How Our Childhood Experiences Affect Our Love Life
If You Notice Yourself Doing This Then You Need To Take A Step Back And Reflect.
Our childhood experiences have a huge impact on our love life.
Marriage and family counselor Dr. Millan and Kay Yerkovich discovered that everyone has a love style based on their upbringing.
A love style is essential a set of inclinations and tendencies of how we associate and relate to our romantic partners. Understanding how your love style affects your romantic relationship can help you cultivate a better relationship.
Here are Dr. Millan and Kay Yerkovich 5 love style.
THE PLEASER
They’re people who grew up with parents who were either angry, critical or overly protective.
- Growing up, the pleasers are usually called the “Good Kids” they do everything they can to be in their best behaviour, in order not to provoke their parents.
- They don’t receive comfort, but instead they are the ones giving comfort to their reactive parents.
- Pleasers are uncomfortable with conflict and they would deal with disagreements by either making up for the disagreements or giving in. They may even lie about how they feel just to avoid confrontations.
- They are anxious about making other people upset and as they become adults, they learn to read the moods of everyone and behave in ways that ensure they can keep everyone happy.
- But when they feel stressed or believe that they are always letting their loved ones down, they can have a break down and flee from their relationship.
But in other for pleasers to have a stable relationship they have to be honest about their feelings rather than doing what is expected of them.
THE VICTIMS
They’re people who grew up in a chaotic home, with one or both parents being very violent.
- They learn to be compliant in other to survive; they try to stay under the radar to avoid attracting a lot of attention to them.
- They learn to hide and stay quiet whenever their violent parents are around, because they know that the parents might get triggered by anything and take it out on them.
- Because of the trauma the faced growing up in the care of their violent parents, they create imaginary worlds in their heads to escape when reality gets unbearable.
- They usually struggle with depression and anxiety. And they may end up with controllers that portray the same behavior as their parents.
- They learn to cope by going with the flow and being adaptable. Even when things become calm for them, they might still feel uneasy because they expect something terrible to come up.
In order for them to build a stable relationship, Victims should learn to stand up for themselves and learn self-love, Instead of letting everyone around them walk all over them.
THE CONTROLLER
They’re people who grew up in a home where they were not given enough attention and protection.
- They learn to toughen up and learn how to take care of themselves.
- They feel the need to be in control at all times because this helps them keep away the fears, helplessness and humiliation.
- They don’t associate anger as vulnerability so they use it as a weapon to remain in power.
- They have rigid tendencies that may also be sporadic and unpredictable. They don’t like stepping out of their comfort zones because they make them feel vulnerable.
- They deal with problems on their own and like setting things done in certain manner otherwise they get mad.
In order to build a healthy and stable relationships controllers have to learn how to trust and love others, and keep their anger in check.
THE VACILLATOR
They’re brought up by unpredictable parents.
- As kids they learn they are nowhere near their parents priority.
- They develop a deep fear of abandonment due to the lack of consistent attention.
- But when their parents finally feels like giving them the attention they need they become too angry and tried to receive it.
- As adults they try to find the love they were deprived of as kids.
- They have a tendency of idealize new relationships and once they feel lead down they get disappointed and they grow dejected and doubtful.
- They are mostly misunderstood and go through lots of stress and internal conflict within their relationships.
In other to build stable and healthy relationships, they need to learn how to pace themselves and get to know someone before committing too soon and getting hurt by their own expectation.
THE AVOIDER
They’re people who grew up in homes where independence and self-reliance were the only values being encouraged.
- As kids they learn to take care of themselves and put their feelings on hold to deal with their anxieties from having little to know comfort from their parents
- They love their space.
- They rely on logic and detachment more than their emotions.
- They get uncomfortable when people around them experience mood swings.
In other to build stable and healthy relationships, they need to learn how to open up and express their feeling honestly.
If you fall under any of the love styles discussed above, then you should aspire to transform yourself in other to have a healthy, stable and respectful relationship with your partner.






