Will My Dysfunctional Childhood Ruin My Relationship?

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

How do you make it so that dysfunctional relationships with your family of origin don’t carry forward to your future romantic relationships? And how do you help your bf understand that is the case?

I’m asking because my boyfriend (31M) spent Thanksgiving with me (36F) and my parents (70s) and was able to meet them for the first time. While he was there, he noted that I really do not help them with the housework/dishes. At all.

This is entirely accurate; I don’t. When I was growing up, they were both a mess of (probably) untreated OCD and hoarding disorder, and my mother used housework as a tool of power and control. Some examples.

– I would clear out the clutter in my room to have livable space, and my mom would “rescue” utterly unusable items from the trash and donation pile and keep them, or insist that I kept them, and then stuff the cleared-out livable space in my room with more utter junk, even when I begged her to please leave things as they were because it was comfortable now.

– If I (a child) was a little rough with or damaged anything in the house, no matter how minor, my dad would corner us and scream at us. He did this to one of my cousins and their family stopped visiting.

– Any time I did help out with dishes, etc. I would get a lecture on how they had this amazing system for folding the damp paper towel as I was dusting/loading the dishwasher/bagging groceries at the store, and I wasn’t meeting their exact expectations.

– I went to an extremely rigorous private school whose homework workload ate up most of my outside-of-school time. (No, seriously– I would get home, start in on homework, and be done around 11 PM. The students who played sports were routinely up until 1 or 2 AM.) The rare occasions when I did have time off, and tried to get together with friends, my mom would make me cancel my plans and do cleaning projects instead.

– At extended family events, the women did all of the cooking and cleaning, and the men sat around and talked. Misogynist garbage.

…anyway, we can debate how much of this was real abuse vs. kid not understanding household needs, but the point is that I grew up with the strong impression that the whole system was sexist, my housework efforts were useless anyway, and it was really just an opportunity for me to get screamed at. You can understand how my #1 coping mechanism was not to engage. It took me well into adulthood to figure out how doing chores and running a household worked and find a system that worked for me, and really, it’s still a work in progress.

Anyway, when I started staying over a BF’s place, I made a point of noticing what and how much he did in there by way of cleaning, and undertaking part of that myself, and cleaning up messes where I saw them, and asking him afterwards if I had, say, cleaned up the kitchen to his satisfaction. Again, I had no real model for how to do this! I just watched and asked questions. But what we have going on now seems to be working, and the house is clean enough and nobody feels taken advantage of, so, yay.

But then my bf said that after Thanksgiving and I was worried that he was judging me. I tried to explain about my earlier life and all, but my parents were on their best behavior around him and he didn’t see any of the yelling or power plays or petty sniping. Obviously one option would be to just help my parents with the stupid dishes already, but they’re never open to a discussion of how to, you know, not scream at me and all the times I tried helping in adulthood only resulted in more of the same.

Anyway, help? I want to be responsible and not a freeloader, but I also like having my dignity.

Signed,

I wish dishes were just dishes

Alright first of all IWDWJD: politeness and being a considerate guest doesn’t mean signing up for being yelled at or insulted, especially for no reason, even when it’s your parents.

Hell, some would say especially when it’s your parents.

I’m not Miss Manners, so I’m not going to say that you did wrong by not offering to help or whatever. While I imagine the vibe may – and we’ll come back to this – have been strained while you were at your folks’ for Thanksgiving, the dynamic of how your family had treated you (and others!) growing up has given you every incentive not to go along just to get along. Certainly not when going along doesn’t actually lead to the “getting along” part. I think refusing to participate in a system that has only served to cause you pain and misery is entirely justified.

Now, what I am wondering is whether there’s an actual problem here, or if the anxiety weasels are bouncing around for no real reason. You mention that your boyfriend made a comment that you hadn’t helped with the dishes. I can understand why this would make you anxious, especially since you’ve been stressed, but I think from his perspective, this would seem out of character for you. After all, you not only have made a point of helping and doing chores at his place, but you made a point of making sure to learn how to do it his way. The fact that you would do this for him but not your parents might strike him as being strange. After all: if you’re that conscientious about it, wouldn’t you also be as conscientious about it with your parents?

This is why I’m not sure that he was judging you, so much as trying to make sense of a seeming contradiction. It’s understandable that you’d worry – you’ve faced harsh judgement and criticism for most of your life – but I don’t know that this is necessarily what’s happening here. I think it’s most likely that he’s just trying to make sense of the difference between the you who stays with him and the you he saw around your parents.

