![\"not-just-about-parents\"](\"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/not-just-about-parents-300x210.jpg\")
h\u00a0people can be seen in how you handle closeness with your family of origin, like with siblings and parental figures.<\/p>\nOur marriage counseling is heavily based on the family systems paradigm.\u00a0Many of our Indianapolis area married couples who are seeking counseling originally believe that marriage counseling begins with the marital issues.\u00a0This is not true.\u00a0To understand issues of intimacy within a marriage, we need to start from the beginning.\u00a0That means the\u00a0beginning is at the beginning,which is not the middle or the end, based on\u00a0the\u00a0relationships of our youth. Seems logical enough, but all that seems to be forgotten by the time we reach our late 20s or by the time we’ve reached a point in our lives where we have had our\u00a0fair share of broken relationships and disappointments.\u00a0To connect the dots, it’s helpful to ask yourself\u00a0questions like, “Did you ever feel like you don’t fit into your family? Have you always felt that your siblings just don’t get you? Have you struggled with intimate\u00a0relationships when you were dating and now have issues in your\u00a0marriage?”\u00a0Your sibling relationships can also\u00a0find their way into\u00a0your marital issues.\u00a0Many\u00a0of the ways we\u00a0relate to each other is based on\u00a0past learned experiences in older relationships. We are a product of our emotional learning. How you handle closeness with\u00a0people can be seen in how you handle closeness with your family of origin, like with siblings and parental figures.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Siblings are an important part of the family tree assessment we complete at Family Tree Counseling. How one child experiences their family can be very different from\u00a0another child from the same family. This is important to understand in order to gain a complete understanding of parenting styles.\u00a0It works the same way with personal preference. One person may like pasta and another prefers fresh-baked\u00a0bread more than pasta. Neither is right or wrong, but reflects a greater importance of one thing over another.\u00a0\u00a0I recently had a client describe how her parents took her to a counselor when\u00a0she was a young teenager to help\u00a0her address her “issues”\u00a0with communication. Her brother\u00a0seemed to not have any issues with communication, so her parents assumed it must be\u00a0their daughter’s issue.<\/p>\n
It has since been almost 25 years and she explained how she\u00a0and her husband\u00a0never communicate well.\u00a0In earlier therapy sessions, she had a defensiveness around\u00a0accepting some responsibility for her reactions.\u00a0Her husband\u00a0complained\u00a0about feeling like he couldn’t do anything right, that he worked long hours, and was exhausted\u00a0listening to her\u00a0criticize him\u00a0for other things.\u00a0He felt\u00a0unsafe to talk about his feelings.\u00a0They eventually separated and could not\u00a0reconcile. The story is sad but the truth is, both parties felt like victims of the other one’s reactions. Her abandonment issues were so big, that she eve![\"not-just-about-parents-2\"](\"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/not-just-about-parents-2.jpg\")
ntually re-created abandonment in her adult life and he has so much shame around being competent that he could not tolerate another triggering, unsafe criticism from his wife.\u00a0His\u00a0reactivity looks like cutting,\u00a0running, and pain\u00a0killing while\u00a0her reactivity looks like raging and complaining.<\/p>\n
Looking back into their lives, this is the same way that she communicated with her family. The family decided “she was the one with the communication issue” and went to a counselor. The counselor, according to my client, stated that the issue was not with her\u00a0 but with her parents.\u00a0 She\u00a0needed\u00a0more of their\u00a0time and attention,\u00a0to feel heard about\u00a0her daily struggles, but this was not being provided.\u00a0 Based on this experience in her past, my client has continued to carry the shame of the blame for being unable to have her need met.\u00a0By blaming herself for the loss of intimacy with her parents, her\u00a0shame allows her to\u00a0remain trapped in the belief\u00a0that she could have done something differently than what she did, so her parents could love her. The truth must be that she was not doing enough to gain her needs in the relationship.\u00a0The burden to be able to stay connected fell on her shoulders. Now that she is an adult, this burden is carried into the marriage.<\/p>\n
Her husband’s story is that he\u00a0was the\u00a0good boy in the family, doing everything his parents asked him to do so he would remain in good standing. He learned to focus on gaining his parents’ approval since his father was highly critical\u00a0and based on the chaotic and challenging relationship his brother had with his parents. My client decided not to fall into the trap of being the “bad” son and began shutting down internally, not expressing his feelings, keeping\u00a0\u00a0his emotions\u00a0hidden.\u00a0Eventually his own needs would become a mystery, because of how much he abandoned himself, and his wife’s constant need for attachment would drive him further away.<\/p>\n
![\"not-just-about-parents-3\"](\"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/not-just-about-parents-3.jpg\")
Now the siblings of these two people have very different interactions with their parents. Though they may agree on the issues in general, how these issues were managed in childhood\u00a0is what makes each sibling different in intimate relationships. So, what do you think about your relationship with your sibling? How much of your family do you see in your sibling today? How have you defined yourself in reflection of an older or younger sibling?<\/p>\n
Seeking marriage counseling at Family Tree Counseling in Carmel, Indiana is a great first step to gaining a\u00a0better understanding of yourself\u00a0and who you are in your marriage.\u00a0It’s easy to forget where we have been, especially when it’s been many years, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still struggling with the demons of our past. Your marriage will reflect parts of your life that come from your past, because you have created it. You have drawn to you all the things that you are emotionally accustomed to dealing with and need to resolve. It is nature’s way of finding balance and peace. If you’re looking for a way to start marriage counseling, start your journey with Family Tree Counseling. Give me a call!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our marriage counseling is heavily based on the family systems paradigm.\u00a0Many of our Indianapolis area married couples who are seeking counseling originally believe that marriage counseling begins with the marital issues.\u00a0This is not true.\u00a0To understand issues of intimacy within a marriage, we need to start from the beginning.\u00a0That means the\u00a0beginning is at the beginning,which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[394,469,396,580,407,595,512,484,436,1276],"class_list":["post-3736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marital-therapy","tag-abandonment","tag-communication-issues","tag-divorce","tag-guilt","tag-indianapolis-marriage-counseling","tag-jealousy","tag-self-abandonment","tag-separation","tag-shame","tag-sibling-rivalry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4361,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3736\/revisions\/4361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}