Early experiences can have a great impact on people’s marriage and love life in adulthood. Chinese folklore has long said that “the age of three is old and the age of seven is old”, which is strikingly similar to some recent Western psychological theories. Let’s take a look at how early experiences affect people’s lives, especially their choice of spouse and marital relationships.
I. Attachment period: (0-18 months)
When the baby is born, the mother’s womb provides him with a perfect living environment: the optimal temperature and automatic supply of nutrients, and even breathing without having to labor on his own, it is a safe and comfortable world for the baby to live in. But when he is separated from his mother, he is confronted with an unfamiliar world: the temperature of the surrounding air makes him uncomfortable, and he needs to get his own oxygen and food, all of which makes him feel challenged to survive. If he can get his mother’s milk and embrace immediately when he needs it, he will feel back to the safety and comfort of his original mother’s body. But if he does not have access to his mother’s milk when he is hungry, or to her arms when he is uncomfortable and upset, he feels threatened with death. Because the child at this time has no ability to survive on its own and is completely dependent on the mother’s care, survival is the whole purpose of the infant’s life at this stage, and attachment to the mother becomes its most basic need, which, if not met, causes harm to the infant’s heart. The infant’s loud crying is an expression of his fear of death, not just what adults think of as crying in the general sense. Of course, there are few mothers who can meet 100 percent of their infant’s psychological need for attachment. For various reasons, even the most loving mothers may be negligent and unable to immediately meet the needs of their babies because they are busy with other things. But the reality of life is that there are mothers who are emotionally indifferent, who are deaf to the cries of their babies, who feel that their babies are a burden and a source of worry in their lives. The degree of damage caused by unmet attachment needs of infants varies, creating different personality types that remain with them throughout their lives.
Children: Fear of Abandonment
Some mothers respond erratically to their child’s attachment needs: sometimes they are able to meet the child’s needs, and sometimes they are not. This can be caused by a variety of factors, such as the mother’s emotional instability and lack of adjustment to motherhood, sometimes cold and irritable, sometimes nurturing. Or a loving mother can’t be around her child all the time due to work, and some mothers are influenced by some propaganda, thinking that they can’t spoil their children, can’t feed them when they want to eat, hold them when they cry, consciously train their children to eat by the time they have the habit of breastfeeding, and so on, and insist on not feeding them until the time, leaving them to cry and so on. The baby sometimes gets the food and care he needs, sometimes not, and when his needs are not met, the only thing he can do is to cry as loudly as he can. After a period of crying, his needs are finally met. Such a child cannot establish a stable sense of security and naturally develops the idea that the only way to get the food and affection he needs to survive is to cry constantly. On the one hand, the infant tries hard to attract the mother’s attention by crying so that his attachment needs can be met, but on the other hand, he is angry at being left alone. The mother becomes the same source of pleasure and pain for him, and his physical and emotional experience of pleasure and satisfaction alternates with anger and sadness. As a result, he develops conflicting feelings of love and hate for his mother. We call this type of child an attachment child.
Adulthood: attachment personality
If the attachment child’s situation does not change in the later stages of growth, their psychological development stagnates in the attachment stage. The needs they do not acquire during this stage will become fundamental personality traits that will remain with them throughout their lives. Their need for attachment persists into adulthood, and this attachment tendency becomes prominent when they enter an intimate relationship. We will find that the central grievance at the center of their ambivalence in intimate relationships is: “You are always absent when I need you.” Their demand for intimate contact seems never-ending, and whenever they feel they are being neglected by the other person, they feel abandoned, they become angry, and they become fearful. They often show a strong possessiveness, demanding the attention of the other person at all times, and cannot tolerate the slightest neglect or cold treatment. They are always complaining that the other person does not care enough about them and has failed their love, and always try to force the other person to care for them and satisfy their psychological needs by means of anger, noise, and threats, which is the same as the way they cried to get their mother’s care when they were babies. Due to their strong feelings of insecurity and fear of abandonment, they are filled with jealousy and suspicion, and they have difficulty giving trust to the other person, no matter how much they confess. Anger, crying, quarreling, suspicion and jealousy are all ways of expressing their love, which, in the end, stems from the conflicting feelings of love and hate they had for their mothers in their early years.
