When Two Histories Collide
When Two Histories Collide
Your present marital conflict may be rooted in the past.
Listen in: When Two Histories Collide
Have you ever considered that the recent argument you had with your spouse began long before you ever got married – as early as childhood? Even if you grew up in the happiest of families, no one has perfect parents. Which means that not all of your needs for love, affection, affirmation and security were met. Even under the best of circumstances, no one makes it out of childhood without hurt.
Psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered what the Bible has always taught: you were designed for safety and security in the context of a caring relationship. But the process of attachment can get disrupted in many ways. When emotional comfort or closeness didn’t happen for you, you developed behaviors as a way to cope - and protect yourself - from pain and hurt. In adulthood, these coping mechanisms, which were often very helpful in childhood, become ‘Love Styles’. A ‘Love Style’ is the way that you give and receive love in relationships, especially marriage.
Most of us are unaware that we have a Love Style, which means we often engage with our spouse – and they with us – in dysfunctional ways that cause repeated conflict patterns. In the next episode of our ongoing series, Making Marriage Work, Lynn and Shay sit down to discuss how and why we develop Love Styles and the Conflict Patterns that result. They both wish they had known this when they got married 26 ½ years ago!
As the basis of this episode, we are using the How We Love series of books, workbooks, and seminars developed by Milan and Kay Yerkovich. Using attachment theory research, Milan and Kay identified five Love Styles and the Conflict Patterns that result when two Love Styles clash. Their approach gives couples tools to bring feelings into their relationship, resolve conflict peacefully, increase in empathy for each other, heal from childhood wounds, and move toward the goal of cultivating a secure connection.
Here Comes the Bride Conflict
Lynn met an older couple who were both widowed, set up by some mutual friends, started dating, and ended up getting married. So this was the second marriage for both of them. Lynn asked them if they had sought any premarital counseling or if they had talked with a pastor or a counselor prior to getting married.
The husband looked her in the eye and said, “No, we didn’t need to do that. In my first marriage, I had been married for 30 years, and in her first marriage, she had been married for 25 years. So between the two of us, we have 55 years’ worth of experience being married. I think we both know what we’re doing!”
You probably don't have to guess that the honeymoon period didn’t last very long because within a few months of getting married, they each realized that the history they had brought into the marriage was going to have a far more powerful influence on their marriage than they would have ever dreamed. And not only that, but they were also merging two families who had prior beliefs and expectations of what the family should look like about holidays and special occasions, along with different ways of communication.
Despite them having a combined “55 years’ worth of experience being married”, it didn't take long for conflict to come up about personalities, habits, and deeply ingrained beliefs that they had brought into the marriage. Each family had its own traditions and values, and those differences sparked conflict.
Attachment Starts in Childhood
When a couple gets married, they bring expectations from their families of origin and combine them together to make new norms and traditions for themselves. Many times, those things aren’t a big deal – or at least shouldn’t be – but other times, expectations may be deeply imprinted and define you more than you might think or realize. One way of visualizing this is: “When you get married you marry your partner's brain”. That's not what you typically think of when you're walking down the aisle but it’s a very true statement!
Stepping into the deep bond of marriage will eventually reveal the deep-seated ways you learned how to love when you were growing up. Being flexible and accepting influence from your spouse is key to making a loving marriage work. But when you find yourself feeling put-upon and your spouse seems inflexible, the origin of your conflict is most likely connected to your past and how you're responding to it. These are things that you're typically not aware of until you get married. It’s the vulnerability and intimacy of the marriage relationship that can make your Love Style really kick in.
We know that God designed marriage and gave us the keys to understanding how relationships work. But we also need advice that goes beyond commands like, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another”. Or, “Husbands love your wives”. We know that’s what we should do, but how do we actually do it? What is that going to look like in practical, everyday terms?
The more you understand your Love Style, the more effective you're going to be at relating to your spouse, identifying what conflict is really about, and resolving it. Is your fight really about the dishwasher? Is it really about what we're having for dinner or not having for dinner or is it about something deeper?
