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Issue 100 –

Where Has Love Gone: Part 5

The Disapproving Mother

by

Hal & Sidra Stone

Few subpersonalities  can strike terror in the heart of a man as well as the disapproving  mother when  she appears  in her most virulent form.  One look from her cold, disapproving eyes and the strongest,  most self-assured man will crumble. He  may  well  reconstitute  quickly  and bring  forth some power side, but, underneath,  his child has been struck down quite effectively.

 

When the disapproving  mother makes her appearance,  there is a withdrawal  of love energy, and in its place is a pitiless judge. This disapproving mother, however, is often present in a much milder form. Basically, in primary relationships, the disapproving mother is to the man what the withdrawn father  is to the woman. The  withdrawn  father can usually turn a woman into a needy daughter while the disapproving mother can usually turn a man into an awkward, bumbling  son.

 

Let us see how Laura’s  disapproving mother, who is of the milder variety, affects Sam.

 

Laura is a bit of a perfectionist, as were her parents. She likes things done “the right way” and believes in appropriate behavior and good manners. She has raised her children to be ladies and gentlemen,  and she is basically disapproving  of anyone who is thoughtless, unmannerly or, as she would see it, vulgar.

 

However, Laura is not a total prig. She has begun her own consciousness process and is not fully identified with her perfectionist any longer. She has even developed a sense of humor about her perfectionistic tendencies and her demands for others to also be beyond reproach. But Laura’s disapproving mother, although much modified, is not totally out of the picture.

 

A great deal of Laura’s change in consciousness has come about as a result of her marriage to Sam. Sam is more relaxed about these matters. He realizes that nobody is perfect and so he does not have perfectionistic demands upon himself. He appreciates people for who they are and is not particularly impressed with how they behave. He has helped Laura move beyond  her concern with the superficial and into a deeperappreciation of the whole person.

 

Now,  we must  be quite clear about this – Sam is no slob! He, too, has been raised in a family where he was taught  manners.  In fact, his mother was a bit  more  like Laura than it might first appear. His mother,  too,  had a  need for Sam to be a gentleman  and a credit to her.  So, although  Sam is not as preoccupied  with appearance or manners as Laura, he is usually appropriate in his behavior. Also,  since he has been with  Laura,  he has begun  to  pay  a bit more  attention in these  areas and his behavior at the table, in particular,  is generally quite fine and does not create any problems for anyone.

 

One day Laura is particularly tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed.  She comes home from work, and Sam is not there to greet her and help her prepare dinner as he usually does. He has had to stay late at work to finish off with a client. Laura is feeling particularly vulnerable because of her exhaustion and, as we have seen so often in our bonding patterns,  she ignores her vulnerability and pushes herself forward.  She fixes dinner  and has it ready for Sam when he arrives home.  But,  by the time Sam arrives home, it is not Laura but a disapproving mother who greets him at the door.

 

Laura  is not  aware that her disapproving mother has taken over; she just notices that Sam needs a haircut and that his shoes need shining.  (His hair and shoes had looked fine that morning.)  As  she  looks further,  she thinks that his trousers could use a pressing and that the shirt is not quite to her taste. She does not say anything,  but by now Sam is feeling uncomfortable and he does not know why. He just feels wrong. By the time they sit down at the table, they are in a full energetic bonding pattern.

 

At the dinner table, a strange thing starts tohappen. Sam, who has been feeling a bit uncomfortable,  becomes more and more awkward.  He seems to have trouble keeping his food on his fork, he spills the sauce on his shirt, he slurps his soup, and he seems to get crumbs  on his face with each mouthful. He gets more and more uncomfortable as Laura and her daughter  (who, by now,  has also become a disapproving mother) watch incredulously.

 

Not a word is spoken. Sam becomes more and more awkward and bumbling and Laura and her daughter become more and more disapproving. The meal continues in silence and discomfort for everyone until Laura finally says, “Could you please stop slurping your soup? I can’t stand it.” Sam, switching from awkwrd son to rebellious son,  says, “Will you please stop telling me what to do! You two are a real pain at the table. I don’t like eating with you” and he leaves the table.