Now, one thing that might explain any disconnect he was feeling would be how much your boyfriend knew about your parents and your experiences growing up before all this. Did he get the broad brush strokes about things like your mom’s hoarding tendencies or the way your parents would treat you and other family members? Or did he only get the download after he met your parents?

In both cases, I could see how the story vs. what he saw would be confusing. I would hope, at least, that he knows people well enough to know that shitty people can hide their shittiness when they choose. Similarly, I would hope that he knows and trusts you enough to not just assume you’re lying out of hand.

Seeing as you’re not a freeloader by any stretch in the rest of your life, I think what you’re feeling are the anxiety weasels gnawing on sensitive parts of your brain. Considering your childhood, I’m not the least bit surprised that you’re hypervigilant to other people’s moods; you basically had to be, growing up. But the problem is that our defense mechanisms don’t go away once we’re out of the situation where they’re needed. It’s not that unusual for the things that used to protect us outliving their usefulness and going on to become a hindrance instead.

Unless your boyfriend has said anything or is acting weird – and I mean notably weird, not “If I parse his body language and vocal tonality in this particular way and assume Y, then this would suggest he is secretly judging me” hypervigilance – I think it’s just garden variety confusion. You obviously make a point of trying to be a good partner and houseguest, you keep your own place clean, so this one difference is going to be odd to someone who doesn’t know your history. Now he does, and hopefully he’ll be more alert to how your parents act.

With all that being said: I would really suggest that you talk to a therapist, especially someone who deals with childhood abuse and C-PTSD. I know words like “trauma” get tossed around freely, but trauma doesn’t just come from being hit or physically abused, nor from being screamed at constantly. Constant mistreatment and and toxic behavior – like, say, having your room used for storage to the point that you couldn’t even live in it – can cause trauma as well, especially when it’s been going on for years and you can’t get away.

The anxiety you mention and the hypervigilance stand out to me, and I think it would be good to talk to a professional about it. I think it might really benefit you to talk to someone about it and possibly get some tools to help manage those feelings.

But in terms of your boyfriend and his response? I don’t think you have to worry, especially if he understands what you went through growing up.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I understand that this is going to sound like bragging, but it really isn’t, this really is something that’s hurting my relationships.

I’ve read a lot of letters from guys who are worried about their lack of experience, but what if you have too MUCH experience? I (M/28) have been in a relationship with my girlfriend A (F/23) for a little under a year now and up until now things have been pretty great! We get along wonderfully, we’ve met each other’s parents and friends and everyone likes us as a couple, we share a lot of the same values… except one.

My girlfriend has had precisely one boyfriend before me, a guy who she thought was going to be her one-and-only. Obviously that didn’t work out because here we are but A has dreams about finding true love, one person being all she ever wants and vice versa. Well, we went to a holiday party a friend was throwing and it came up in conversation that I had dated a couple of the women at the party. This wasn’t the problem; it was a long time ago before my girlfriend and I ever got together and they’re both with other people who are also great.

The problem is that we hadn’t talked too much about our relationship histories; she knew I had dated other people before her, but not who specifically or how many. S the topic of numbers came up later that night. Like I said: A has only been with one other person than me. I had been in relationships with 5 women before her and slept with 22 people total, including A. Aside from the relationships all of them had been short term flings, we used protection, I’ve been tested, I’m all clear, so I figured it just wasn’t a big deal.

Well, A disagrees. She thinks it’s a huge deal that I’ve been with all these other women and that I could never be satisfied with her or could love her the way that she loves me. And this was the first time either of us had used the L word so that caught me off guard. So now we’re “on a break” while A tries to sort through her feelings and wants me to prove myself to her before she’s ready to come back and I honestly don’t know what to do here. Is she asking me for commitment beyond us already being exclusive? Am I supposed to denounce my previous partners? I’ve tried asking her how I’m supposed to prove myself or what I’m supposed to prove but all she said was that if she had to tell me then it wasn’t “real”.

I’m going out of my mind here because this has been amazing up until now and I had thought we had long term potential. What do I do?

One Isn’t The Loneliest Number

This is one of the reasons why I think people get way more hung up on people’s “numbers” than they should. Different people have different relationships to sex and sexuality, including hang-ups, and getting too focused on how many partners is too many (or too few) ends up creating problems where there aren’t any.

This isn’t an issue of numbers, OTLN; this is an issue of maturity and communication. Specifically, I think it’s one of not communicating expectations and instead assuming that everyone is on the same page… until they discover that they’re not. And when that happens, you run into this precise situation: one person feels betrayed because the other has rudely refused to live up to the version the former had in their head. You know, the one they never told you about and expected you to just be.

