Your "Type" of Partner
Have you noticed that we tend to pick a partner who is most like the
parent from whom we wanted additional love, attention, acceptance and
praise as a child? The reason -- because we still want to receive
what we have not yet felt we yearned to have as a child. When we pick a
partner similar to one or both of our parents that lacked giving us
what we desired, we’re striving to heal our childhood wounds.
Even
if our partner is not like a parent, we’ll often recreate the scene so
our partner acts or we imagine them to act like our parent, so
hopefully we can now have what we never felt we deserved to have as a
child. As we begin to recognize that this “same old dance” doesn’t work
for us, or our partner, we can then take responsibility for our self.
We
can either choose to ask our partner for what we need, desire or hope
for, or we can choose to find healthy ways to give it to our self. In
this way we can stop expecting our partner to be our “parent” and we
can stop being the “child” in the relationship. We can meet our partner
on equal territory and both discover healthy ways to meet each other’s
needs, desires and wishes.
- Make
a list of your past significant intimate partners.
- Then
list their quality characteristics and the negative traits of each of
them.
- Star or circle the repeated qualities and
negative traits that you have listed from all your partners.
- Now check the qualities and negative traits
that are similar to your parent's characteristics and traits.
- Spend some time reflecting upon what you
discovered.
Did you discover the "type" of person you have a tendency to pick for
relationships? When we know the "type" of partner we tend to attract,
then we can take further responsibility for choosing wisely. You may
have been surprised how many similar quality characteristics and
negative traits are in every one of your chosen partners. One woman
stated, "You would have thought I was in numerous relationships with
the same person when I assessed their qualities and traits."
If you find exercises like this helpful there are many more in the
Journey to Love Workbook that you can order now at
www.JourneyToLove.com/workbook/htm or sign up for the next Journey to
Love class at www.JourneyToLove.com/services/htm that is starting next
week.
Quote:
What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All we love deeply becomes
a part of us. Helen Keller
|
