Latest / Just Listen To Me / Your Family System Is Sabotaging Your Relationships - Here's Why
Transcript
- Julia.shay-au: Hi, I'm Julia and welcome back to Just Listen To Me. If love feels confusing or painful right now, you're not broken and neither is your relationship. Let's slow this down together. Today's episode is part two in my series on family of origin wounds. In episode five, we talked about some of the most common family of origin wounds, things like emotional absence, inconsistent caregiving and the ways those early experiences can quietly shape our adult intimate relationships. In today's episode, we're going to go a little deeper. We're going to talk about more complex and distressing family of origin wounds. So before we begin, just a gentle reminder to take care of yourself while listening today. This episode touches on topics such as domestic violence, trauma, abuse and neglect, which may feel activating for some listeners. Pause if you need to, take breaks if you need to. Your wellbeing always comes first. For some people, their upbringing wasn't just marked by everyday attachment wounds. It was marked by significant abuse, neglect or trauma, which profoundly affected the way they came to understand relationships, love and safety. In my work with couples, the second and third sessions are individual sessions with each partner. This is part of the traditional structure of emotionally focused therapy. and it provides an opportunity for both partners to speak freely without their partner present. Sometimes these individual sessions don't make much difference to what people share, but sometimes they make a very big difference. Because when someone is speaking privately with the therapist, it can feel safer to talk about experiences they may never have spoken about before. And often this is where significant family of origin wounds begin to emerge. One of the questions I ask in these individual sessions is a very simple one. What was your parents relationship like when you were growing up? For some partners, that question alone can be incredibly emotional because some people grew up witnessing chronic conflict, emotional volatility or abusive behaviors between their parents. In these kind of environments, it's not uncommon for a child to have been placed in the middle of their parents' conflict as a kind of go-between. This is what we refer to as triangulation. Triangulation means that a child has been unwittingly placed into a role within the parent's relationship, often as a mediator or a scapegoat. When a child is placed in the mediator role, there's often an unconscious expectation that they will buffer or absorb the emotional intensity between the parents. In other words, the child becomes responsible for regulating the emotional climate of the household. But when a child is positioned as the scapegoat, something very different happens. In this role, the child becomes the problem. They become the target for the anger hurt and frustration that actually belongs between the parents themselves. For example, a child might have the courage to speak up about the toxic dynamic in the family in the hope that something might change, only to be blamed for creating tension. Instead of the problem being addressed, the child becomes the problem. Both of these roles are deeply damaging for a child. But the scapegoat role is often one of the most psychologically harmful. Children who have been scapegoated in their family of origin often develop what we call a disorganized attachment style because they grew up in an environment where the very people who were supposed to provide safety and protection are also the source of fear, ridicule or harm. In other words, the sources of safety are also the sources of danger. And that creates an enormous amount of confusion for a developing nervous system. And this is where those earlier experiences often begin to show up in adult relationships. Because when someone has grown up in an environment where love and danger were intertwined, their nervous system can become extremely sensitive to signs of rejection, conflict, or criticism. So in an adult relationship, a disagreement might just feel like not a disagreement. It can often feel like the beginning of the same emotional danger they experienced as a child. And this is often where we begin to see the negative cycle emerge in couples. One partner might reach for reassurance, closeness, or understanding. The other partner might shut down, withdraw, or protect themselves. Both partners are reacting to something much deeper than the present moment. Another question I ask during those individual sessions is, who did you go to for support when you were growing up? Was it mum, dad, or whoever raised you? Or was there nobody? The answer to this question can understandably be very emotional. but it can also give us a deeper understanding of the negative cycle that might be playing out in the couple's current relationship. Sometimes the answer might sound something like this. I could go to mum, she was relatively safe, but she often confided in me about her own problems. Dad on the other hand was violent, so I tried not to talk to him much at all, for fear of getting the fist. Or I could go to dad for my practical needs, but I couldn't talk to him about my feelings, and mum would often use anything I said against me. And sometimes the answer is simply, I couldn't go to mum or dad, so I just kept everything to myself. In those moments, I might ask if there was anyone else who felt supportive. A friend, an extended family member, a teacher, someone who may have been a safe haven for them. Often there was someone who provided at least some sense of safety, what we sometimes call an intervener in their story of abuse or trauma. But sometimes there wasn't. And it can be incredibly difficult when someone grows up feeling like there was no one on their side. Because the internalized message becomes very clear. You are alone. You only have yourself. Now imagine the effect of that message on an adult intimate relationship, especially when we consider that secure attachment in adult relationships is built on trust and safety. If you have never had the experience of a soft, secure place to land, how do you build that in a relationship? For many couples whose family of origin history includes trauma, abuse or neglect, building safety and trust together can be very challenging. Not impossible, but often slower, more delicate and requiring a great deal of care. When couples come to counseling with this kind of trauma background, the process can often take longer. A lot more time is spent building a sense of safety in the counselling space before addressing some of the deeper wounds in the relationship. It is also often important that partners with this kind of trauma background have additional support alongside couples counselling, because even without significant trauma histories, relationship work can be emotionally demanding. At the end of the day, there needs to be a certain level level of stability for both partners before deeper couples work can take place. Otherwise, the risk of re-traumatization can be significant and that is something therapy should aim to avoid wherever possible. And the important thing to remember is this, understanding where these patterns began is not about blaming your past or blaming your parents. It's about making the unconscious conscious. Because once couples begin to see the deeper story behind their reactions, something powerful begins to happen. Compassion enters the room. And compassion is one of the first building blocks of secure attachment. If today's episode brought up a lot for you, please go gently with yourself and remember that podcasts like this are not intended for diagnosis, but for education and reflection. If something in today's episode resonated with you in a difficult way, please consider reaching out to a trained professional for support. I hope you were able to find something in today's conversation that felt helpful, validating, or insightful for your own relationship journey. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.