 

Later  that  evening,  when  the intensity  of the bonding pattern has lessened,  Sam and Laura try to figure out what had happened. They have learned that these patterns  can be teachers.  They  realize, not without  amusement,  that when Laura’s disapproving  mother takes over, Sam has no place to move energetically  but  into  the  awkward,  bumbling  son. Although  he is perfectly adequate most of the time, when this son takes over, it’s good-bye to any semblance of self confidence, grace, or adequacy. In retrospect, the picture of him at the table dropping food on himself as Laura and her daughter get more and more disapproving is very funny,  and they have a good laugh. When this all was actually happening and the bonding pattern was in full force, it was not quite so funny.

Issue 99 –

Where Has Love Gone: Part 4

Love is Not Enough

by

Hal & Sidra Stone

 

It is sometimes awesome to observe the power that characteristic bonding patterns exert over our lives when we are unable to bring some awareness to them and to separate from them. 

Andrea was married to Antonio, a domineering, South American man who was identified with a macho image of being a man, and who kept her in a the role of a subservient  housewife. Her mother, too, had been subservient, and at some point in her marriage, Andrea decided that this was no longer acceptable. So she left Antonio and got herself a job as a home secretary to a very successful older professional woman who happened to be lesbian.

Andrea, a sensual and very attractive woman, soon made herself indispensable  to Joan and eventually moved in with her, assuming even more caretaking duties. Before long, they became lovers, with Joan, in her controlling mother self, telling  Andrea  that  she  did not believe  in monogamous relationships.

As  the  relationship  grew  in  intensity, Andrea’s primary self re-emerged to protect her vulnerability. Andrea became the dutiful housewife to Joan’s successful businesswoman. The initial phases of the  bonding  were idyllic. Joan, who had disowned her own housewifely nature, had a home that was beautiful but cold. It was like an extension  of her office. She did nothing to take care of or nurture  herself. With  Andrea there, Joan was cared for as never before in her life. Her house was a home, her clothes were kept in order for her, her car was fixed, there was always good food. Andrea even brought Joan a freshly cooked lunch to the office each day.

Her vulnerable child was ecstatic and Joan often remarked, “I’ve never been so well taken care of in my entire life.” Andrea,  in turn,  would  say, “Nobody  has ever known how to care for you. I really know you and I can make you happy. I don’t want to work, I don’t want fame, I just want to stay home and take care of you.”  As a result  of her overwhelming gratitude, Joan promised  Andrea  that she would always support  her both emotionally and financially.

But, as so often happens in these idyllic positive bondings, Joan started to feel stifled and a bit restless, as though she were missing something. In actuality, she was missing something. No matter how loving we are, and Andrea  was certainly loving, when we are relating to one another from only a single self, as Andrea was relating to Joan essentially from her nurturing mother, there is something missing – the rest of the person is missing.

Joan began to feel stifled by the bonding  pattern, but she did not know that she, too, was a part of the  dance. All she knew was that she was being smothered and that she needed Andrea to move out of the role of full – time housewife. She encouraged Andrea to spend time outside of the house and to develop new interests. She even encouraged her to have a girlfriend.

Although Joan did not exactly know why she was encouraging this, she was, in essence, trying to break the bonding.

Joan’s behavior made Andrea even more vulnerable, so she intensified her efforts to be nurturing. She became intensely  jealous of Joan’s  involvement at the office and of her affairs. She told Joan that she needed her at home more often so that she could care for her better.

Finally, when none of this worked, Andrea got herself a girlfriend to make Joan jealous. At first, Joan was relieved; now she was no longer the sole  recipient of Andrea’s  attention. But when the new girlfriend  started to send Andrea roses every day, Joan found, much to her surprise, that  she was jealous. As she said, “It  just  doesn’t  go with  my  belief in freedom  to be jealous  like this. I’m really surprised.”

