Episode 38: How family affects your relationship perspective
The podcast I recently published covered this topic, out of all the episodes I have recorded so far this season; this was that one I wanted to write about first. My friend gave me the inspiration when we spoke during the most recent Christmas break. I recall him planning to propose to his girlfriend mid last year and waiting for that ring photo on Instagram. They returned from their Europe trip and still no photo. I waited a few weeks to ask how it went he followed by telling me they decided to go to couple’s counseling to deal with their underlying issues. He mentioned my going to therapy as part of the inspiration; I guess all those memes paid off. What surprised me about that is I feel most couples only go to counseling post marriage and kids, which leads to their eventual divorce.
I am glad that our generation is more open about therapy and even go to counseling pre-marriage. When he visited New York during the Christmas break, we had to do our usual catch up at a bar. When we spoke, he mentioned that his parents got divorced earlier last year and that sparked this change. It made me wonder if he would have thought of counseling if his parents were still together.
I started going to therapy in college because my friend was a psych major and told me counseling was free for students. Sure, I stopped going then started again when therapy sessions were free while I was at a digital marketing program. Even though these opportunities were free, I still needed to make the decision to go. My then being open and talking about my experiences and learning more about my own behaviors affect me and others have allowed others to ask about my experience.
I can’t speak for everyone but that friend had me thinking about how his parent’s divorce changed his perspective. I know exactly when my thoughts of relationships changed. It happened during my late teens, my parents got divorced when I was 16, 2 years later the first relationship I embarked on crumbled in 5 months. Those experiences made me jaded about relationships during my early 20s.
Mix in my parent’s divorce, knowing my grandparents got divorced, later on seeing family members get divorced and realizing I do not want to deal with that experience. The way I thought about it, everyone seems to be getting divorced deals with them getting married early on and not wanting to follow their example. I would like to think that I was not anti-marriage but just cautious about relationships and love. The relationship I was in was rushed, I told her I liked her and then because of that we decided to be a couple. Would I do that now? Hell no!! Well, that is also because there is still more to learn from a romantic partner and I know I would not rush saying I love you.
As my 20s continued to go by, I realized I did not want to regret my life decisions. I wanted to move to California, go to Europe, travel to different baseball stadiums, take up scuba diving, etc. I took what I noticed from my family members and how older people spoke about their decisions. Use this decade to do whatever I want, do not get married, do not get to a relationship, and for sure don’t have a kid. Most of my family had babies when they were in their late teens or early 20s and I just feel they did not get to experience some of the things they wanted because kids come first and are a financial burden.
I did not want to blame them for my pessimism because honestly, that came from myself. I know I did not have this introspective mindset in my early 20s. Obviously my perspective may be different if my parents were still together and if I wasn’t cheated on but those experiences made me who I am today and I wouldn’t change it. My parents were not happy and it does not make sense if they were still together today. My ex-girlfriend and I lived in different states we were optimistic about the future but long distance is hard to work during the teen years.
People whose parents get divorced may want to be optimistic about having a happy marriage and people whose parents are happily ever after may be worried about never finding that kind of love. The beauty of all this is that we have our own perspectives and it is important to look at how all of our experiences affect the people we become as life progresses. Same with dating, online dating is difficult; people are jaded, they date at different speeds. Some of my single friends are tired of the dating scene and want to be in a long-term relationship. I get all that but because of my background and experience of being single for as long as it has been I use that perspective to work on my own progress and when the day happens that I get into a relationship it’s because I want to be not because I have to be in one.
If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it here: https://anchor.fm/sarcastony/episodes/38--How-family-affect-our-relationship-perspectives-eb9qvm
