Maybe You Keep Dating People Who Need “Fixing” Because You’re A Parentified Child

If you opened this article, then we know who you are. Or at least, we can make our guesses. Whether it’s for group projects or out-of-town trips, you’re likely to be the designated planner. Your capacity to adapt and take charge during high-stress situations—accompanied by your unyielding endurance—is what you highlight during job interviews. A toxic workplace? A sudden emergency? You can handle it. 

Like water gliding off of a duck’s feathers, a lot of things don’t easily faze you when you have places to be and things to do. Good job! Quick question, though: in your dating history, were you a partner or a parent?

PART-TIME GIRLFRIEND, FULL-TIME MOTHER FIGURE?

RELATED: A Case For That Elusive Thing Called “Hope”

Conditional Love

Stay with us now. We’re also calling ourselves out. Being the reliable one often masks a history of parentification, a concept psychologist Gregory Jurkovic explored in his research on family systems. He described this as a functional reversal where a child assumes the responsibilities and emotional labor typically reserved for the caregiver. When a family lacks the internal capacity to steady itself, the youngest members are expected to mature faster in order to help. Over time, this teaches them that if they’re useful, then they’re safe and needed.

ANOTHER INDICATOR IS HOW OFTEN YOU WERE TOLD THAT YOU WERE VERY MATURE FOR YOUR AGE

Growing up this way shapes how we perceive affection, as we’ve been conditioned to believe that love is something earned through labor. You might notice that you’re always the one initiating difficult conversations or translating your significant other’s moods. Perhaps you find yourself handling their finances, cleaning up their social blunders, or carrying the weight of the future entirely on your own shoulders. Such habits feel natural since you mastered them in childhood, yet they can leave you feeling stressed beyond measure.

YOU’RE GOOD AT BEING RESPONSIBLE, BUT YOU MIGHT BE SPREADING YOURSELF THIN

Living in a constant state of doing comes with a cost. When you spend your energy parenting a partner, the romantic spark can flicker out because your brain begins to view them as a dependent rather than an equal. Resentment builds as you realize you’re holding everything together, but nobody is holding you. It’s exhausting and it can eventually lead to a collapse where your own identity vanishes into the needs of everyone else.

Healing from Over-Responsibility

Please hear this: you were asked to grow up long before you were ready, and your younger self did a brave thing by stepping into those gaps. You aren’t broken for wanting to fix others and for struggling to loosen your grip on the reins. It doesn’t always have to be like this, though. 

YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN WHAT YOU CAN GIVE

Stepping away from this role requires a gentle shift in how we relate to others. Healing starts when we practice letting things drop and allowing natural consequences to happen without our intervention. Choosing partners and friends who possess their own emotional maturity, and can navigate their own messes, is also an act of self-love. By slowing down and vocalizing our own needs instead of obsessively meeting theirs, we can make space for a connection where we’re allowed to simply be, rather than just be helpful.

---

Photos: Photographed by SHAIRA LUNA, MEGA ARCHIVES, FEBRUARY 2017

The post Maybe You Keep Dating People Who Need “Fixing” Because You’re A Parentified Child first appeared on MEGA.

Maybe You Keep Dating People Who Need “Fixing” Because You’re A Parentified Child
Trending Updates Central