My client Jill was very unhappy in her marriage. She felt compelled by her husband Alan to work in his business but didn’t feel appreciated or that she could meet his expectations. She kept trying to please him, working longer hours and sacrificing her own dreams and aspirations, and she desperately wanted children, which her husband would not consider because his business was all-consuming.

I gently suggested that we tend to repeat what we know, that we often end up with partners who will hurt us in ways that are similar to how we were hurt as children, and that we respond with the same coping mechanisms we adopted early on.

Jill stopped me immediately and said that wasn’t the case with her at all. Her parents were great and the problem was her husband.

Okay, I said, but tell me about your childhood anyway. She launched into a description of her parents. Her father, not surprisingly, was very controlling about how Jill spent her time, not supportive of her interest in art and music (he wanted her to pursue nursing), never satisfied with her grades, and criticized her hobbies, friends, boyfriends, and just about anything else she did. And yet Jill had never stopped trying to please him.

I was astonished that she did not immediately see the striking similarity between her father and her husband, or that she was reacting passively and compliantly as her mother had. When I pointed this out to her, Jill was at first incredulous but eventually relieved. She finally understood why she felt so trapped, unworthy, and disconnected from herself. In therapy, she began the process of healing from the negative messages she had absorbed. She found her voice, stopped working for her husband, pursued a career in graphic design, and eventually remarried someone who wanted a family.

Jill had no idea she was repeating a hurtful relationship pattern until she became aware of it and had a way to heal. In therapy she found compassion for her child self and began giving herself the love, acceptance  and support her parents were unable to give.

I wonder if, as a nation (and really as a human race), we would be shocked, like Jill, to know we are unconsciously and unquestioningly repeating old behaviors that hurt both ourselves and others? Do we have any idea where these destructive behaviors– discrimination, blaming and punishing our victims, police brutality, war and the production and use of WMD (to name only a few)– come from or how to change them? Do we even know they can be changed?

The answers we need most lie in understanding our psychology.

Can we consider that many, many of the settlers in America were fleeing persecution, poverty, injustice and war, that many of their descendents suffered continued trauma, and that they had no way to heal from the terrible effects of the pain and violence they had survived?

Can we consider that we brought with us terrible messages about the right to take from others, beliefs in the superiority of some and inferiority of others, that war is acceptable?

Can we consider that many were bound to do to others what was done to them, or to repeat being victimized?

What really accounts for the horrific slaughter of the Native Americans, the enslavement and torture of black people, and all the ways we still discriminate against people of color, the poor, women, and other marginalized communities, all the ways we withhold love, belonging and resources from so many? And what really accounts for how easily we can trade places– victim becomes victimizer, perpetrator becomes prey?

Is it that some of us are just born cruel by nature or could it be that as a nation we have not healed the wounds we brought with us and the sad legacy of all the pain we have inflicted since then? Could we, like Jill, become aware of the patterns we are repeating– at great cost to ourselves– find compassion for our collective pain, reparent ourselves as a nation, so that we can make more life affirming choices for how we treat each other, starting now?

Yes, we can… (to be continued)…

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And of course you know that America in Therapy is devoted to this exact exploration. The ebook is now on sale for $.99 through most of August. Please buy a copy today, share with a friend and write a review! Thank you so much.

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“On the path to peace, we will close the gap between Love and Politics”

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