“Most often, heartbroken people are unknowingly grieving a loss or trauma rooted in childhood or adolescence. That’s because we tend to fall in love with people who remind us of those who care for us – even badly – when we were young and totally vulnerable.” —Martha Beck

I think Martha’s right. But I think we also tend to seek out friends, jobs and employers who also remind us of those who cared for us - even badly - when we were young and vulnerable. I call them shadow relationships - the flitting, unseen darkness cast by the people we seek out as we grow up.

I believe we are always trying to resolve or fix or change those relationships (subconsciously) and so we return to our childhood caretakers in the form of finding the abusive boss, the demanding boss, the absent or passive aggressive or narcissistic boss. We try to do our jobs in a way that will “please them” and recreate or bring resolution to the pain of our past. It never works. We keep trying, as Einstein said, to solve our problems with the same thinking that got us into them in the first place.

If we look closely enough at ALL our relationships we will find that the stickiness, the arguments, the disagreements, the things we both love and hate about them remind us of our parents. We respond to our friends not as adults - but as children. We learn well. The habits and patterns of relating in adulthood are so similar to those we used in childhood - and usually not effective. We are adults in an adult world. The manipulations and coping mechanisms we used as powerless children don’t work as powerful adults. Our power is there. It’s waiting to be seized and used. Yes, we will have to learn HOW to use it, and how not to overpower others with it. But that’s the part of life we missed out on growing up. It’s something we get later in life is all. Fortunately we can usually learn and master it quicker than we would have as children - especially if we have a good therapist, safe friends and if we take time to think about our actions.

Throughout my life I have lived with, roomed with, or been friends with alcoholic partners. It took me 25 years to realize I was living with some version or other of an alcoholic father. My partners, friends, roommates and employers were no more capable of intimacy or caring or setting and honoring boundaries than I was. So we played out the same arguments and battles as I did with my father. It wasn’t until I realized that and began to set boundaries for myself and to change ME, that that dynamic began to change. I still have a lot of friends who are alcoholics or who admit they drink too much. But I don’t have the same relationship with them. I don’t try to please, rescue, avoid them. And if they get abusive I don’t stick around and think I deserve it. I’m able to love them and let them be themselves without any compulsion, guilt or judgment from me. I’m not their keeper. I’m their friend. I’m there for them because I love them and I know their relationship to alcohol is like mine to food/sugar. I know that love and boundaries, not judgment and abandonment, heals us. Those who are growing, healing and dealing with their issues stick around and we grow and heal together. Those who are not - they tend to fall out of my life without me doing a thing.

I’ve noticed a real churn in my friendships lately - a really different mix of friends coming into my life and a lot of old friendships going out. I recently parted ways with a critical and judgmental friend - and a kind and gentle friend who loved her. He needed a critical mother (her) and she needed someone to judge to feel good about herself (her father’s way of relating to her). They are trying to work out their childhood traumas with each other. I decided I didn’t need or like being judged (her and my parents) and simply said, “This isn’t working for me.” And like that - poof - they left. My gentle friend NEEDS to be judged and I won’t do that, so there is no appeal in being a friend with me. I don’t provide what he needs - a critical parent.

The most freeing thing about it all is in realizing that when some people reject us, they reject us not for who we are, but for who we are not for them. We are not the critical parent, the angry parent, the judging or passive aggressive, or unavailable parent. It’s more likely that we are not the negative drama that a person is looking for, and craving - the very person they need to work out their childhood dramas. Those who are looking for the positive, healthy person they want and appreciate and can change for the better with are rare indeed! Our relationships are not simple things. They are shadows or mirrors - reflecting our own needs and personality back at us, or showing us what haunts us from our past. Our challenge is to determine which they are and to learn to separate out, and enjoy the love that hides in-between the shadows and reflections.

Life is change. And as I realize how right Martha is on many levels that change becomes easier. It’s never easy. But understanding what is happening and why certainly makes all the heavy lifting we need to do to become more comfortable with ourselves.