Our childhood days are critical to our development. They refine our behavior, and this can have long-lasting impacts even as adults. Having a bad childhood can cause physical and emotional scars that affect your relationships later in life. Here are 18 ways a bad childhood can affect you in your adult relationships.
Poor Communication Skills
The Center for Clinical Psychology says trauma can impair one’s ability to communicate effectively. Most people tend to suppress their emotions to avoid confrontations or excessive arguing due to childhood traumas. This can cause a disconnect with their partners or misunderstandings from poor communication.
Difficulty Trusting Others
As a child, you are vulnerable, and the people around you can instill in you a sense of safety or fear. If you face a lot of struggles at a young age, it makes it difficult for you to let down your guard and open up in relationships.
Fear of Abandonment
People who were abandoned by a loved one might become overly clingy or distant in relationships. This could be a way to prevent getting hurt again, as they live in constant fear of being left. However, it can also cause insecurities in their adult relationships, causing them to seek constant reassurance from their partners.
Submissive or Aggressive Behavior
Being raised in a tough environment can cause someone to react extremely to situations. They either give in easily to avoid conflicts or respond aggressively as a way to protect themselves. It is hard for them to find the balance. They are always on the defensive or trying to hide from bad situations.
Difficulty Handling Criticism
Relationships evolve as people mature and grow. Partners need to communicate well to have a healthy connection, which sometimes means critiquing one another. Individuals who were frequently criticized as children might find it tough to accept criticism without feeling threatened. Any negative feedback is viewed as an attack.
Cyclical Relationship Patterns
According to Psych Central, we repeat many poor behaviors because they are familiar. Following poor, unhealthy relationship patterns can be difficult to break. Children who grow up seeing their parents being abusive might do the same or get involved with partners that have similar bad characters.
Intimacy Issues
For some, a bad childhood is associated with intimacy and vulnerability, making close bonds feel threatening. It can make you feel like you are giving someone the power to hurt you. You feel safer not being so close with anyone, making it difficult to form strong and long-lasting relationships.
Pessimistic Outlook on Relationships
Some people experience many bad experiences, which can lead to a negative outlook on life. They always expect the worst because that’s what usually happens to them; that way, they feel they can avoid disappointment. Such an attitude can be difficult to tolerate, affecting connections with others.
Excessive Independence
Growing up in an unreliable environment could cause an exaggerated sense of independence. You fear depending on anyone because you can’t trust that they will always be there to help. You prefer to only count on yourself and avoid sharing any responsibilities or making decisions with anybody.
Difficulty with Forgiveness
People who had a tough childhood often hold onto anger and find it hard to let go of mistakes others make. They think forgiving someone is like saying it’s okay to be hurt again. This makes it tough for them to move on and keep a healthy relationship.
Overwhelming Emotional Reactions
Bad experiences when you were young might cause you to have exaggerated emotional reactions in seemingly normal situations. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, it could be a result of PTSD. You may also have other mood disorders like anxiety, causing emotional instability and difficulty maintaining good relationships.
Manipulative Behaviors
Some people use tricks to maintain control of their relationships because they’re scared of getting hurt. They might not even realize they’re doing it, but they manipulate others to feel safer. This can push partners away and make the relationship unstable.
Constant Need for Control
Having control in a relationship makes some feel secure, especially if they felt helpless when they were young. They want to make all the decisions and often struggle to let their partners make their own choices. This need for control can make the relationship stressful for everyone involved.
Fear of Serious Commitment
Those who associate commitment with negative outcomes from their past might avoid getting too close or making long-term plans. They fear that commitment means giving up their freedom or facing disappointment again, which keeps them from fully connecting with anyone.
Hyper-Vigilance in Relationships
Letting go can sometimes feel scary, but it also lets someone know that you trust them, which is very important in relationships. Unstable childhoods can lead to being overly alert and always expecting problems. People like this analyze everything their partner does, looking for signs of trouble.
Low Self-Esteem
Very Wellmind reports that building confidence and self-esteem is very important for children as it affects their decision-making and emotional well-being. People who grow up without much support or love sometimes may think they don’t deserve it. It promotes poor behavior and can lead them to stay in abusive relationships.
Projecting Past Traumas
Sometimes, people unfairly see their current partners as if they are the people who hurt them before. They react to new problems with old feelings in fear of going through similar bad experiences. This can make it hard to solve problems because they tend to blow everything out of proportion.
Sacrificing Personal Needs for Relationship Harmony
To avoid fights, some people always put their own needs last. They do whatever it takes to make their partner happy, even if it means losing their own identity. While this might avoid conflict for a while, it doesn’t lead to a fulfilling or balanced relationship.
Up Next: 17 Commonly Believed Myths About The Wild West That Are Actually False
The Wild West was a peculiar place to live in, for sure. But are the stories of gunslinging cowboys and superhero sheriffs true? Here are 17 myths about the Wild West you should stop believing today.
17 COMMONLY BELIEVED MYTHS ABOUT THE WILD WEST THAT ARE ACTUALLY FALSE
18 Signs Someone Has a Personality Disorder
Personality disorders are underdiagnosed because they’re often misconceived as people ‘being difficult.’ Society also tends to focus more on the symptoms of anxiety and depression that accompany personality disorders, neglecting the other signs. To promote understanding, here are 18 signs someone isn’t being difficult but has a personality disorder.
18 SIGNS SOMEONE HAS A PERSONALITY DISORDER
20 Reasons Why Older Couples Are Ending Their Relationships
As our society modernizes and normalizes separation for couples who feel unhappy or stagnated, even older couples are choosing to end their marriages in greater numbers. While staying “till death do us part” and spending your golden years with a life-long partner may be more traditional, here are 20 reasons why older people might now be choosing divorce instead.