Children: Fear of rejection
Another type of mother is the mother with persistent emotional indifference. She may not have wanted the child in the first place, and its arrival fills her with regret and disappointment, seeing it as the source of her misfortune or the result of a wrongdoing. Perhaps she resents the child by nature, just as her mother resented her. Such mothers are emotionally cold to their children, rarely even willing to hug them, and scolding them is commonplace. There are also mothers who are persistently indifferent to their children because they are in a state of chronic emotional depression. The children of such mothers, whom we call lonely children, often fear intimate contact, and although they do in fact need their mother’s affection as much as any other child, every desire and request for attachment to their mother leads to psychological pain, so the infant naturally makes a painful choice: avoiding all intimate contact, and leading to the conclusion: I have no need. They cry infrequently, seem to be easily satisfied, eat whatever is given to them, do not ask for more, do not care if others care for them, and seem to have no needs. He constructs a self that is not real, that appears to be independent, but in fact denies the need for self and fears contact with others for the sole purpose of avoiding the pain that this may cause. Such a child is often considered a “good boy” or “good girl”, and the mother is proud of the “independence” that the child shows early on, but later in life, the child’s Later in life, the child’s so-called “independence” may be praised by society, and he may even be proud of his “independence”, but an unfortunate married life awaits him.
Adulthood: the lonely personality
If the lonely child grows up in the same environment, the psychological characteristics of his early childhood will become fundamental in his personality as he grows up, becoming an avoidant personality in interpersonal relationships, especially in intimate relationships. As in early childhood, he denies his emotional and even material needs. In fact it is not that he does not have the need for intimacy, but that he has abandoned this need in early childhood. Their personality is usually aloof or even cold, lacking interest and pursuit of life. Because they always avoid too much intimate contact, they seem to be independent. They tend to have an affinity with the attachment type in their choice of spouse, for one simple reason: the attachment type tends to be more active, thus shortening the space of distance caused by his indifference and withdrawal and allowing intimacy to be established between them. Of course, the avoidant type also shows some enthusiasm in the early stages of a relationship, but once intimacy is established, because too much closeness remains painful and frightening, his indifferent and withdrawn characteristics come to the surface. Due to their personality traits, such people have less material needs in social life and are rich in independence and patience, often successful in their careers and praised by people. But their married life is usually a failure.
Self-affirmation and the formation of abilities (3-7 years old)
At this time, the child begins to experience a new reality and wants to know what his relationship to the world around him is like as an independent person. He begins the life journey of self-formation. To do this, he must accomplish two things that will affect his relationship to the self and to others throughout his life, which are.
(1) He must establish within himself a stable and continuous image of the self and a stable, continuous image of others (mainly loved ones).
(2) Determining a self-evaluation of his own abilities, and thus establishing his self-confidence.
Confirmation of the Self
Until the age of three, children felt anxiety and fear of abandonment immediately when their parents were not with them. Now, around the age of three or four, the child’s spatial mobility is increasing, as well as the amount of time his parents are not with him,
But he still needs to feel safe, just like before. So he begins to put the image of his parents into his mind so that he can still maintain a mental connection with them when he is away from them and maintain a sense of psychological security, just as we put pictures of our loved ones in our wallets so that we can take them out and look at them whenever we want.
As the child begins to distinguish himself mentally from his parents, in other words, begins to become independent, one of the tasks he immediately faces is the need to gradually build up an internal image of himself, i.e., who am I? The child accomplishes this task through play. They dress up as various animals, characters, cartoon characters, etc., to try out who they are and who they are not? What is the same and what is different about themselves and others, and eventually, the characteristics of various animals, characters and cartoon characters are combined into a unique personality trait fixed by their own identification. Children play the smart little white sheep, the fierce big bad wolf, the cute little good rabbit, the cunning wolf grandmother, and the officials and soldiers catching the robbers, to the American Girl Warrior and the dunking master, the Ninja Turtles ……. that children love in recent years The children are looking for themselves and forming themselves in various roles. This is the time when children pay close attention to their parents’ reactions to the various game roles they play, hope to get their parents’ approval, and strongly hope and ask their parents to play games with them.
At this stage of a child’s development, it is very important for parents to play with their child and to respond to their child’s play role, because the parent’s response determines the child’s future personality formation. Wise parents encourage their children to try out a variety of play roles and respond positively to the different behaviors and personalities their children display in different role plays: “Little white rabbit, you dance beautifully!” “The Big Bad Wolf didn’t eat the Little White Rabbit, so he must be hungry now, come and eat!” When the child’s role play gets a positive response from the parents, he will continue to try other roles to see how the parents react. The parent should say, “You are not only a beautiful girl warrior, but also a brave ninja turtle.” If the child has enough roles and models in his life environment to choose from, and if his choices are positively responded to and affirmed by his parents, he will draw on a variety of roles and characteristics to form a very rich and highly individualized unique personality. At this point, parents should respond positively to their child’s various role identifications, rather than selectively evaluating, criticizing, ignoring or prohibiting and punishing their child’s attempts based on their own preferences.
