Contents
Speaking about the types of violations of relationships in the family, it must be taken into account that any boundaries in such a complex issue will always remain very conditional, and hardly anyone will dare to say that this family definitely belongs to the fifth point of the classification below.
Rivalry
Each of us met such families. The main question in them: who is in charge? Directly, this question can never be posed or asked. Its «realization» takes place in various and extremely variable forms, starting from the feuilleton: «Who will wash the dishes?» to the tragic: «Who is to blame for his (or her) death?»
The life of such a family is a constant competition. The husband strives to earn money not so much in order to raise the family’s well-being as in order to prove that he is the «main breadwinner», and therefore has the right to a number of material and moral privileges. A wife can “assert herself” to the detriment of family interests, be painfully jealous or have affairs on the side (again, not for her own pleasure, but to show that she, too, is not a bastard). Quite quickly, children are also included in the competition. They win their place under the sun by all means available to them. It is in such families that “sickly” and “nervous” children very often grow up, who, due to their illness, win in the struggle for the mother’s attention. If there are several children, then it is in such families that the normal level of competition between brothers and sisters skyrockets, and the rivalry itself acquires hypertrophied, pathological features. It is here that the older child begins to poop in his pants again at the birth of the younger, and at an older age he says, mysteriously lowering his voice: “I want him to be gone!”
Pseudo-cooperation
In such families, everything is fine, while everything is fine. If all members of the family have a good job, the level of well-being is quite high and everyone is more or less healthy, then the life of such a family is quite stable and prosperous. All are satisfied with each other, demonstrate a fairly high level of mutual understanding and cooperation in solving various current problems and situations. There are practically no internal conflicts and tensions in this family, and it can exist for years without a single serious quarrel or scandal.
But if, due to some events from the outside, the family boat suddenly staggered and tilted, the members of such a family, instead of rallying among themselves and repelling the impending danger together, suddenly begin to quarrel, blame each other and this, naturally, exacerbate the situation that has arisen. It is in such families that a serious illness of a child or one of the family members often leads to divorce. This is where the stress of losing a job or otherwise losing social status is exacerbated by ridicule and rejection from loved ones. It is here that the main protective structure is the fortress wall, which fences off the stability of such a family from the outside world. Such a family does not have internal fortifications and bastions. If the outer wall has collapsed, there is nothing to hope for. Children in such families are at great risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. While everything is fine, the family seems to them a model of love, calmness and stability. When suddenly everything collapses overnight, they cannot understand anything, their psychological defense mechanisms are poorly formed, and as a result they either fall ill or are imbued with confidence that the world is senselessly cruel and no one can be trusted in it.
Insulation
The life of such a family is a matter of boundaries. All problems are solved by the fact that each member of the seven has built his own individual psychological cocoon and now jealously guards its integrity. The myths of such a family are stories about the value of individuality, about the inadmissibility of interference in a person’s personal life, about respect for the rights of the individual. During conflicts in such families, phrases are often heard:
— Stay out of my life! What do you care about me! I have the right to…!
Conflicts, of course, occur when these same boundaries are violated accidentally or deliberately. A very difficult test for such families is the adolescence of children. From an early age, accustomed to isolation, insincerity of relationships, or even simply deceitful children during their adolescence, as it were, «revenge» their parents, demonstrating to them an exaggerated version of their own behavior, not yet softened by intellectual and social maturity.
Emotional alienation
Such a family for outsiders often looks completely prosperous. Family members cooperate quite satisfactorily with each other, unite and unite their efforts in the face of a common danger, are constructive and consistent in raising children. They almost never have marital scandals or sharp conflicts with the older generation. But all this happens against the backdrop of a constant lowering of the emotional background. A wife in such a family to the question: “Do you love your husband?” — usually answers: «I respect him» or «He is a good person.» The husband usually has a constant mistress, and, as a rule, this is not so much a partner for sexual games or an object of increasing prestige as a girlfriend, a person with whom you can talk about what is happening in your soul. The wife usually uses classmates or neighbors for the same purposes.
Children in such families, as a rule, grow up without serious social deviations, respecting the law and outward decency, and without having any clear moral principles. In the future, they create their families according to the same pattern that was observed in the parent family. Convincing them that something else is possible is extremely difficult. Usually such children do not believe in «true friendship» and «eternal love», they consider all this to be fairy tales invented for entertainment.
Symbiotic families
In these families, relations of close psychological fusion, symbiosis, come to the fore. Someone absolutely cannot live without someone, sacrificing (usually completely voluntarily) part of their personality to create this “unity”. Very often, such a picture is observed in single-parent families, where the mother, having abandoned her personal life, completely dissolves in her children (child). At the same time, a small child literally bathes in love and acceptance, but, growing up, begins to be burdened by dependence on his mother. Further events may develop in different ways. A child can «rush», freeing himself, but at the same time leaving a bleeding wound in the soul of the mother, who literally gave him her whole life, and a sucking sense of guilt in his own soul. Or he can give up the idea of being “so cruel”, while at the same time giving up his own further individuation. Such a son, already having his own family, will bring his wife up, postponing the solution of the most important issues until finding out «what mom will say.» Such a daughter will be surprised to observe the tense relationship between her husband and his mother-in-law, not realizing that she looks at most of the things and people around her (including her own husband!) Through the eyes of her mother.
Sometimes (much less often) symbiotic relationships are observed in married couples. If they satisfy only one of the spouses, then, as a rule, they end in divorce. If the symbiosis is two-sided, then outside observers are amazed to see the very “ideal love” that they like to write about in novels. Communicating with such a couple is usually unbearably boring, as they are emotionally monotonous and closed to each other. Children in such families often feel emotionally deprived and cheerfully illustrate all the most dubious dogmas of Freudianism.
However, later, having matured, these same children wait a long time (and often unsuccessfully) or look for their «princes» and «princesses», stubbornly believing in all kinds of «scarlet sails» and sincerely enjoying the love conflicts of soap operas.
Hyperprotective families
In this type of family, one of the family members (usually a child, but there are other options) enjoys completely unlimited rights and claims the lion’s share of benefits and attention. There may be rational explanations for this position: “He is still small,” “He is seriously ill,” “He works hard,” or there may be no explanation at all. In addition, the situation may persist, but explanations may change.
For many years I have been observing a tragicomic situation in a family that I know well. When a child was born in this family, all the forces and capabilities of the family were thrown to meet his needs. Four adults literally lost their temper so as not to miss any desire of the baby. In response to the reproaches of others: “You will spoil him like that!” — the parents smiled wisely and answered: “Little children need to be loved!” At the age of five, the previously healthy child suffered from severe mononucleosis. After that, all the forces of the family were thrown into the rehabilitation program. The explanation now sounded like this: “We have a sick child!” Then the child went to school, where it was difficult for him (of course!), then to the school (“there is such a stressful program!”), then he was dismissed from the army, but he was so nervous that he had to “rest” for a year … Now he is healthy The twenty-five-year-old redneck works somewhere from time to time, but does not stay anywhere, because «the conditions do not suit him.» Most of the time he sits on the neck of his parents, watches videos and hangs out with his friends in bars. Aged parents call this «search for yourself.»
Family problems and their impact on the child
We are all living people, with our own advantages and disadvantages, and therefore there are no and never have been families in which there would be no problems at all. In essence, everything depends on how exactly these existing problems are resolved. And oddly enough, it is the methods of solving problems, and not at all their content, that primarily influence the formation of the character and personal characteristics of children growing up in a given family. See →