3 Love Lessons I learned from my family of origin

Whether we are aware of it or not, our family of origin shapes what we believe about and how we express love? Psychology Today opines specifically on the father-daughter relationship indicating that, " “well-fathered” daughters have more fulfilling relationships with their boyfriends or their husbands. Their relationships are more emotionally intimate and more secure."

As a child of divorce and being raised primarily by my mother, when I heard the lyrics of John Mayer's song Daughters, they immediately resonated with me:

My introspective nature involved a lot of time reflecting on my life experiences, and over many years, I've deduced these 3 love lessons from various familial relationships.

The 1st love lesson emanated from my relationship with my father. It is that "what you do affects the people who love you..... even if you try to isolate them from the consequences of your actions".

The long and short of it is that I found out about my older half-sister by happenstance. One day as my grandfather was driving me to secondary school, we happened to drive by a woman holding a baby in her arms. I knew who she was because my father had introduced us once before. Needless to say, finding out that my father was building a new family and was keeping it a secret was devastating. When I eventually asked him about it, he told me that I was none of my concern and that his actions shouldn't matter to me.

My 12-year-old brain couldn't compute how he didn't understand that his actions as a parent would have direct and indirect effects on my life. That incident and my many subsequent reflections on that conversation, helped me to appreciate the level of selflessness required to be a parent and also to recognize that everything we do, big or small affects those who love us.

The 2nd love lesson is that of "loyalty despite the difficulty" as demonstrated by my mother.

After my parents separated for the last time, my mom - now a single parent - moved us into a multi-generational household with grandparents, aunt, and uncles.

Mom was often encouraged by family members to migrate to make a so-called "better life" for us. Despite that pressure, mom reassured my siblings and me, saying "I made you all, so I will not hand over that responsibility to anyone else." As a young girl, I cannot tell you how comforting those words were to me.

More importantly, what my mother modeled was that of a fulling a commitment regardless of the challenges encountered. She was loyal to motherhood, despite the difficulty she faced as a single-parent. That's not to say, that I would be willing to stay in an abusive relationship, but rather, I learned not to run away when the going gets rough. We all know that relationships have rough patches.

The 3rd love lesson is that your parents' story doesn't have to be yours, as exemplified by my maternal grandfather.

If my grandfather's family tree was a river, it would have more tributaries than The Amazon. During my childhood, I often went to the market with my mother on Saturday mornings. From time to time, I would be introduced to a great aunt or great uncle, related to me via my maternal grandfather. One day I questioned my mother about the vast difference in the appearance of my grandfather's siblings. After her explanation, I understood that my great-grandparents had many children with multiple partners. But what really stood out to me, was that my grandfather was determined to not repeat that pattern. For me, that was inspiring. It meant that although my parents' relationship failed, I was not destined for the same outcome.

A huge part of my efforts to forge my own "marriage story" is spending time communicating and reflecting with my partner. You can hear a bit of that reflection in our podcast linked below.