The foundation of any healthy relationship is what we would call ‘secure attachment’. That’s just a fancy way of saying that two people have successfully bonded and there is a shared sense of safety and trust. Ideally, you experience that secure attachment in the early years of your life. You get a general sense that your caregivers are there for you, not just physically, but emotionally, and that they respond to your needs. They're compassionate when you're in pain. They soothe you when you're distressed. This doesn't have to happen perfectly or all the time, but if it happens more times than not, you develop a sense of security.
To understand this better, think about the dynamics that shaped you in childhood. Picture the kitchen table in your house growing up. Who sat where? What were the communication patterns? Was your father loving and emotionally accessible, or was he distant and emotionally removed? Was your mom a perfectionist or a people pleaser? Did one sibling demand most of the attention? Was a parent absent because of death or divorce?
Another way to understand your childhood experience is to answer the question, “When did I feel comforted as a child?” Many of us remember feeling comforted when we were sick, but see if you can remember a time when you were comforted while feeling sad, disappointed, or betrayed. If not, you are not alone - even in loving homes, expressions of so-called ‘negative’ emotions weren’t always met with compassion and understanding. Your Love Style emerged as a way to insulate yourself when you didn’t experience comfort, security, and safety as a child.
Learning About Love Styles
Your Love Style is not a personality or temperament trait, and it isn’t something you were born with. It developed early on as your parents interacted with you, and was largely formed before you could speak. What you believe and how you act in relationships is not always a conscious choice, but rather an automatic pattern of behavior that is surprisingly predictable. While the dynamics that shaped you in childhood were not your fault, as an adult, your Love Style is an invisible injury that prevents close connection, causes different kinds of reactivity, and can lead to repetitive fights.
The 5 Love Styles are:
Avoider
Avoiders grow up with parents whose focus is on tasks and mastery with little to no emotional connection or deep, personal conversations. Comfort is not offered, and a child learns to be independent and take care of themselves. Children learn not to show emotions and over time are no longer aware of feelings. As adults, they are often detached from their own emotional state and oblivious to the needs and feelings of others.
Shay found that he was an Avoider after taking the quiz at the How We Love website. The avoider traits resonated with him as he thought about his childhood:
“When my mom died, one of the things I wanted most was our old kitchen table. As a kid, I always wanted my family to be around that table, but then my older siblings got married and moved out, and my dad and mom divorced because of my dad's alcoholism. My dad was out of my life during those formative years. Throughout my middle school and high school years, it was just me at the kitchen table, alone, doing my homework.
That dynamic of being on my own made me fiercely independent. It taught me I can't rely on people. If something's going to get done, I have to do it and I have to figure it out by myself. Some of that was good, and I needed to be independent to survive, but it also caused me to have trust issues, and to become angry if things don’t go my way. I carried that independent streak into our marriage from Day 1.
As a pastor, I can be very empathetic towards other people, but it’s often hard for me to understand what's going on in my own heart. I don’t always know myself very well. I also like to avoid conflict, and I don’t ask for much in a relationship, but I can feel resentment when Lynn wants more.”
Pleaser
During childhood, the pleaser takes the role of the “good kid” to reduce stress in the family. This child may have taken the role of a parentified child or substitute spouse if the parents had a difficult marriage or divorce or were not responsible in caring for the children. As adults, the Pleaser believes they can keep others from being upset if they’re really good and helpful. They are anxious if others are stressed are upset, and freeze when faced with anger.
Lynn validated her own assessment of herself as a Pleaser with the How We Love quiz, and expressed how this has played out in her life and marriage:
“The pleaser struggles with fear of rejection, and they don’t take criticism well. In fact, one of the yes-or-no questions in the Love Styles quiz is , “I receive criticism well from my spouse”. Instantly I knew the answer was ‘no’! It's hard for me to receive criticism. Pleasers seek a deeper connection by meeting others' needs. When I feel needed, or I meet somebody else's needs, I feel closer to them.
Pleasers tend to minimize their own personal needs and feelings and stuff them down in order to not be a burden to others. That leads to poor boundaries and difficulty in saying ‘no’. I end up feeling used and resentful because I’ve said ‘yes’ to so many things and then I feel depleted.
