Dating the Older Man by Belisa Vranich & Laura Grashow

Author:Belisa Vranich & Laura Grashow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Right Guy, Wrong Reason

Awell-known psychologist in private practice once said, “When it comes to romantic relationships, we are either attracted to our mothers or our fathers.” Obviously she meant that in the metaphoric sense; that is, that people are actually drawn to personality traits that are similar to those of their parents or childhood caretakers. To the extent that this is true, interacting with familiar personality traits in men recreates for some women some familiar interpersonal patterns and emotions from childhood in current relationships, and drives the way they experience and relate to each other.

Psychological Basis for Partner Selection: No, It’s Not a Coincidence

There are several different principals from classical psychological theory that illustrate this very phenomenon.

Repetition Compulsion

Freud is the author of one such principal from classical psychological theory, which he labeled the “repetition compulsion.” The repetition compulsion is a phenomenon from psychoanalytic theory in which people are driven to re-enact emotional experiences from early childhood without awareness or intent. Thus, women may find themselves inexplicably drawn to a man who has a constellation of personality traits similar to either their mother’s or their father’s. Over and over again they find themselves in emotional interactions with their boyfriends that mirror what they witnessed between their parents. How many times have you sat around and marveled at the eerie similarities between your significant other and a parent?

The Elektra Complex

Freud also described the “Elektra Complex,” in which women experience a conflict similar to the Oedipus Conflict. In the Oedipus Conflict, boys have the unconscious desire to possess their mothers and do away with their fathers. Here, little girls struggle with the unconscious desires to possess their fathers and eliminate their mothers. In the traditional version of his theory, resolution of the complex happens when little girls make a solid identification with their mothers and rediscover their fathers—say in terms of their personality traits or style of relating—in a relationship with a mature man. Those eerie similarities to Daddy surface once again.

The Multigenerational Transmission Process

The “Multigenerational Transmission Process” is another phenomenon taken from family therapy. Murray Bowen, the author of Systems Family Therapy, describes it as the manner in which family members relate to each other emotionally— a manner that is transmitted within the family from generation to generation (say father to wife or father to daughter). As new spouses marry into the family and play their roles, they repeat and maintain these patterns of emotional relationships. Without elaborating any further on the technical part, let’s just say it is quite likely that the men women choose as boyfriends/lovers/husbands will be predisposed to fitting into the emotional style of their families. In this way, they unwittingly maintain emotional issues or battles that were endured throughout their childhoods. Think back: How many times have you marveled at the eerie similarities between your relationship/marriage and your parent’s relationship/marriage?

Object Relations

Numerous couples’ therapists work on an “object relations” model, in which it is theorized that people unconsciously pick mates who remind them of those internal objects, or internalized versions of their parents, and relate to them with the same emotional patterns.

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