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Many questions need to be asked about our
interactions with others. For example, how
much control do we really have over our
relationships? Do we have full control over
the way they are conducted, or is much of what
happens between people dictated by social
expectations and attitudes; unconscious
motivations, or childhood events affecting our
adult relationships…
…and if we became more aware of our
unconscious feelings and the relevance of
childhood experiences through the intervention
of therapy would this help us to unlock our
feelings and help us stay in control?
Case Study
Daniel was brought up by both his parents
until the age of fifteen, when his father
suddenly died of an unknown condition.
Consumed by her own grief, his mother rejected
Daniels need for love and affection, and
rarely spoke about his father. Two years later
he met a young girl called Amy, and they
married after she became pregnant. When Daniel
was twenty-two, he discovered he had a
life-limiting condition. Despite his ill
health, Daniel and Amy went on to have two
more children and to adopt a fourth. When his
youngest son was ten, it was discovered that
he also had Daniels degenerative condition. In
his early fifties Daniel met and fell in love
with a woman with whom he subsequently had a
seven-year relationship – although he remained
married to Amy. Daniels health gradually
deteriorated as his condition worsened, and he
died just before his fifty-ninth birthday.
Relationships within family life cycles
Carter and McGoldrick (1980) feel that a
‘family life-cycle’ can be viewed through
progressive stages:
• The unattached young adult
• Cohabitation
• Family with young children
• Family with adolescents
• Children leaving home
• The family in later life – retirement and
old age.
They identify change and development through
these stages with factors such as family
attitudes, taboos, and expectations, along
with the stresses of everyday life and the
unpredictable events that interrupt our
life-cycles.
Within the context of the case study, Daniels
early life may be seen in terms of taboos
around death, low expectations of affection
within relationships, and perhaps a view of
family life as ‘fragile and insecure’. He may
have transferred many of these attitudes and
beliefs into his adult life, which could have
affected his relationships with family and
friends. Along with everyday stresses, Daniel
also had to deal with unpredictable factors
such as the early death of a parent, the shock
of his diagnosis and entering into an
unplanned relationship outside his marriage.
Whilst Daniels experiences seem to conform to
the Carter and McGoldrick model to some
extent, many people may experience changing
and developing relationships in a very
different order, or in a very different way.
The relationships we have may not simply be
governed by social or psychological factors,
but might also be based on our biology. For
example, if Daniel had not been heterosexual
but had been born with a preference for
same–sex relationships, he would not
necessarily have experienced a ‘marriage and
children’ phase in his life-cycle. If he had
been born with a severe physical disability
there may have been less opportunities to form
intimate relationships, or friendships may
have been based on formal or informal caring
arrangements.
Early relationships
Daniel had a very good, if conventional,
relationship with both his parents, up to the
age of fifteen. However, when his father died
unexpectedly his relationship with his mother
changed irrevocably. Daniels life became
entangled in his mother’s problems, and when
she had a breakdown a few months later, he
took full responsibility for her mental and
physical health. This changed their
relationship from one of ‘child being loved
and cared for by mum’, to ‘child carer’ –
unloved and insecure, in a new relationship,
with fixed boundaries and obligations.
Early Marital relationships
After two years of caring for his mother,
Daniel saw an ‘escape route’ in his marriage
to Amy. There was an assumption that the love
and affection denied by his mother would be
found in his romantic and intimate
relationship with his wife. However, the birth
of their baby, just a few months into their
marriage, distracted their attention away from
developing their own relationship and towards
the responsibility of parenthood.
As Cowan and Cowan’s study ‘Adaptation to
parenthood’ (1985) demonstrates their can be
many problems in relationships following the
birth of a baby. Their study identified a
variety of stresses such as increased distance
between parents; strains on the relationship;
increased conflict and disagreement;
potentially different parenting styles, and
balancing the needs of grandparents with the
needs of the baby.
Many of these factors had an impact on the
relationship between Daniel and Amy. Not
least, Daniels own childhood relationship with
his mother, which left him with the feeling
that family life could be fragile and often
insecure. As a result, he developed an
over-protective approach towards his first
child and ensured that their needs were always
paramount. Conversely, he still felt a strong
sense of duty/obligation towards his own
mother, and therefore felt torn between his
responsibilities. This caused conflict within
his marriage as he appeared to sidelined and
neglect Amy.
The mid stage of marriage
Daniel and Amy went on to have two further
children and adopt a fourth. Their marriage
survived despite constant internal conflicts
and battles. Each time they came close to
questioning or examining their own
relationship, other family crises/events would
occur to distract them from their problems.
This led to a relationship in which there were
constant misunderstandings, and where there
was an absence of affection, warmth, or
empathy. Despite these problems, they both had
a strong belief in the ‘family’ and the social
expectations of marital relationships. To all
intense and purposes they were ‘the perfect
married couple’.
