Spouses From Different Childhood

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

What determines the behavior of the spouses?

Conflicts happen in every family. Sometimes they, like a worn-out record, follow the same scenario. Spouses caught in such a cycle of quarrels do not even realize that the reason may be hidden in childhood.

Irina Chesnova, a psychologist and author of books for parents, tells about how a child's attachment to a mother can affect a future marriage

What determines the behavior of spouses in family conflicts?

- At the moment of a quarrel, we fall into our childhood traumas. It is in the conflict that the "subtle" places of a person are manifested. In an effort to suppress, hide our pain, we turn on defensive behavior: for some, this is detachment, for others, on the contrary, the desire to get closer to a partner, to find out everything without losing contact. And each manifestation will have its own intensity, its own degree. At the time of the conflict, one of the spouses can literally step back by 2 mm, but for the second, these 2 mm will seem like a real abyss: there will be experiences, a feeling of rejection. And if another person turns out to be in the place of this second person, he may not notice anything - just think, we did not talk for two hours before making up.

If a couple is experiencing some kind of negative cycle and all quarrels follow the same, similar scenario, it makes sense to consider this behavior from the point of view of attachment theory.

- What is this theory?

- Each person is born already "somehow": he has his own type of nervous system, his own biological needs, his own degree of sensitivity, his own temperament. He can be active, demanding, mischievous or contemplative, calm, obedient. In many ways, it depends on the interaction of mother and child whether these innate properties will manifest themselves more strongly or, conversely, smoothed out. And it depends on this interaction whether the child will trust the world or, on the contrary, feel that the world is dangerous, it is impossible to rely on anyone or anything in it. It is in the relationship with the mother (or the figure that replaces her) in the child's psyche that a construct is formed, which we call attachment.

How can this attachment affect the relationship in marriage?

– There are four types of attachment. The most successful type is a safe (reliable) attachment. A child grows up open, benevolent, self-confident, and if something does not work out for him, he always knows that he will not be allowed to go to waste, there is always an opportunity to ask for help. It is safe for the child and his mother, and he then transfers these feelings to the whole world around him.

I would like to draw attention to the main thing that influences the formation of this type of attachment: the mother should be sensitive, responsive and emotionally available. That is, she responds to the call of the child, catches and satisfies his needs, synchronizes her life with him, listens and hears him, makes eye contact with him. And here the personal qualities of the mother are especially important - how resourceful she herself is, self-confident, can she take the position of a really “big and strong mother”.

This is a very important position. Because next to a “big and strong mom”, nothing is scary. You can be a child, you can relax and explore the world. If the “big and strong mother” (and for every baby, the mother, by definition, is big and strong) rushes about for any reason, not knowing what to do, pouring tons of anxiety on loved ones, what should I do, a little one who still doesn’t know how child, in this huge, unsafe world?

How do people with secure attachments behave already in adult relationships? They are open to a partner, feel worthy of love and equal to each other, and therefore show mutual respect and a willingness to negotiate. In childhood, they got the experience of the emotional availability of their mother, so they have a minimum of fears, they feel their value and know how to be both close and separate. After all, the needs for intimacy and autonomy are equivalent: we just need to sometimes be alone with ourselves, in our secluded personal space, as well as to be with someone together.

People with a secure type of attachment calmly endure periods of distance from their partner, while still remaining in contact with him. When they have a lot of inner resources, they can be a support for others, and when resources run out, they can ask for help from their loved ones.

Such people know that it is safe to ask, to be around is not scary, and there is nothing humiliating in being weak at some point. When a conflict arises, such people can sit down and talk calmly. Both partners are emotionally available and involved in each other, as their mothers were before. They send each other signals - "you matter to me."

What happens when a person does not gain experience of a safe relationship in childhood?

- There are three unsafe attachment types.

Ambivalent - formed when the mother is inconsistent and unpredictable. Sometimes she responds to the call, sometimes she doesn't. Now she is to the child, then from him, then she allows, then forbids. So anxiety and misunderstanding grows in the baby, what to expect from the most important object in the world - will he really be there when it hurts and scares, or still not? The child begins to cling to his mother. In marriage, people with this type of attachment show themselves to be very dependent on the relationship. Since during quarrels all children's fears are actualized, it seems to them that the object of love is slipping away, they have to run after it, cling to it, strive to find out everything, as if by force to pull out the response and reaction - well, do I really mean something to you?

