A partner who grew up without one parent makes a lot of efforts to be no different from other people. Follows the words, says what is expected of him to be heard. And he lives with a habit developed over the years – not to make it clear that something was missing in his life. Why is it so hard for him to open up? And can it somehow affect your relationship?
What exactly happened to the partner? Was it the death of a loved one, a difficult parental divorce, or early childhood abuse? What is it like to lose a parent in childhood, and even under tragic circumstances? Did your partner have to grow up too soon because of this?
Perhaps, two absolutely identical stories cannot be found, but people from single-parent families have one thing in common – a wound in the heart. A scar that stays forever.
At the very beginning of a relationship with a person, it may seem that they are no different from any others. Moreover, taking into account the statistics of divorces, such a scenario can be considered a kind of norm. You ask your partner about his childhood, about his parents, and in response you hear a story that seems complete and reliable. And it’s not that the partner is trying to deceive you.
He just knows that it will be easier for everyone – both for you and for him.
He knows it’s hard for others to hear stories about how, as a very young child, he spent the night in the emergency room of the hospital, waiting for word from the doctor about his father’s condition. Or that mom just left, leaving them with dad alone. Or about the fact that the place in the heart where the image of a happy complete family lived still hurts, despite the fact that so many years have passed.
After all, you won’t talk about all this on the first date, or the second, or the third. It is not clear when the right moment comes to talk about it. And then a fictional legend somehow takes root.
How to understand that you met just such a person? That there are doors in his past that you don’t have access to?
Most likely, at first, the partner does not let you get too close. It takes a long time to get the courage to kiss. Especially in public. You don’t stay overnight. You seem to be together, close, but not so close as to be able to look over the fence separating you and find out what is there. And a person, perhaps, understands that this is wrong, but he does not know how to love otherwise.
Getting to know you better, the partner hears stories about your loved ones, about the house where you grew up, about the traditions established in your family, and … may begin to feel jealous, awkward or vaguely threatened.
He has no idea what it’s like to be able to return to your father’s house at any time, where you grew up. Get the support of parents who loved you as a child and continue to love you now, of course. He is trained to never expect anything from others, and stability in relationships is something completely new for him.
And then he decides to confess everything to you
At the moment when you are fooling around or just lying on the bed in an embrace, he suddenly feels that he can drop the armor and tell everything as it is. It may seem to you that nothing special has happened, but the partner, most likely, has been moving towards this for a long time – to the opportunity to trust, relax next to someone and at the same time feel merging, belonging to another. Feel at home.
This feeling can leave a partner as quickly as it came, giving way to doubts: is he really worthy of your love? Worthy of a family? Houses? Healthy relationship? He probably had no such experience before, and there is no certainty that all this is possible.
And, most likely, such moments will be repeated – when your loved one will consider that he is not worthy of the happiness that fell to his lot; that he is not worthy of you. And on bad days, it will seem to him that he is not good enough.
You cannot and should not solve his problems – there are competent specialists for this. But it is in your power to make it clear that nothing has changed on your part, that you still love him and will be there – today, tomorrow, years later. That you are aiming for a long life together. Especially if this is true.