Am I recreating the problems I witnessed with my parents?

QUESTION: Dear Olga. I was friends with my boyfriend for 4 years and we are now in a 6-month, long-distance relationship. I notice that I tend to act like my parents more and more with him lately though I do not believe I did with other people I dated. My parents have been together for 33 years and I am proud of their lasting marriage, but think they are incredibly mean to each other. I didn't want to repeat that cycle with my spouse. My boyfriend and I are talking marriage, but lately I am so mean to him and find myself incredibly uninterested because our petty bickering drains me. The older people in my life that know me well say it's obvious I am not in love with him, and half my friends my age like him and half don't. I know it's up to me to decide. We both are willing to change so that we can salvage our relationship, but I feel the more we work on it the deeper the grave for our relationship. Please help.

ANSWER: I can understand your frustration. You seem very dedicated to getting things right yet you’re aware of some underlying dynamics getting in the way. You’re understandably afraid of ending up like your parents but the truth is that you are missing the same things that they missed out on. So it’s not so much that you’re like them; it’s more a case of having some ‘missing pieces’ in common.

I’ll explain what I mean by that. As children, we take on our parents’ beliefs, fears, self-doubts, insecurities and perceptions. We can’t help it; we absorb their ‘stuff’ without even realizing we’re doing it. At the same time, we are profoundly shaped by what are parents cannot give us. If they failed to get acceptance, respect, validation, encouragement, affection or any other essential formative quality expressed to them when they were children, they will be unable to pass these qualities on to us. These ‘missing pieces’ therefore get handed down from generation to generation, unless someone breaks the cycle. Our missing pieces cause us to become distorted, diminished and reactive in many ways, and they cause us to attract partners with the SAME missing pieces as us. They also determine how much love, abundance and fulfillment we attract in life, so it is extremely important to identify them and start filling them in – if we want to have a truly happy and fulfilling life.

Let’s look at one of them – acceptance, the #1 missing piece for everyone. If you failed to get the kind of acceptance you needed as a child, in order to feel good about yourself, to feel loved and to have a strong sense of self, you would have a hard time putting yourself first, doing what’s best for you or maybe even KNOWING what’s best for you. You would also find it difficult to receive, to let love in or to experience a truly intimate connection with your partner.

So it’s interesting to note that you are in a long-distance relationship – and that the idea of marriage is making you ‘meaner’. You may say that the distance is just because of circumstances, but here’s the real truth (one that could turn you life around if you really embrace it): your circumstances are the direct result of your subconscious programming. In other words, your programming (which is made up of your ‘missing pieces’ and some deeply engrained core beliefs about yourself) determines your circumstances. So if you have been programmed to feel subconsciously undeserving (due to your ‘missing pieces’), you will fight off anyone who gets too close or tries to love you more deeply. You don’t mean to do it; it’s a strategy devised by your subconscious mind to match the programming. But it creates a conflict with your conscious mind, which knows things should be different – thus the conflict you’re feeling. You are in your relationship for a reason, and none of what you are experiencing is random or an accident. There are parts of you that are ‘wobbly’ as a result of some negative programming and the only way you can start to build emotional ‘muscle’ is by filling in your missing pieces.

So look at what’s missing for you in your relationship, and define it in terms of qualities such as intimacy, respect, trust, acceptance, closeness, connection etc. Whatever qualities you identify as missing (even if it looks as if it’s your partner who’s failing to provide it) will be YOUR missing pieces.

Now think about connection – which I think may be a key missing piece for you. What does connection mean to you? How do you connect with your emotions? How do you connect with your boyfriend? In what ways do you disconnect and when do you do that? If we are disconnected from ourselves, we cannot truly connect with another, nor can we connect with what’s best for us or be connected to what we feel in our hearts.

So try to find some ways of filling in this particular piece in practical ways. Forget about your partner and focus on making yourself more emotionally free and complete (in the sense that you’re no longer being reactive as a result of negative programming from your parents). Find ways of connecting with your emotions. Play some passionate music, go for walks in nature, do dance or aerobic exercise (to get the body stirred up), and make a point of engaging in meaningful conversations (with eye contact) – ideally with your partner. Most importantly, start talking with as much raw honesty as you can, because this helps you get in touch with your deeper feelings and discover some deeply buried truths that even you are not aware of. Your relationship is there for you to discover and fully formulate who you are.

Remember: the distance between you and your boyfriend is not just geographical. Nor is it just about the emotional distance between you and him; it’s also about the distance between you and your heart. Start closing the gaps here and you will almost certainly find that your meanness has nothing to do with your boyfriend – and everything to do with your heart longing for all the affection, respect and/or acceptance you missed out on as a child, which (if you start practising them for yourself, in practical ways) will start to bring you a much deeper, more loving, meaningful connection with yourself and with your man.