The next type is avoidant attachment … It is formed when the mother is insensitive to the signals and needs of the child, cold, maybe even depressed, unresponsive, that is, emotionally not involved in the child. She may not take him in her arms, be very stingy with manifestations of love. The child experiences severe mental pain, is internally fenced off from the mother and, growing up, decides to avoid attachments, because any attachment is pain.

These are more often emphatically self-sufficient and independent men who seek to keep their feelings under control. In marriage, in moments of conflict, they break contact, become cold and inaccessible, and can be very cruel - for example, not talking for a long time. They cannot be close, it hurts. They are afraid of becoming overly dependent on relationships and their own feelings, so they keep their distance.

Disorganized attachment occurs in no more than 5% of people. It is also called "scorched soul", when it is almost impossible to predict human behavior. This attachment is often formed in families where the child is severely physically abused. Such people have an incredible amplitude of emotional fluctuations, behavioral reactions are strongly expressed, contradictory and change with great frequency. They can seek a relationship with a person for a long time, but, having barely achieved, immediately break off all contacts.

I would like to emphasize that everything we are talking about is just a template. All these types of attachment are rare in their pure form. There are people with a reliable type of attachment, but with unreliable elements. Moreover, later life can change the type of attachment inherent in childhood.

Thus, a nurturing grandmother can “unfold” a child with avoidant attachment, giving him the experience of safe intimacy, accessibility, and warmth. Also, a reliable type of attachment can, as the child grows up, acquire the features of ambivalent or avoiding due to traumatic separation from his mother, family conflicts, divorces, multiple moves or the loss of close relatives. Everything that we have mentioned is only the basis on which the further development of the personality is built.

Do we also choose spouses by the type of affection?

- How we choose people, we still cannot explain to the end. There is a lot of unconscious, unconscious in our choice. In each of us, somewhere deep inside, there are images of people who took part in our growing up. It is these images that we associate with love - the way we understood it and which we received (or did not receive) in childhood. And if the person we meet subtly "falls" into this image, most likely, we will look for a relationship with him. And in them, in these relationships, to look for what we lacked in childhood: protection, recognition, maybe admiration - whatever.

I compare it with a theatrical play: we choose those who can play with us in our performance, with whom we feel the resonance, who knows the text of the role that complements ours.

Attachment is a way of contact with another person, it is a construct that is formed after birth, a model of relations with a mother, which we then project onto other people.

What if we find in ourselves or in a partner one of the above models of attachment?

- You have to think in terms of your own and others' fears, your own and someone else's pain. If, for example, you find that in a conflict situation, anxiety pushes you towards your partner, and, for example, he has a desire to detach, this will help you understand what motivates you and your spouse.

When a conflict occurs, vivid negative emotions come out. But there is always a lot of pain and fear behind them. A person who is used to clinging to a partner has a fear of being abandoned, a fear of loneliness, uselessness. The person who pulls away has other fears: to appear incompetent, to be consumed by the relationship. In moments of quarrels, these fears are actualized and guide us. If you understand what fears are driving each of you, if you see your own and someone else's pain, it will be easier for you to reconcile and comfort each other.

Conflict, if emotion is removed, is simply a clash of interests, and their purpose is to solve a problem. There is nothing wrong. However, before blaming another, you need to understand yourself: what kind of person you are, what causes your emotions. There are purely situational conflicts: one is exhausted by a child, the other by work, and a quarrel breaks out on this basis.

Sometimes the conflict is additionally loaded with pain and emotions from the fact that the spouses in marriage do not get what they want, their needs are not met: "I feel insignificant", "I do not have enough recognition." It happens that there is a struggle for power in the family. This happens very often. When a husband, coming home from work, points out that something has not been done at home, this is not only a problem of unmet needs, but also an attempt to show who is in charge here. And the wife does not want to feel humiliated, she will resist.

Attachment "wounds" have arisen in relationships, and they need to be "healed" also in relationships. The first step is to investigate myself first of all: what am I, how I react to certain situations, how I behave in moments of quarrels, who is the other person for me, what I want from him, what I expect from a relationship with him, can he give me what I need? It's all about yourself, not about your partner.

It is necessary to understand whether we see another person as separate - with our needs, feelings, values, our experience and our picture of the world. Or is it some kind of object with which we want to solve our problems. First of all, you need to seek contact with yourself. And if something does not suit you in a relationship - talk about it calmly, openly and directly, without accusations, offer your own way of solving problems. After all, if two people want to be together, they will overcome everything.

Interviewed by: Ksenia Danziger