Despite this jealousy, Joan was not ready to settle down into a bonded  monogamy with Andrea’s nurturing, self sacrificing  mother, as Andrea wished. She continued to push Andrea to grow beyond the confines of the bonding pattern.

Joan, however, did not learn from the relationship either. She did not use this  as a chance to develop an awareness of her own fairly extreme denial of vulnerability and her own role in the bonding  pattern. Instead, she  continued  to disown her jealousy and posessiveness (although  she had  fleetingly admitted  these to her therapist), her vulnerability, and her own nurturing  mother.

Andrea, in turn, continued to disown her power, her businesswoman, and her independent, outgoing  woman  of the world. In a most fascinating turn of  events, Andrea returned to her husband where she could comfortably resume her role of hurt daughter/self sacrificing mother to Antonio’s demanding, unappreciative father/needy son. In this way, she continued to remain fully identified with her role as the self-sacrificing, nurturing mother and abused daughter.

Joan, needless to say, was horrified and pointed out that Andrea  was going right back to where she had come from. Joan never did realize that Andrea had lived the same bonding pattern in their relationship. Andrea had been the hurt daughter to Joan’s  controlling mother and the self-sacrificing mother to Joan’s essentially disowned needy daughter.

Issue 98 –

Where Has Love Gone: Part 3

Being “Strong” in Relationship

by

Hal & Sidra Stone

 

Ed  and  Clara  were  at  the  same  party  that  Bea and  Al attended.  Ed has also been flirting, though not to the extent of Al in our previous example. Clara is committed to expressing her feelings, and she lets Ed know when they get homethat she is angry with him and that she is not going to “take any of this kind of crap” and that “two can play this game as well as one.”

Ed has a difficult time standing up for his sexuality. He generally acts in the world as though sexuality does not exist in him except  for his marriage  partner.  He  also is very intimidated  by Clara’s  anger.  She has had  a considerable amount  of  therapy  and  has  learned how to  express her feelings  very  well.   He  immediately  falls into  the  guilty/ victim son to her attacking mother.

Why  might  her  reactions  be  called  attacking  mother rather than just the clearly stated reactions of a woman who is unhappy with her husband’s  behavior? This is a very important question,  and there is no simple answer. Here we must rely on the quality  of the reaction.

There  is a  sound,  an energy, a vibration,  a feeling that one begins to tune into that makes it relatively  clear as to  what  part  of the  person  is expressing the reaction.

One thing  to keep in mind  is that from the level of awareness and the aware ego, there is no need to dominate and control anyone. Reactions that come from an aware ego do not have hooks in them.  They  are not meant to hurt  or control people.

Reactions that come from  the bonding spaces of the parental voices do just the opposite.  They always operate in relationship to a dominance/submission pattern. They always have the effect of controlling the environment.

Invariably  one finds that  if one person falls into a bonding pattern,  the other person is in the complementary  pattern.  In this situation, if Ed falls into the guilty son, then it is a clear indication that Clara has identified with the negative mother or the revengeful mother.

The  ability  to react  in relationship  is very important, something that all of us must eventually learn how to do.  As important as it is to learn how to have access to one’s emotional reactions, Clara and Ed provide a clear example that it is too simplistic to state as a rule of thumb that one should always express one’s emotions.

Clara had learned how to express her feelings very well indeed ;  the problem was that she  never learned how to express her vulnerability. Her constant reactions came from a powerful parent within her and they masked the underlying vulnerability that lived in her.

“Being strong” had become her primary self and she had learned how to be powerful.   She had not as yet become empowered. This next step can happen  only when  her awareness level separates from the power side, and only then does she have the chance to embrace bothpower and vulnerability.  The effect of her reaction on Ed would be totally different under these circumstances and would lead to a totally different kind of discussion between them.

We are describing here a very sophisticated understanding of personal relationship. It is because of these bonding patterns that  we find  it very  difficult  to give advice  to people about what they should  do or say in their  personal interactions.  There are people who are constantly reacting in their relationships.  They  share  everything  and yet their relationships do not  work.

