We all have history, wether its an amazingly supportive family who stood by you through everything or a abusive family who never supported you in the least. Thankfuly neither Mac or I experianced the later but we both have our own history. History can be loss, joy, pain, or happiness beyond measure. Whatever it is our past will always affect our relationships weather its parenting style, communication style, even fears. Our past is what made us into who we are today.
I’m not saying this is always a bad thing, sometimes its a great thing, you can take your past and learn from it wether that is, “I want to parent just like my parents did” or “My parents were lousy I’m going to learn a better way.” (I hope its obvious but I don’t only mean parenting.) However some parts of our past hurt, and sometimes they show up in our current lives in uncomfortable ways.
I get anxious about doctors and I don’t take teasing very well (even if its all in good fun) these are both based on my past. The doctor issue is something Mac and I confronted early in our marriage with a trip to the ER when we thought he broke his ankle…I did ok. It’s something we again confronted with this pregnancy and my desire to NOT be in a medically sterile environment vs his desire to keep me safe. We talked about it head on and even though it wasn’t a comfortable conversation that took a few false starts to finish, we did it. We found something that made us both happy and kept my anxiety level down.
Sometimes its easy to ignore the past, but honestly I encourage you not to. Talk about it with your loved one. Figure out how significant things/events in your life can affect how and why you do things now. This deeper understanding of each other will really help out. You might even learn something about yourself. Maybe you never realized how sensitive you still are to teasing 12 years after high school. That is until you find yourself on edge all the time when there is good natured (not meant to be mean) teasing going on.
Take some time to look into your past and see how it could be affecting your present.