Quite frankly, that’s profoundly unfair, and it’s not a reasonable thing to blame someone else for. It’s not your responsibility to match someone else’s unspoken idea of who you are “supposed” to be, nor is it your fault if you don’t match it perfectly.

Part of why I always tell people that the Defining The Relationship conversation is about more than just ‘are we exclusive/what are we calling this relationship?’ A big part of the conversation is to make sure that you and your partner have the same beliefs, understandings and expectations about what this relationship is or entails. That includes things like your relationship to sex. For some people, sex is incredibly intimate and deeply tied to love and affection. For others, sex is sex, love is love and while the two can overlap, they don’t always. You seem to be the latter, while your girlfriend seems to be the former.

I’m going to be honest: I feel like your girlfriend is being immature here, and I’m not sure this bodes well for your relationship. I can understand needing a moment to process that the person she thought she was dating has a history she didn’t expect. I can even understand how this might cause someone to blue-screen momentarily while they try to process this, especially if your history runs counter to the values she holds or grew up with. It’s the demand that a) you make this up to her and b) that you have to divine what that means that bothers me. I’m also not thrilled that she treats things you did before you two were ever together ­– things that are entirely normal – as an offense against her.

It sounds like she expects that love makes you a mind-reader, which is not great for the relationship. This becomes a lose-lose sort of situation; if you “prove” yourself to her satisfaction, then this justifies her behavior as valid. If you fail, because she’s demanding a near-impossible task, then this is “proof” that you don’t love her, regardless of literally everything else you’ve experienced together.

Then there’s the fact that she’s mad at you for having a history, which suggests that maybe she was more in love with an idea than you as an individual. If it was so important that you have an equally low number of sex partners, that’s something she should have been filtering for, not just assuming. Unless you were actively misleading her or presenting yourself like the romantic lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie, her mental image isn’t your responsibility.

I’m also not terribly thrilled that she brought up being in love with you for the first time as a weapon that she used against you. That’s… not great. Like, at all. It’s a form of emotional blackmail, implying that her love includes an obligation to you to match it, and to do so on her terms. It makes me wonder whether this is going to be a recurring theme in your relationship.

Now, it’s possible that she’s just a little immature and this is the first time she’s been confronted with reality diverging from her fantasy. That doesn’t exactly thrill me, but it’s at least marginally less bad than “this is setting up a pattern of emotional manipulation that you can expect for the rest of your relationship”. So here’s what I suggest: you reach out and ask to talk. You want to schedule this talk, not only so that you can set aside time for it, but also so that you’re actually able to prepare and know what you’re going to say. This isn’t the sort of conversation you want to freestyle; emotions are already running high, and you want to prioritize clarity and understanding.

First thing: you don’t apologize for your sexual or romantic history. There’s nothing to apologize for, and you don’t want to start off by conceding something that doesn’t need to be conceded. You also want to resist any urge you may have to say what you think she wants to hear. That’s going to be a mistake; you’re not trying to end the fight; you’re trying to make sure you’re both understood and on the same page about everything. Instead, you lay out what sex and love mean to you ­– how they’re connected, how they diverge and so on. I would also emphasize on how having other sex partners hasn’t taken away your connection with people you were in relationships with; love isn’t pie, and sex doesn’t change or take away from how you feel for any particular person.

I would also say that your romantic and sexual history is part of what made you who you are today. Without those past experiences, you would not be the person your girlfriend presumably fell in love with.

Then it’s her turn; give her time and space to say how she feels about things and why. Despite how tempting it may be, don’t interrupt to object to how she interprets things or to ask questions. Wait until she’s done, then ask or clarify.

Once you’ve both said your piece, you have two choices: you agree to see if there’s room for understanding and moving forward, or you break up. What you don’t do is promise things that are contrary to who you are as a person or that you know you couldn’t live up to, just to keep the relationship going. I know there’s always a temptation to say what needs to be said to stay with someone, but that’s a mistake. If you end up compromising authentic self in order to stay in a relationship, all you’ve done is set a timer on when this relationship will end, and how spectacularly it will do so. It’s better to end things now, when there’s at least some possibility that you might be able to try again at a later date, than to let the relationship dissolve into bitterness and resentment.

I know that’s not necessarily what you want to hear and I’m sorry. But the cold hard truth is that right now, she’s giving some warning signs that this isn’t a good relationship for you. If those hold true, then it’s better to just break up than to try to keep this relationship alive despite itself.  

But hopefully it won’t come to that. With luck, this is ultimately a weird glitch, a moment of pain that signals growth that will pass as you sort things out and find the ways to be better partners to one another and better communicators.

Good luck.