The issue is not what is shared but who shares it !  What part is giving the reaction?

A reaction that channels through a negative mother will polarize the partner into a frightened, guilty, or rebellious son. A reaction given through a guilty  son will activate  the negative mother  in some form.

Where does it all begin? What self cues off the other self in the partner? It is generally quite difficult to discover how it all begins. It is an interaction that goes on over time, and each of us discovers it at a certain moment.

During the course of our own personal relationship, we have tended to stop worrying about causality. Instead, when we become aware of a bonding  pattern, we simply take it where it is  and examine it as best we can.  There is a certain amount of blaming and righteousness that is natural in these bonding patterns.

Over  time, however,  we tend to spend less time blaming, since it only delays separating from the bonding pattern itself.   The righteousness that we feel must also be honored, however, as long as it needs to be present. It is a basic companion of the judgmental parent states, so when it is relentlessly present we might just as well accept it and enjoy it.

Issue 97 –

Where Has Love Gone: Part 2

Bonding Patterns in Primary Relationhip

by

Hal & Sidra Stone

 

We start with the basic premise that bonding patterns are a natural  part  of all relationships  and that  in their positive form they generally go unnoticed.  As people become more aware in their personal lives, living these bonding patterns full-time becomes less acceptable. More  and  more  people today are not satisfied with this kind of relationship.

Bonding Patterns

with Awareness and Aware Ego

 

When problems begin in a relationship,  there is usually an ignition of the negative aspect of a bonding pattern. Once this pattern  is ignited,  there is generally a fuel that provides the basis for its continuing emotional intensity. As far as we can determine, the ignition system for these negative bondings is some injury  to the vulnerable child. Its feelings  are hurt; it feels abandoned; it feels endangered; it feels left out; it is fatigued  or hungry. When we are unaware of these feelings, that is, when we are not conscious of this kind of uneasiness or injury, then we move psychologically into some kind of power place and identify ourselves with a powerful self.

So we see that vulnerability  is the key to the understanding of these bonding patterns. The vulnerable child provides the ignition and a good part  of the fuel for the emotional charge.  There  is additional fuel, however, that operates to maintain the fire and heat of negative bonding situations.  The additional fuel  is the system ofdisowned selves that operates between two people in a relationship. Whatever we disown is carried by another person. Those things that we resent, reject, despise,and judge in other  people are direct  representations  of our disowned  selves. These  disowned  selves that  we carry  for each other in relationship  become the basis for much of the passion that we see in negative bonding patterns.  Let us see how these considerations apply directly to the realm of personal relationships.

Disowning Vulnerability

Bea and Al have gone to a party  and both  have had a  fair amount to drink. Al flirts outrageously with a woman there. When they  come home,  Bea is quite  withdrawn  and very angry underneath.   She also feels foolish, because she has no respect  for jealousy as a  natural  feeling.  She is very much identified with the idea of being a free spirit and allowing Al to be whatever he needs to be. This is the first time in her life that she has ever felt jealousy with a man, and it is anathema to her because it smacks of possessiveness. Possessiveness is the last thing she wants to be accused of in her relationships!

From our perspective, there is yet a deeper issue that lies underneath  the jealousy, and that is her vulnerability. Bea does not like to be vulnerable. She will go to any lengths to avoid it. To admit jealousy is to admit vulnerability. Her primary selves do not permit this to happen, so whenever she feels vulnerable,  her power sides come into operation. Her power voice is her free spirit voice. It says to her, “You have to be strong in relationship.  You and Al both have the right to be exactly who you are and you need to support each other in this process.  If Al is turned  onto another  woman,  so be it. That  is what  he needs to do for himself and you need to support  him in that process. Jealousy and vulnerability  are signs of weakness  and  show a problem  with  self-esteem. They  have no place in a good relationship.”

