Are You Emulating, Opposing or Experiencing Relationships? (aka My Own Story)

As I sit writing this, the cafe plays a Dave Brubeck jazz song I recall from Dr.Mee’s Grade 10 Music Theory class. It takes me back thirty years to a time when I was trying to understand not just music theory, but how to meet, and romance girls.

And the truth is, I cobbled together my idea of how to relate to women through a combination of emulation, opposition and experience. All of us do this. We start with whatever we have observed our parents doing and heard (often overheard) them saying. This sets the foundation of our beliefs and approach to relating to the opposite sex. If Mom was a powerful woman and Dad was passive, that can set us on a certain path of expectation. If we emulate what we saw our same-sex parent do, in our example we would take control in relationships with passive men like Mom did. If we choose to feel independent and don’t want to be like Mom, we would choose to date men who were alpha personalities and under-communicate our needs and boundaries. As we go through these experiments and approaches we begin to stockpile experiences that either re-enforce that initial Mom imprint, or create a ‘flipped’ imprint of the opposite. We end up with at least two options for how to approach the opposite sex. I’m going to share mine, so we can see what yours are too.

So, in my case, my parents divorced when I was four. As a boy raised by a single Mom I had the following imprints to choose to emulate or rebel against: a non-existent male model of dating (my Dad never really dated, his whole life after the divorce), playing the rescuer/fixer trying to keep an unhappy Mom happy and being ruled by her needs, or rebelling against Mom by feeling like I was in control of my relationships with girls.

I began my dating life as a teenager who had the empathy to talk with, understand, and be a confidant to women. What I did not know how to do at the time was have chemistry with women. I was emulating the role of little boy taking care of the female’s emotional needs. I was emulating the rescuer imprint.

In college, at 23 years old and a virgin who had never had a girlfriend, it’s fair to say I had ‘had enough’. Well, really, I hadn’t had enough of anything… no sex, no kissing, no hand-holding, cuddling, valentine’s day, or anything. So, I opted for trying to be the ‘opposite’.

I decided to stop caring more about women’s emotional needs than my own. Of course, as always happens when rebelling against an imprint, I went to the other extreme. I became a seducer. I worked on my body until women began to notice my physique and looks. I practiced approaching women and endured more rejections than I can count, adjusting after each one to learn and improve myself. Eventually, I was able to ‘pick up’ and date women, but I was still completely useless when it came to real emotional connection, intimacy and love. Many people stay stuck at this stage, trying to satisfy our urge for human connection through physical intimacy with some affinity mixed in, but no deep love. I also mistook intense infatuation and chemistry for love.

Eventually, however, my heart and soul craved real connection. This put me in a quandary. My experiences had seemingly showed me that it felt worst to play rescuer whose needs came last with women. As a rescuer I traded helping women feel supported for their attention and approval. Seducer felt less draining, yet still not fulfilling. As a seducer I felt momentary connection whenever a partner and I were engaged in the fantasy of being together forever, even though it was really just a moment of ecstasy. It wasn’t just sexual escapism — often it was romantic escapism, imagining things like opening a bed and breakfast in Morocco with a cozy reading nook sure sounds exotic when curled up together in bed, but let’s just say none of these fantasies had any root in real commitment or effort. So, I needed to now find a new approach and I knew only those two imprints — emulating Dad/Mom or doing the opposite of Dad/Mom.

And experience was tapping me on the shoulder saying, ‘Hey, dude, neither of these is working for you anymore.”.

At 30 it was time to leave behind the over-giving nerd-boy of my teen years, and the cocky (pun intended) fun-boy of my twenties.

I needed a new experience, completely outside of those two approaches. Let me tell you, it’s really hard to invent a whole new emotional handbook for yourself to use, and NOT revert to what you learned growing up.

At thirty I began the long, slow process of learning how to relate to MYSELF in a healthier way and how to apply that to relating to women in a healthy way. That path has included therapy, anti-therapy (yes, such a thing exists and, of course, I found it), a west coast ayurvedic shaman, a 12 step program, multiple incredible life coaches, inner child workshops, Tony Robbins events, and so so so much more. I realized my way wasn’t working, because it was inherited from a broken model my Mom and Dad had shown me. I needed to let other people in, professionals who knew a healthier imprint, to help me.

The time and effort have been completely worth it. Today I am happily married. Anna and I met fifteen years ago, right when I decided to drop that old template of emulating or opposing what Mom and Dad had shown me.

I share this because I want you to know there IS hope. Whether you’re alone because it’s been too painful to date the kind of men you attract, or with a guy who is breaking your heart slowly in a million little ways, or just in a relationship you know isn’t what you really want, there IS hope. But it begins with you identifying whether you are emulating a parent, doing the opposite of a parent, or really ready for a new experience of love.

I would love to know which is true for you.

Much Love,
Barry

Tags: barry price, blueprint, boundaries, boy, breaking the pattern, caring, compassion, confident, consider, considerate, dad, dependency, dependent, disappoint, emotionally-unavailable, experiences, express, family history, fully expressed, healthy boundaries, immature, little boy, man, man pattern, Mom, mother, mothering, needs, parents, parents pattern, pattern, relationship expert, relationship goals, relationships, seemed, self-expression, self-love, strong one, strong woman, support, supportive, taking care of him, unsupportive