How early relational patterns dictate our adult relationships

In this article we’ll consider how relational patterns learned in infancy can wield a powerful influence over our adult relationships.  We’ll look at how these patterns came into being, the ways in which they continue to affect our lives today and, finally, we’ll consider what we can do to make this early patterning better serve us.

How relational patterns form

Humans are born vulnerable and reliant on others for their very survival.  Without these adults there to protect, feed and take care of us we simply wouldn’t now exist.  We are born dependent on relationship and we'e shaped by the nature of those primary relationships.

From an evolutionary perspective, it is vital for the infant's survival that they secure an unbreakable relationship with their parental figures.  The infant of course doesn’t have a choice about who their caregivers are, nor the type of relationships offered.  Therefore it is the infant that must adapt to the parents. And it is through this adaptation process where early relational patterns are forged. 

Hidden and powerful influence

This patterning is activated the moment we are born and quickly establishes itself while we are in our infancy and pre-verbal - pre-recallable memory.  Therefore, this fundamental way of relating to others is unconscious.  These fundamental patterns of how we relate to others and the world are hidden to us.

Impact on our adult relationships

An example of the impact might be, that as an infant who had a parental figure who was emotionally distant, you adapted by keeping your emotions out of sight and your problems to yourself.  In this way, you fitted into your parent’s way of relating and enabled you to successfully maintain this vital relationship, however significant the cost was to you.  Now, as an adult, you are likely to have find repercussions of this pattern in your own close relationships. You might find it difficult to understand your own emotions?  Or struggle to express yourself emotionally - as you were taught.  To compensate for this, you might have developed a tendency to get upset or angry or perhaps withdraw when you encounter problems in relationships, leading to both confusion for you and for the other person.

Another relational pattern example might be that as infant your parental figure was unpredictable, often changing from a being close and attentive to becoming distant and unapproachable.  This relating style could have instilled anxiety in you as an infant – a pattern referred to as anxiously attached.  As an adult, maybe you experience fear of abandonment in close relationships, with this then triggering controlling behaviour to alleviate the anxiety or excessively seeking reassurance from a partner. 

These two simple examples aim to give an indication of how relational patterns, formed in early childhood, can silently drive our adult relationships.  More generally, we can notice these unconscious patterns with problems we encounter in relationships which keep repeating themselves, with us having little idea of what's really going on.  And of course, without this knowledge, they are likely to continue repeating. 

Changing patterns that no longer serve us

People often come into psychotherapy experiencing the negative impact of their relational patterns.  Something isn’t working but it’s not clear what.  We work together to uncover these early ways we learned of relating.  We do this by working closely with your experience, from the inside, so to speak.  We explore important relationships, often move back through your life – therapy is always unique to each client.  The patterns starts to reveal themselves.  And as the insights start to emerge, you begin to see your relationships in a new light: your unconscious, historic motivations, the way you learned to relate in childhood which you now bring into your adult life, and the kind of behaviour you unconsciously seek and even bring about in others. 

It is also by making relational patterns conscious that we can begin to understand ourselves at a deeper level, including how we have learned to adapt to get our needs met.  This broader knowledge about ourselves can affect us in significant ways – including our relationships with others, our ability to better deal with conflict and be less defensive relationships, to our ability to be more authentically ourselves. 

On an even more personal front, understanding these relational patterns enables us to starting seeing how we experience ourselves in relationships – including how much of the real us we allow to be present and seen.

Takeaway

Understanding your relational patterns can offer profound insight into how you relate to others.  For as well as the 'infant you' did in navigating the complex relationships you were born into, becoming aware of these patterns now as an adult, and updating them to better serve you, can bring about meaningful and positive change in your relationships and how you feel about yourself in those relationships.