Children: Fear of Humiliation
However, most parents have a problematic approach to children at this stage. Due to the limitations of their own personalities and values, they always want to make their children become what they ideally want, or wish to be, in their own minds, and therefore tend to react differently to their children including the way they play, their behavior in role play, and by extension, their personality traits as well as their behavioral traits, either approving and praising, criticizing or ignoring, or even scolding and punishing, shaping their children in this way. In this way, the child’s personality is distorted and formed according to the wishes of the parents. We can now sometimes buy square apples or gourd-shaped watermelons in the market, which are very interesting and naturally much more expensive. It is said that these melon masters are placed in various square or gourd-shaped models before they grow up, so that these melons will grow up according to the shape specified in the models. This method is certainly very interesting, but their children into a square apple can not be so interesting things.
Many parents, although they meet the psychological needs of their children well during the attachment and exploration periods, do not welcome the “birth of the child’s self” during this period, which makes them feel uneasy because it may not correspond to certain social and cultural prejudices or to the parents’ expectations for the child’s future. The child’s expectations. We Chinese have always been concerned with the “tutelage” of our children, so they criticize, reject, suppress or punish those behavioral and character traits that do not meet their expectations and requirements: “Girls should not be so crazy, they are ugly!” “These things are for girls to play with, you’re a boy, shame on you!” “Don’t make so much noise, sit quietly there is the good child,” good children should do this, good children should do that. Thus, the child’s personality splits into two parts: the part that is approved and reinforced by parents and society, the so-called light side, and the part that is denied by parents and society and thus suppressed, the so-called “dark side”. From then on, the child forms a single, one-sided personality and is no longer a person with a complete self. The child instinctively feels ashamed of his or her “dark side” and even denies its existence. The child splits himself into “good” and “bad” and tries hard to suppress his so-called “bad” side and express his so-called “good” side, and to turn the “good” side into the “bad” side. good” side of himself and fixes it as his only self-image. He is always trying to control himself, to control the part of his natural humanity that is denied and repressed from “coming out”. to not be humiliated by revealing it.
Adulthood: the stereotypical personality
The stereotypical child may develop a stereotypical personality in adulthood, which is stubborn, usually self-centered, inflexible, and less likely to have a natural flow of feelings and lack of empathy. He is proud of his “precise calculation” and “logical thinking” and high level of reasoning, and is ashamed to show his inner feelings. Because this personality is more suitable for technical work, appears to be more calm, rational, serious, meticulous, strong planning, in the competition of society has a very strong competitiveness, so many of them often career success, is the company or organization in the top management or technical backbone. These personality traits also tend to attract a lot of those who are more emotional, irrational, dependent on the opposite sex. But once a family is formed, these personality traits become a source of pain for the spouse. They also tend to choose a person of the opposite sex with his personality as a spouse, because her body has lost those personality traits, only with such people will make their lives feel complete, that is, we often say “complementary personality”. But unfortunately, it won’t be long before he starts to constantly pick on the other person’s faults, just as his parents did to themselves back then. He can’t stand the natural, spontaneous and anything that seems “irrational” in the other person. In his life, everything is supposed to be pre-designed and planned, so he often accuses his spouse of “not being clear-headed” and “not knowing what he wants. “Think about it before you say anything.” They see their spouse as the object of their domination. They are usually emotionally indifferent, even impersonal.
They are most afraid of losing face and overemphasize self-control, believing that it is important to be rational and not to do as they please. They hide their true selves deeply, and so appear to be very urban. In marriage they are very controlling, stubborn and like to punish each other with indifference.
Children: Fear of neglect
Other parents, because they are too preoccupied with their own work or their own emotional life, completely ignore this important psychological process of self-affirmation of their children, completely ignore their self-identification games, do not give any reaction, refuse to play with their children, do not care at all what games their children are playing, consider their games as childish and ridiculous, do not care about their children’s games, and do not give positive feedback to their children’s role in some They do not react positively to the child’s role in some of them. If parents never say to their children, “Hey! Our little ‘Mulan’ is back,” “You are such a ‘elf,'” and do not participate in the child’s play. ……, the child will have no way to know what kind of person he or she is. As a result, the child will lack self-knowledge, lack individuality, not know who he or she is, cannot form a clear self-concept, cannot clearly distinguish the difference between themselves and others and the boundaries with others, and cannot form a complete self-image inside. They always show multiple personalities and vacillate between their different personality traits. They are often emotionally unstable, often unjustifiably happy, sad, and angry at one time. They are afraid of being ignored by others, and they can’t stand it when people don’t take them seriously because it makes them not feel like they exist.
These children always want to get the attention of their parents and others, so they try to show themselves as if they are always living on stage, and everything they do is to attract the attention of others. It is this excessive need for attention and approval that causes them to have a blurred concept of interpersonal boundaries and an inability to establish their own boundaries. They always try to invade other people’s spheres of life and cannot reasonably protect their own spheres of life from being invaded by others.
