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Joined: Oct 2005
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horsey2 Offline OP
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Have you ever blamed your "past" on your marriage problems? I don't know why I've been back in "blame" mode but I'm not so sure it's "helpful..." Modern psychology says we are supposed to analyze our childhoods to figure out why we are where we are today. It can't be that simple can it. I mean when they sit you down in a session or two and just "know everything"...

Say I married a control freak, something "must have" been wrong with my upbringing or I wouldn't have done THAT right?

Oh they'll say we marry our mothers/fathers/brothers/sisters...

And that we are repeating our childhood woes.

How about just letting the past be the past? My folks did what the did, what they knew best. Here I am raising a boy that's three, I told the last shrink this is crazy, my boy'll be in counseling one day saying "look what she did to me" every time there's a problem in his life right? I'm trying my best, sure I make mistakes too.

I wish it was that easy, a. childhood issues b. adult issues c. marriage issues d. resolve childhood issues and reparent and then e. life would be great and we'd choose better partners...

If the shrinks were "right" they would all have the "same answer" wouldn't they? I used to bounce around shrink to shrink, and looking back in 1-2 sessions they all came up with different "conclusions"... I didn't even know what a narccist was but the final one said my ex was on. One before that said he was an alcoholic. Neither even met him, barely knew me. How helpful is this?

I guess I'm in the mode that I think shrinks made my marriage and my thoughts of it worse then it really was, certainly they helped to build my increasing anger, bitterness and paranoia. I'm not sure how one would find a "good" counselor, I think I need one these days. But having been through a string of them I'm a little gun shy.

Just wish I could pass the blame onto my mother and father, problem is my dad died and I know from his funeral the theme was how he adored his family, we are all he ever talked about, we were his life. And my mom stayed at home all those years, making sacrifices. Now that I have a child of my own I know how many.

Has there ever been a shrink say "wow, your folks did what they knew best, the tried, you turned out ok, but marriage is hard... life is hard." How about admitting that psychology is a bunch of you know what, that it can hurt more then it can help. I don't know... I'm just venting myself.

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My wife's past was the root of all her problems.

She was jealous of her siblings and took it out on me.

They got "everything" given to them in her eyes.

She got really bad when her nephew got killed and her father, to relieve his guilt over the accident, showered her brother with stuff. New truck every year, huge boat, hunting land, a house at a fishing resort, to the point of bankrupting himself, leaving her with zero inheritance.

He has so far spent every bit of $350,000 and now has nothing left.

It was her father's money and he can do with it as he wishes.


I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
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If the shrinks were right, why are there so many broken people in the world today?

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I don't buy the whole past problem excuse for the most part. Plenty of people turn out just fine after growing up in horrible conditions and plenty more are nutcases despite a healthy childhood atmosphere. As adults, we make our choices as we go along. Our past experiences may influence us on how we make these decisions, but a bad choice is a bad choice and the resulting circumstances are not due to the past experience but the choice itself.

So if you marry a loser because one or both of your parents were losers, blame your unhappy marriage on your choice, not your parents. You can learn from it (i.e. make a conscious effort to find somebody NOT like your parents) or repeat their mistakes. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. You have to realize that you have control over your decisions in the present before you can overcome whatever obstacles may have existed in your past.

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I think there is a Difference between blaming and understanding. I do believe our past influences are decisions, and if we want to make better or different decisions in the future, we need to understand why we made the poor decisions we did.

Personally, I think the boom in mental health has done a disservice to many. There are too often practitioners who do think they understand the situation after only a couple of sessions. The best ones know it takes time and patience especially since the patient often withholds information, misleads or even lies. Over time, these omissions and untruths become evident.

I know I did indeed marry a man like my father and ended up re-doing that relationship. A dead give away should have been the age difference. 18 years is a big difference. But, I don’t blame my dad. The past happened, it’s done. All I have any control over is the present.


Divorced.
2 Girls
Remarried 10/11/08
Widowed 11/5/08
Remarrying 12/17/15
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I don't think your past or your upbringing can be blamed, but rather a persons inability to change or adapt from it and instead just accept it. Your past can have to do with who are, but has nothing to do with who you can be. That is your choice, not the choice of your past.

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horsey2 Offline OP
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One shrink said knowing about ones family history just helps put the puzzle pieces together. Perhaps some of it is helpful, but yes I think some of these shrinks aren't helping when they throw out their know it all theories within a few sessions, in fact I think a few of them only added to my anger in my marriage, making it worse then better.

My mom is an example of someone growing up in a horrible, abusive home with the mean father from ******. Her brother has spent his life going to shrinks and recently at a family get together, at almost 70 years old he was still crying about his father ignoring him. He's spent his life psycho, his kids are having trouble in their adult relationships... however my mom is so admired in her community and church. She knows she made mistakes when were were quite young, likely she repeated some of the garbage from her own home - but she became a Christian, and put the past behind her, and worked and worked on a daily basis to change. I remember the preacher at my home church saying "just look at her" when my dad was dying of cancer, and he was right, she's an amazing woman, handled the stress with dignity, so did my dad, and as the preacher said, if I need a role model - it's my own mom. Amazingly the shrinks before they know me, or the story of my upbringing strike out.

I made a poor marriage decision, even my mom tried to get me to "see it" before I walked down the isle. She said I had no idea what it would be like to be married to a man like this. A counselor said that since we dated long distance he showed me what I wanted to see, he kept a lot from me, and on purpose (I later found the porn, cell messages to other women, notes in his drawers, the works)... If it were this "easy" to come up with a quick formula, ie mom and dad, brothers did this so I "chose" a marriage from ******... heck I had no clue how marriage could be ******, yes he was a bit controlling, but he was fun when we dated. I never dreamed of this. I don't know what I was repeating if anything and I dont' know why it matters - they say so I won't "do this again" and the last shrink from ****** swore, having known me all of one hour "that I will, she's seen it before" and if I didn't come in to get "help" weekly with her, I'd marry another abusive man. It's so absurd, I'm a fairly smart person and believe me I won't be marrying anyone like my ex again, I won't even date unless someone is very, very decent. What was she saying "I'm trapped"?

