Relationship Role Models
How do we know how to be in relationships?
No one sits us down and teaches us. Most of us don’t take a class or read a book.
We learn from what we see–from our parents or other important adults, our social worlds, the media. We try our best to understand what works and what doesn’t.
What makes things more complicated is that we enter into a relationship with someone who also learned from what they saw–from their adults, their communities, and their experiences.
Sometimes, our experiences align.
But often, we learn we have different ways of handling what comes our way and find discrepancies in how we think about the relationship.
Understanding where we learned what we learned is a critical part of making the choice to be how we want to be. Take some time with your partner to ask these questions to better understand your relationship role models.
Who were my relationship role models growing up? No need to label them as “good” or “bad”, just take a minute to identify who the relationships around you were.
What did I learn as a child about how people “should” be in relationships from the adults around me? This could be explicit messaging (for example: “A good wife should”) or just observations.
What did media tell me about how relationships “should” be? (Disney movies? Rom coms? Early 2000s reality TV??)
What did I learn about affection from watching the adult relationships around me?
What did I learn about conflict and disagreement from watching the adult relationships around me?
What do I like about what I saw from the adult relationships around me?
What do I want to do differently than what I saw from the adult relationships around me?
What friend’s relationship do I admire and why?
Having these conversations can help us align with our partners and give important context to our behavior—and ultimately, allow us to grow into the relationship role models we want to be to others.
