July 16, 2014,
Family, Relationship 
No comments
I often hear in my work the following question: why is that we really like some people and we really do not like others?
A long time admirer may follow you just as if being bound by an invisible thread, proving his loyalty and devotion, but you keep not noticing him. At the same time, you keep running headlong after another man, whose personality and appearance do not even come close to your loyal admirer. Just as a comic’s scene, where one is running after the other one, and the other one after a third. Let me summarize it for you – there is one thing clear here: choosing a partner is not a chaotic process under the banner “destiny gave me a hint”. And yes, you thought just right – there are laws here as well.
I often advise those I am counselling to take a close look at the relationship of their partner, or potential partner, with their opposite-sex parent. This will reflect that person’s scripting regarding relationships just as your relationship with your opposite-sex parent will reflect your scripting. The values that you both hold will also be evident in how you relate to your opposite-sex parent. This can actually predict some qualities that might become, or already has become, evident in your current relationship. So now, you have two indicators of how your relationship may proceed with your partner:
Firstly: The values that you and your partner were exposed to as children and what you learned (and might still believe) about relationships by observing your own parents in their relationship.
Secondly: The values expressed by each of you in your relationships with your parents of the opposite sex.
But let us look at things from another point of view – how can we create a New Script.
For many reasons, somewhere along the way you may decide to live your life based on an alternate set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and rules. As I believe was my experience, you have the capacity to create a new script or modify your current one as often as you need to.
In doing so, you can make new decisions about whom you might wish to have as a partner. Rightly or wrongly, questioning your script generally only happens in the event of some crisis in your life, and then maybe only for the duration of the conflict—after which you simply go back to how it always was.
Some people, though, come to question their scripts simply because they have grown in maturity. For many the experience results in a mid-life crisis, when they begin to ask, “Is this all there is?”
The curious thing about scripts and the scripting process: since we acquire our scripts at such a young age, we really don’t have the capacity to review them in any constructive way to decide if the instructions are good or not. We simply don’t have the intellectual capacity to do that when we are young.
I believe that every minute spent in looking at and making an objective assessment of the models that lead us does make sense. We just need to keep creating a New Script concerning the relationships within our life as often as is necessary. This after all is the journey that is life.
I know that in my current relationship, I have married someone who I think is very much like my dad, and maybe my partner would say that he has married someone very much like his mum. Please, write to me and share your opinion and experience on this particular topic. What is your “married life scenario”?
To the wonder of you,
Leave a reply