Why We Choose Emotionally Unavailable Partners & How to Stop
My friend, Robert, explained it with his own story.
“No parent wants to inflict pain on their children but sometimes they can’t help it. My mother had untreated bipolar disorder, suffering from bouts of depression and mania. My dad was helpless in the face of her episodes so he shut down, exploding in anger which made mom worse. Every day was scary. As a result, my sister and I became the parents in our family, with me forging permission slips, mowing the lawn and making sure there was food and my sister doing most of the cooking and cleaning. We were highly attuned to their outbursts, believing we must have done something to bring it on. And despite everything, we both replayed our childhood by marrying people we had to take care of.”
“Of course, I didn’t realize any of that until my 11-year-old son asked, ‘Why is Mom always mad at us? I forgot to take the trash out last night and she threw a glass at me, screaming for an hour.’ While listening to him, I felt like a failure. My three children suffered because I had married a woman that was a combination of my parents. On a subconscious level, I just didn’t want to deal with my wife. I could ignore her behavior because my work took me on the road most of the time, but my children couldn’t escape.”
