How Parent-Child Relationships Shape Adult Marriage

The type of relationship a child has with their parents in early life will reappear in their relationships as an adult, particularly in their marital relationship.

Therefore, before committing to a relationship with your life partner, look at the kinds of relationships they have with the people around them. Your relationship may be different at that moment, leading you to avoid comparisons and hold on to the idea that you and your relationship are special to your partner. In the future, however, you will probably see the same relationship patterns between you that your partner has with others—just as you will notice yourself doing the same and bringing patterns from your previous relationships into this one.

Personal capacities that develop during childhood

Three personal capacities develop during childhood and affect the nature of relationships in adulthood:

Deep emotional insight (Insight):

This is a person's ability to understand their feelings and what is going through their mind, and to explore the source and cause of those feelings and thoughts. It also includes the ability to understand another person's feelings and thoughts and their causes, whether those feelings exist now or could arise if something happens. A child acquires and develops this capacity when their parents are able to understand the feelings and thoughts behind their behavior and share this understanding with them. It also develops when parents share their own feelings and thoughts in a way appropriate to the situation and the child's age.

The ability to “read oneself and others” is vital to forming all kinds of human relationships in adulthood, but it appears to be most essential in intense relationships such as parenting and marriage.

For example, a mother needs the ability to understand the feelings and motivations behind her son's reluctance to do his homework. Is he exhausted? Is he bored? Is he afraid of the homework or feeling incapable? A mother with deep emotional insight will ask her child about his feelings and suggest possible feelings he may be experiencing, so he can see that she is trying to understand him and explore what is happening inside him. She will also share with him her own feelings of confusion, fear, or anger when he does not do his homework.

Whether this happens—or does not happen—in the relationship between the parents and the child will determine whether, when the child grows up and marries, he takes an interest in what is happening inside his wife, can talk to her, and cares about her feelings. It may also determine whether a wife understands that her husband does not want to leave the house because he is exhausted, rather than because he does not care about her.

The capacity for “give and take” (Mutuality):

This is a person's ability to consider their own needs and feelings and those of others, and to maintain a balance between them. Acquiring this capacity begins when parents meet their child's emotional needs. By the end of the child's first year, they begin to show that their own needs also have a place by setting boundaries and sometimes declining to fulfill every request, such as eating excessive sweets or staying up and playing until late.

The child learns that a relationship involves give and take, rights and responsibilities. The child learns to ask because they trust that their requests will be heard, and learns to meet requests in order to maintain an emotional connection with the other person. At this stage, the child's individuality takes shape, and they learn that they and their parents are independent people whose needs may differ. They do not have the ability to “read minds and predict needs,” so they must communicate verbally.

A child who did not pass through this stage safely may experience problems in marital relationships as an adult. For example, a wife may expect her husband to guess what she needs from him without asking or explaining her needs verbally. Or we may see a husband who believes there is no place for his wife's needs and always expects her to adapt to his.

The capacity for emotional control and regulation (Emotional Regulation):

This is the ability to respond to reality and express emotion flexibly and in a socially acceptable manner, preventing spontaneous, intense reactions or postponing a reaction until another time. A young child does not have the capacity for self-control and emotional regulation and needs containment from their parents, as well as the example of their parents controlling themselves, in order to acquire this capacity.

When a young child screams and cries and the father does not understand why, he does not respond by shouting. Instead, he embraces the child, talks to him, tries to understand the reason for the screaming, and offers help. In this situation, the child learns self-control from his father. As he grows, he becomes able to regulate his emotions and express them through more mature forms of communication. In adulthood, he can tell his wife that he feels angry and explain the reasons without allowing the problem to escalate into behavior that harms either of them.

These capacities are vital to all human relationships and are especially important to parenting and marriage, which are the most intense relationships. In human development, there is always hope, and conflicts, despite their difficulty, offer a new opportunity for growth. What did not happen in the child's primary relationship with their parents may therefore receive a second chance through marriage and raising children.

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