No household is perfect. In fact, a lot of us look back on our own childhoods with a minimum of some measure of pain or feeling of brokenness. Even in Catholic families where parents are attempting their best, this experience is common.
But while some people have small quantities of brokenness or pain from childhood to through in our adulthood, some of us had deeper childhood traumatic experiences.
Many times, scars from an unsightly divorce between parents, or even from physical or emotional abuse, can greatly influence a person well into their adult years.
Maybe you haven’t experienced this degree of trauma yourself, but what if you’re in a relationship with somebody who has a traumatic family background?
Here are three points to consider if you're thinking of dating somebody that was raised in a dysfunctional family environment.
Is this individual conscious of their story?
If you’re looking to marry and start a household, the most obvious goal is to find a person you're drawn to and whom you might be in a position to passion for the rest of your life.
But beyond this most apparent goal, there are more things to consider. Is the person you’re interested in able to loving you for the rest of their life? Will they have the ability to use you as a team to boost any children God may give you?
Coming from a dysfunctional family environment doesn’t make someone incapable of this stuff. But when they are afflicted by a childhood wound, the first step in finding healing is acknowledging the wound can there be.
For example, maybe someone was abused by their parents, but doesn’t realize how harmful that have was. They may think the abuse was normal. With no acknowledgement of the harm that abuse caused, this individual may find it difficult to interact with their very own spouse and kids inside a healthy way.
But if, on the contrary, an individual realizes just what was terribly wrong in their own individual childhood, that can be described as a good impetus for them to make sure they do everything they can to prevent repeating those mistakes.
Are they working towards healing?
It's important to notice that nobody is truly perfect, and that we all have scars of 1 kind or any other that we carry around around.
But it's also important to realize that a person who has experienced deep trauma within their past must find healing in their story. Traumatic family experiences are scars that will not just go away and could not even fade on their own.
Has the individual you’re considering dating (or have been in a relationship with!) taken steps to find healing from these wounds? Maybe they already worked with these things with a therapist, or are working through them now. Or maybe they've sought assist in an assistance group. Hopefully, they've also sought healing and comfort through their prayer life as well.
Someone who's prepared to do what they can to heal is a person who knows themselves. They're likely to be capable of working with you to confront problems of all types inside a future relationship along with you.
Are you inside a healthy and whole place yourself?
We often make fun of that breakup cliché, “It isn't you, it's me.” But this is one circumstance if this could actually be true.
While it’s essential for someone to recognize the wounds using their upbringing and take steps towards healing, it does take two people to make a relationship work. Consider exactly what a future together could seem like as a couple and as a household and what your role in the relationship would be.
Do they have a relationship or some kind of contact with the household member or members who hurt them in the past? What does that relationship seem like today?
If there's still some level of dysfunction in their familial relationships, there's a pretty good possibility that it could influence your marriage or family life. It could wind up decreasing for your boundary-setting abilities to maintain your own family clear of that dysfunction.
There's even the chance that, whether or not the person has healed considerably from the past, they may have instances where it all hits them anew plus they need your emotional support.
Maybe, if you take a genuine assessment of yourself, you can realistically see yourself able to make even these worst-case scenarios work with the good inside your future relationship and family life.
But be truthful on your own about your true strengths and weaknesses, and then try to assess realistically whether the two of you may well be a good fit or otherwise.
There is nothing stating that you aren't deep wounds using their past can't create a great spouse. When you are honest with oneself can go a long way in helping you both to make a sensible choice.