I don't know why lately I went back to whining about my family life growing up. My brothers were jocks, sibling rilvery went on, I was the only girl, yes I felt it. My mom had four kids, life was stressful for her, she might not have been all worried about meeting my emotional needs when she had two young toddlers, and me a baby - and she worried about money, survival and putting food on the table. Later on we had money, she did all she could for me, so did my dad. I was a brat, didn't appreciate all they did for me, perhaps I still don't as much as I should. If I could even be half of my mother I'd be a whole lot better - funny my mom's always had 10 times the wisdom of the shrinks that I've met with. Just because they have degrees doesn't mean they have an ounce of wisdom. First step would be listening, really listening before coming up with garbage theories...

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Well, my original statement was more in jest. But I do actually believe that shrinks don't hold all the answers.

It is actually statistically accurate that people tend to repeat their relationship mistakes (not that I would know anything about that having done it 3 times around now). In fact knowing this, I went out of my way to try to avoid it the 3rd go round and failed miserably at that.

But I don't think that means that we have to repeat our mistakes.

I do think our past, our experiences, etc. have bearing on who we are today. Every emotion, experience, etc. will shape us. Our parents instill their values and their faults into us (unintentionally I'm sure). But I don't believe everything is predestined. In other words we can break those trends. But I think awareness and analysis at a minimum are required. In the end, I don't think it's about blame, it's about understanding ourselves, understanding our weaknesses, understanding our tendencies, etc.

I am learning about myself that I am attracted to a particular set of traits. In some ways, some of those traits are contradictory. Additionally, that particular combination of traits seems to be poisonous at least some of the time and makes me susceptible to repeating my past relationships.

And learning those things about myself, I'm hoping to avoid yet another repeat. Of course I'm not confident enough that I've solved the entire model so I choose not to be in a serious dating relationship at this point in time.

But know also that human nature says that we see what we want to see. Knowing those things alone isn't enough. When I'm emotionally connected to someone and the attractions are there, I'll likely see what I want to see in that person and be blind to the warnings that suggest this person maybe isn't so far off from my broken model.

So who knows (wow, I've gone crosseyed and reasoned myself in a circle <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />...)

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horsey2 Offline OP
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Yes I think many of us are lacking in relationship skills, my mom admits that she wished she communicated more with us, that she knew more when we were young - none of us are very good at relationships, but very successful in business and our jobs.

Someone once said on this site a few years ago, that any of us who are lacking skills have to read more, study more, analyze more, go to shrinks more - to try to learn the very skills that others might naturally have, having grown up in more functional families with role models.

I contradict myself too. I'm conservative but liberal. Sometimes I think I'm a hypocrite, a shrink while I was married called me one, maybe he was right. I don't know. I was raised with a set of values and they were hammered into me, Christian values and sometimes I don't walk the walk like I should. But from my mom I learned at a young age how to judge and expect maybe too much from others, yet I myself can't even live up to these expectations.

I'm cross eyed too... circular... half crazy... But I think you are right, understanding our weaknesses is important, as one of my shrinks said - in my string of shrinks - we all have our "stuff" it's how much it interferes with our daily life. At least lately I've been realizing more my own errors, I can forgive myself for some of my mistakes in the past, but in the future - now that I know I was so much at fault too - I should be able to prevent some of the same issues, so you'd hope.

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Quote
we all have our "stuff" it's how much it interferes with our daily life. At least lately I've been realizing more my own errors, I can forgive myself for some of my mistakes in the past, but in the future - now that I know I was so much at fault too - I should be able to prevent some of the same issues, so you'd hope.

Our "stuff" IMHO can interfer with our present. It does with me mostly because I haven't understood the why I can't let the "stuff" go. It hurt is why and I don't want to let that happen again. Unfortunately when things are going bad guess what pops up to the forefront...yup the "stuff". I haven't YET resolved how to accept,and let go of my "stuff" . Believe you me I want to. I am trying to find a way.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just address our "stuff" with those that were a part of it? I just can't bring myself to rehash history with them. It would be hurtful (I think) to them. I don't think they intentionally tried to hurt me or effect the rest of my life but they did. So how to deal with "stuff"???? Million dollar question.

I've been thinking of writing letters explaining why I need them to realize what effect their actions have had on me. NEVER to actually send them, but more like journaling. And then to put myself in their place and respond back to me.

Has anyone else tried this? Does it help? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />


EA4-7/07,Dday7/29,NC 7/30/07
ME 47 WH 48
Married 30 yrs.
2 DD,4 GC
Found out
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You can blame your marriage issues on your past, however as several people have pointed out, once you know what the cause was it's time to change.

Here's and example of what I realized during my separation (yes, there is hope and we are back together and working hard on our relationship).

My parents got divoriced when I was young and I remember the final fight like I'm watching it live. I was like 3 or 4. What I "learned" was that if you yell and argue and hurt the people you love, they stop loving you and leave. That's what my dad did. Now that I understand that and have accepted that I am not my dad and my wife is not my mother and our fight is not theirs. I'm not afraid of telling her things that I used to not say for fear of "hurting" her. The silence was deafining as they say.

From the point I realized what the cause was, I cannot blame any further acts like this on the past. If I let my past control my future, my future is lost.


Me: 38
DW: 40
DD: 17, 14, 8
DS: 11
In Love: 1985 (high-school sweeethearts)
Married: 1988
Separated: 8/6/07
Back Together: 9/5/07

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