Childhood Wounds in Love Relationships
Jasbina Ahluwalia discusses with Abby Rodman, author of Should You Marry Him? A No-Nonsense, Therapist-Tested Guide to Not Screwing Up the Biggest Decision of Your Life the role of our childhood in romantic relationships:
Your book states, “Many of us “hire on” a potential spouses to activate or reactivate our childhood wounds.
Everything we know about relationships, we learned in childhood and that knowledge becomes like a pair of well-worn slippers. We keep wearing them even when they’re not all that comfortable anymore.”
Abby, it would be helpful to get an example to make this concrete. You could offer a red flag for our listeners as they navigate this to see if any of these may potentially apply.
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Abby Rodman
It’s basically true that our partners can get us more outraged than probably anyone else in our lives.
Childhood Wounds: A Negative Approach
They just know how to push those buttons. That’s part of being open and vulnerable to someone else. Someone else knows where you’re wounded and what your childhood experiences were like. I term this “wound tapping.”
Childhood Wounds: A Positive Approach
We’re tapping into the other person’s wounds. Those are usually childhood wounds. Those are experiences we had in childhood that have stayed with us and colored who we’ve become. There is a wonderful thing about wound tapping. It can be very healing as well for couples.
For example, you know that your husband never got praise, admiration or accolades from his mother and that is something that has always stuck with him. He’s wounded by that lack of admiration and congratulation from his mother.
One way you would help him heal from that is that you would be the person who gives him that kind of love that he might not have gotten. You’re aware that that’s where he’s wounded.
Conversely, if you want to be hurtful or if wound tapping is not used in a healthy way, you are going to keep on repeating the same patterns that his mother did.
You will keep him in that same wounded place of not getting the admiration, kudos and love that he so sorely needs.
That is a quick example of how couples can help heal each other as well as recognize what those wounds are.
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Tell Us:
People get into relationships with more than just good intentions. The so called “baggage” shows up at some point. Share with us how you approached childhood wounds in the comments section below.
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The above is an excerpt from Jasbina’s interview with Abby Rodman.
The entire interview transcript is at: Abby Rodman Interview – Should I Marry Him: A Guide Not to Screw Up
Listen to the entire interview on: Intersections Match Talk Radio – Jasbina’s Lifestyle Show
Listen to the entire interview on Blog Talk Radio: Should I Marry Him – Abby Rodman
Listen to the entire interview on iTunes
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