Pleasers have trouble asking for help and are quick to rescue others from distress. I feel responsible for other people's feelings; if someone is upset, I feel like I need to do something to soothe, regulate, and create harmony. It’s stressful to feel responsible for other people’s feelings!”
Vacillator
Growing up, Vacillators experienced inconsistent, sporadic attention and longed for more connection than they received. Waiting for parents to connect left the Vacillator feeling abandoned and unseen. By the time they received the attention they longed for, they were too hurt and angry to accept it. Idealizing about a future where they will never be abandoned again helps to soothe this wound.
As adults, they are preoccupied with relational closeness and may constantly check in with their spouse to quiet their anxiety. They are hurt and angry when they are disappointed by others, but these outward feelings conceal the deepest hurt of all: a profound sense of unworthiness and shame. Their adult relationships may vacillate between intense close connection and distance or isolation.
Controller & Victim
For both the Controller and Victim, childhood was traumatic. Parents were dangerous, neglectful, abusive, and/or unpredictable. The reason this category can be divided is because feisty kids react with anger as they get older and become Controllers to secure predictability. Quieter kids become Victims over time as they learn to stay under the radar and tolerate the intolerable.
As adults, the Controller uses anger, manipulation, and intimidation to keep or gain control. This control is a way of trying to ensure that they do not feel any further pain, hurt, or rejection. The adult Victim dissociates from their body and present surroundings to block intense, unresolved, repetitive traumatic stress. Victims may also experience a freeze response where they feel confused and are unable to think or form coherent thoughts. They feel helpless and believe they lack agency to make a change in the relationship.
Conflict Patterns
Love Styles often emerge, or become a problem, when two people get married. The day-in, day-out stressors of life are going to reveal the ways you expect to feel love and give love. These ways of relating often create a cycle of communication between two people that causes misunderstanding, conflict, hurt, and ultimately distance and resentment in the relationship. It’s at this point that many couples begin to think that they’ve married the wrong person, but it’s because their Love Styles are clashing – and that clash would happen no matter who they would marry.
Once you identify your Love Style, you can also figure out the pattern of conflict that you and your spouse are going to repeat; there’s a specific conflict pattern if a Controller marries a Pleaser or a Vacillator marries an Avoider – some are more common than others because certain styles are drawn to each other. The conflict pattern is like a map of your most repetitive fight.
For example, when an Avoider marries a Pleaser, the Pleaser will be hyper-vigilant about disapproval or rejection. They feel safe when others are smiling and close. They may minimize or deny problems. The Avoider, in turn, will be annoyed by the Pleaser’s need for approval and reassurance. They want the Pleaser to go away and be more independent. Over the years, this dance continues, while each becomes resentful for giving so much but getting so little in the relationship.
The question most couples never find the answer to is, “How do we break out of this repetitive fight?” The How We Love method uses a conflict resolution tool called the Comfort Circle, where one person is the Listener, and one person is the Speaker. The Listener asks a series of questions designed to help the Speaker uncover the past pain that is causing the present feelings. As you move through the Circle, the Speaker is able to express their feelings, and the Listener is able to have empathy. It takes time to see the results of using the Comfort Circle to resolve conflict, but over time, as past hurts are healed and empathy is cultivated, each person learns how to share their feelings and needs in a way that is not threatening or accusatory.
As you start to understand your spouse better, you can show more empathy towards them. You’re growing in wisdom because you know each other better. The Bible urges us to be kind to one another, be tenderhearted, be forgiving, and live with each other in an understanding way. That's what this is, because to be kind, to be tenderhearted, to be loving, to be understanding means you’re willing to try to see the world from their perspective and validate their feelings even if you don’t understand or agree.
You will also be able not only to identify your feelings, but take some time to reflect on them. Why am I feeling like this? What’s going on in my heart to make me feel so anxious or angry right now? What do I think I need to have that is causing me to behave this way? A lot of times those intense emotions are related to something from the past, not necessarily what your partner has done or not done.
Once you understand the way your histories collide, you will begin to heal from past wounds and be on your way to a secure connection with your spouse.
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