In Richard Stevens paper ‘A humanistic
approach to relationships’ (1996) he
identifies, ‘misunderstandings’ within
intimate relationships as ‘misplaced
interpretations about what the partner is
feeling’. Stevens further concludes that ‘our
particular interpretive biases relate to our
cultural background, personal history,
personality, or cognitive style’. He feels
that partners all too easily feel rejection
even when none is intended and that human
beings have a unique ability to re-fashion the
world to fit what they expect to find.
Communication is essential to correctly
identify what the other person is thinking and
feeling.
Clearly, Amy may have spent many years
misinterpreting her husband’s feelings of duty
and responsibility towards their children and
to his own mother, as a personal rejection.
The way in which she responds with heated
argument and battles rather than measured
discussion, may be due to a combination of her
own cultural background and personality.
Conversely, Daniel may have misinterpreted his
wife’s feelings of hurt and rejection as
simple aggression and animosity.
Misinterpretations between both partners may
indeed have led them to fashion their
relationship into what they expect to find.
For example, Amy expected hurt and rejection,
whilst Daniel expected conflict and
disagreement. It seems clear that without help
from a therapist Amy and Daniel would continue
to have cyclical arguments and
misunderstandings throughout their married
life.
Marriage in later life and the impact of
ill-health on relationships
As Wetherall (1996) identifies, heterosexual
relationships carry particular expectations of
mutuality - of love and caring, give and take.
Much of what is thought of as natural or
normal is based on social representations of
heterosexual relationships. In other words,
the way that intimate relationships are
portrayed within society, influences people’s
expectations of the way they should conduct
their own relationships. This often leads to
unrealistic expectations of what this type of
relationship can offer, and disappointment
when the relationship does not live up to the
social representation of mutual support and
fulfilment.
Daniels initial optimism that his relationship
with Amy would offer the love and support
denied to him by his mother, had been replaced
by more realistic expectations of the type of
marriage he had. And when the symptoms of his
condition suddenly started to worsen in the
later stages of his marriage, he found his
relationship with Amy even less representative
of his initial expectations.
The independent lives which they had both
lived within their marriage now started to
developed into a relationship in which Amy was
the ‘informal carer’ and Daniel was the
‘dependent’. As ‘Pam’ (1993) describes, there
is a feeling of being trapped in an unequal
relationship, where no concession is made for
the independent life you may have led. Daniel
felt equally trapped and constantly mourned
the loss of his old life. Conversely, Amy felt
resentful of her new role and obliged to care
for a man who had almost become a stranger to
her.
In his early fifties Daniel was offered formal
assistance from a part-time carer called Emma,
who helped him to get out of the house and to
regain some of his independence. Emma had
previously cared for her mother who had died
suddenly following many years of severe
dementia, in which she did not recognise her
daughter. Therefore, Emma had a great empathy
with Daniel and understood many of his
problems. Daniel and Emma’s relationship grew
from one of formal carer into an intimate
relationship, in which there was intense love
and mutual support until the end of his life.
Conclusion
It would seem that relationships are governed
by a large number of diverse factors. We may
feel that we make conscious decisions about
our relationships, but as we saw in Daniels
relationship with his mother, things can
change overnight and we can be drawn into
destructive relationships, which are out of
our control. When we try to remove ourselves
from this type of relationship, we may
unconsciously seek out someone who can provide
the love and affection we crave. Although,
social representations of intimate
relationships as ‘mutually supportive and
loving’ may mislead us into unrealistic
expectations of what another person can
provide.
Daniels childhood experience of family as
‘fragile and insecure’ also played a part in
his unsuccessful relationship with Amy – as he
became overprotective of his children and
neglectful of his wife. Although, social
expectations of marriage appear to have kept
them together, despite constant arguments,
mutual resentment, and even a relationship
outside the marriage. It would seem that
perceived societal expectations of ‘marriage’
can sometimes override all other
considerations.
Whilst Emma appeared to be everything Daniel
wanted in a relationship, even this
relationship may have been based on events
from their past experiences, and a
misinterpretation of their feelings for each
other. It is possible that people who have
suffered past traumatic loss and rejection
will have an unconscious longing for ‘any’
relationship which leads to affection, romance
and support.
Finally, with the intervention of therapy in
the early stages of their marriage, Daniel and
Amy may have begun to appreciate the
complexities of relationships. They could have
been helped to resolve initial
misunderstandings and may have had a very
different life together.
It would therefore seem clear that, although
we try to control our relationships, we in
fact have very little control over the way
they are conducted. If we genuinely want to
understand how to take back some control over
them, we may need assistance from someone who
can help us to unlock our unconscious feelings
and explore the relevance of our past
experiences. |
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