Ask Andrew – My school mates were a greater influence than my parents
Hi Andrew,
I tried reading your book ‘The Single Trap’ over Xmas as my friend I was staying with had bought it. I found it quite heavy reading, but was stumped by the second chapter which asks one to analyse the behaviour of your parents. I find that this would be very difficult in my circumstance as I went to boarding school and only saw my parents in the holidays. I believe that I learnt most of my behaviour from my peers and seniors at school. Also, I had no regular contact with my grandparents until my early teens when they moved locally to us, and were never in contact or saw any of my aunts, uncles or cousins throughout my life because of my parents. I don’t know any of these people, and only now trying to contact them. To me my family was my boarding school, and my friends after I have left school. I have a very difficult relationship with my parents still, and have not spoken for many years.
What kind of advice can you give for someone like myself who does not have the traditional constancy of a family to come home to as a child or adult?
Andrew writes:
I had a huge wave of sadness when I read your letter. How horrible to feel deserted by your parents and how difficult to have teachers and classmates as your most significant others – because teachers leave and school children can be mindlessly cruel.
My guess is that you found Single Trap heavy reading because it threatened to bring up all the past pain - almost like opening Pandora’s box. So I’m torn in two directions. Firstly, I think this could be really difficult material and you should find yourself a therapist who can provide support to process everything. Secondly, it might be helpful to take a peak and begin to understand (in which case keep reading the Single Trap). Your parents are still a major influence on your life – if only in their absence. Look at distance fathers – for the closest thing in the book.
When researchers watched children separated from their parents (for only a few minutes) they saw how anxious and upset they became and overwhelmed with relief when their mothers returned. However what was more interesting was what happened if the parents did not return. The children got more and more upset but after a while they calmed down and withdrew into themselves. When the mothers finally returned, their children were so self-contained that they hardly noticed. These mothers labelled their children as ‘good’ and ‘well-behaved’ – but didn’t realise the damage to their relationship´with their sons or daughters.
So my guess is that your childhood has made it hard for you to trust potential partners as you are afraid of being rejected. From time to time, you have been overwhelmed with passion for a particularly handsome man but you have been unable to be yourself round him (and the relationship has gone nowhere) or you have been attracted to unavailable men (married, toxic bachelors, workaholics) who could not return your love. See the later chapters on commitment.
Finally, I would encourage your endeavours to contact your family and understand your parents better. This is a hard road but all your work on getting to know yourself better will pay dividends, improve your self-esteem (which I guess has been damaged by all this) and help you find the love you need. Be brave.
