The one thing {most} parents have in common: They Try Their Best

“Parents remain our touchstones,  fellow travelers, even after death. They are both missing and present. So when I succeeded, I would glance sideways and see a snapshot of how my father handled success: with wry pleasure and a strong sense of the capriciousness of life. When I failed, I would glance sideways and remember how he handled failure: with grit and perspective. He got up, put on his tie, and went back to work.  Well, it isn’t cancer, he would say, until, of course, it was. “

– Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, June 20, 1999.

How we act in our committed relationships is largely the result of how we experienced relationships in our families-of-origin. We often talk, walk, eat, think, and may even vote like our parents. We may not realize, however, how influential they have been. For some, it is only when dealing with their own children that they first recognize these similarities.

In viewing a relationship, it is important to remember that we carry this family from childhood within us, a family culture made up of expectations about the world and how to act in it.

There are three components of this culture, each learned while growing up in our families:

• Roles, or the parts we play in our life with others;
• Family rules, which guide appropriate action; and
• Core beliefs, or the thoughts at the base of our feelings and actions, which provide the standards against which we evaluate our experience and ourselves.