary caregivers play a large role in how well we can soothe our distress and comfort and be comforted by others.
Accordingly, emotional regulation and mental health are fundamentally relational processes that begin with the attachment, safety, and security we’re provided and develop in childhood.
Your primary relationships in childhood are the basis of the “road map” you use to navigate relationships later in life.
When partners’ maps differ, misunderstanding, defensiveness, isolation, hurt, and mistrust often result.
However, PACT can help your partner and you better understand each other’s relationship road maps and better relate to each other.
Unlike Imago Therapy, PACT places a special emphasis on the role our bodies play in expressing our feelings. For this reason, PACT often begins by helping partners recognize each other’s physical cues (such as body language, facial expressions, voice, and posture) that indicate how threatened or safe and secure each partner feels while discussing specific issues or incidents before working on creating a more effective dialogue.
These differences aside, the Developmental Model, Imago Therapy, and PACT can all be extremely helpful at helping your partner and you uncover and overcome childhood issues that are negatively affecting your relationship.
Just remember, your emotional buttons are your buttons. If you choose to find a different partner, at some point those same buttons are going to be pushed again.
And, if you do choose to look for a new relationship, until you work on your self and come to terms with your own unresolved childhood issues, you’re likely to continue attracting partners that meet your same unconscious requirements. So it makes sense to do the work where you are.
This doesn’t mean people should never get divorced. But it does mean that many divorces are unnecessary if only the partners would have done the work on the undeveloped parts of themselves necessary to avoid repetitive relationship disappointments.
In the end, no matter who you’re with, your relationships won’t change unless and until you do. At some point, healing and growth need to occur and the conflict you experience in your relationship is the means of making that change happen.
Couples and marriage counseling can help you make the unconscious conscious, transform unresolved childhood issues and relationship conflict into opportunities for healing and growth, and connect more deeply and lovingly with your intimate partner.