Adulthood: Submissive Personality
Children who are not valued often develop a “diffuse” personality as adults. They often complain: “I don’t know who I am,” “I don’t know what I need,” and “You ignore me. They don’t have their own thoughts, opinions, or even emotions, and are always attached to other people’s ideas and emotions, but are afraid to become their true selves, like a chameleon that changes its color at any time according to the environment. They are always watching what they say, looking at other people’s faces, always overly concerned about other people’s evaluation and opinion of themselves, their knowledge of self is completely dependent on other people’s reaction, and their energy is always focused on how to attract other people’s attention and attention. They are most afraid of being ignored, not being cared for and paid attention to. Their standard of being a person is not to be in the limelight and not to be too assertive. They always try hard to please and please each other, believing that as long as the other person is happy they will get attention, love and happiness. However, no matter how much attention the other person gives him, he is still complaining that he is not valued, loved, or acknowledged. They are always complaining that the other person is too controlling and emotionally retarded, and they often say; “You never care about me and everything has to be done the way you want it to be done.”
Determination of competence.
While defining themselves, or a little later, usually starting at the age of four, children try to determine their impact on the outside world and see the range and limits of what they are capable of. The degree to which they achieve success in this process depends on their self-evaluation. They begin to compete with their peers and even their parents (e.g., for attention) and show off their abilities. They try to do all kinds of pranks and watch for their parents’ reactions. If they receive approval from their parents, they will make further attempts until they are forbidden or scolded by their parents, and then they will stop.
At this stage, the parent’s role is to encourage and reinforce their various attempts, while establishing clear boundaries as to what is allowed and what is not allowed. If it goes well, the child learns how to adapt properly to society and builds self-confidence. The parents’ values will then begin to internalize the child’s values and will know their behavior as well as relationships in the future.
Children: Fear of Failure
Some parents do not provide consistent encouragement and reinforcement for their children’s attempts, and they are very stingy with their children’s rewards for fear that they will become “complacent” by receiving too many rewards. When the child comes home with a 95 on the test and reports to the parents with joy, they say, “What’s there to be proud of? And so their children will be seeking praise and rewards from their parents for almost everything they do. If they don’t get praise and encouragement from their parents, they will continue to work until they get praise and reward from their parents. Because parental encouragement and praise are so hard to come by, children feel that they are never good enough and are forever seeking success and praise. They cannot face failure; success makes them arrogant, while failure makes them inferior and depressed. But no matter how successful they are, they cannot enjoy their life because they will think they are not successful enough.
Adulthood: Compulsive Competitive Personality
Such a child will grow up to be an avid competitor as an adult. They tend to be successful in their careers, scorn morality and lack compassion. They always accuse others of not trying hard enough and being too benign. Everything they do in life is to compete, compete, and compete again. Only by constantly winning in constant competition can they maintain their fragile self-esteem and self-confidence. Therefore cannot tolerate and suffer any failure. Their standard of being human is not to fail, not to make mistakes, always in the pursuit of perfection. Because they are convinced: “If I am the best, I will be loved.” They always want to be superior and control each other in marriage, and the family is the battleground on which they compete for dominance over the family. They tend to choose as their spouse someone who is clearly less capable than they are, and on the one hand they demand that their spouse obey them and worship them, but at the same time they constantly complain that the other person is too benighted with no ambition.
Children: Fear of competition
Some parents never give encouragement to their children, but always criticize and blame. They always say to their children, “Look how smart people xxx are, how good xxx is.” “This child can’t be good” “What will this child do in the future?” Such education is the child does not know how to show their ability, even if they show their ability is often not recognized by parents; “learning is not good, singing is no longer useful.” “It’s all a bunch of crooked play.” Children often develop a strong sense of helplessness and hostility. They never openly compete with others. They ostensibly never compete and are reluctant to engage in games that have to do with competition, such as chess, poker, sports competitions, etc. But the way they win is how to make others fail, such as saying some bad words behind their backs and telling on them. They always avoid making decisions in order to avoid defeat or criticism, but are resentful or hostile to others’ decisions, and often wait for others’ defeat with a gloating mentality. They lack compassion and conscience. They avoid all competition, but are always complaining about unfairness.
Adulthood: subtly compromising personalities
These children grow up, as they did when they were children, and do not like to participate in games and sports that are competitive. In relationships, they enjoy flattering others to their faces but bad-mouthing them behind their backs, degrading and undermining their reputation and image, and making others miserable without ever blaming themselves. They usually work in jobs that are below their ability. Never openly compete with people who appear to be more capable than they are. Instead, they express no interest in competing, saying, “I never want to be in the limelight,” and then achieve their own psychological balance by belittling others.
They appear to be submissive in their marriage, but in reality they are passive and resistant, or they use subtle tactics to achieve their goals. They always accuse the other person of being too strong: “everything must be listened to you”, “you must have the upper hand in everything”. Always complain that they are controlled and that their abilities are not worthy of the other person’s recognition.