On the other side is Bea’s vulnerable child. The feelings that come from this place are very different. The child would say to her something like this: “I feel bad. I love Al and I feel terrible when he flirts with someone else. I feel like he’s abandoning  me.”

The child side of a person is needy and vulnerable and, as we shall see over and over again,  is typically disowned in personal relationships. By being disowned and not being allowed the chance to be expressed in relationship, this child side goes more deeply underground, where it becomes increasingly needy and vulnerable and begins to exert a powerful effect on one’s life. When this child becomes too powerful in this disowning process, it can take over the personality and produce a person who is totally vulnerable and is always the victim in relationships.

There  is another self in Bea that her power side does not like at  all, and  that  is the rage  that  lies underneath her jealousy. Generally  speaking,  vulnerability  lies at the deepest level, and rage is really a reaction  to the vulnerability. The rage side of Bea, were it given the chance to come out, would attack Al or scream at him or let him know in some powerful and overt way that she was enraged with him. Bea’s power side is inexorably rational, as we have seen. Anger is considered  unseemly  behavior and is definitely taboo. The problem in this interaction is that her power side is not able to handle the situation.  Her vulnerability  is too great and so is her rage. The more she has to block and disown these feelings the more crippled she becomes and the more she falls into the victim role with Al.

On a theoretical level, Al is committed  to the same view of relationship  that we have described above. His flirtatiousness at the party came out of his commitment  to the idea that in a relationship,  both people must be able to do what they need  to do for themselves.  In this instance,  the flirtatious behavior was supported by a considerable amount of alcohol, and now that the whole thing is over, Al feels guilty toward Bea. If there is anything in the world his power side hates, it is to feel guilt in relationship to  a woman. What is worse, Bea has gone into a withdrawal.  At first this withdrawal has to do with the victim daughter who feels hurt and betrayed. Soon, however, this shifts into the negative mother who withdraws her energy and becomes quite punitive.  All of this happens without  a word being said.

Al and Bea are now moving very quickly between father I daughter  and mother/ son in their bonding patterns: Al is shifting from the guilty son to the punitive father who resents feeling guilty,  and then back to his guilty son as Bea becomes more  punitive  and withdrawn.   Basically, he feels terrible.  His  guilty  son just  knows that  he has done something  wrong  and  is truly  terrified  of Bea’s punitive mother.

Deep within herself, Bea may intermittently  experience a twinge  of the discomfort  of her vulnerability,  hurt, and jealousy. However, this cannot be handled because it is all disowned,  and so back she goes into the withdrawn  and punitive mother. This is the dance of relationship, the dance of bonding.  All this is going on between Bea and Al and not one word has yet been spoken. These shifts occur with amazing speed, which is one reason why it is so difficult to identify  the  patterns.   One  can move from guilty  child to punitive  father to needy  child and back again in a  second, with no real awareness that this process is going on.

What is the way out of this dilemma? What is the passage to some greater degree of freedom? Again, the way out is the process itself.  We do not tell people to let it all hang out. We do not tell people to express all their  feelings. Obviously, over time we need to learn how to share more of who we are in our relationships. People are very different however, and learning how to share ourselves is very different for each of us. The trick is to develop an awareness that is not part of the transaction that is occurring between two people. Once there is an awareness that is separate, it is not long before the aware ego also begins  to separate,  and  soon there  will be some choice as to what happens  next.

Both Al and Bea have additional work to do. Bea needs to discover and  separate  from  her primary  self and  begin to embrace her disowned  feeling selves, those that have to do with vulnerability  and rage and jealousy. Once she can embrace  her power and rationality  with  one arm,  and her emotional selves with  the other arm,  she can then begin to move into  a position  where  she can initiate  a new kind of communication.  There  is no self that is inherently  good or bad; the task is to become aware of and embrace our different selves and learn how to express them through  an aware ego. This process is difficult to describe,  since it involves tuning into the feeling of what someone says as well as the content.

If Bea were in touch with her vulnerability  and did not need  to hide  it,  then  her  communication  to Al might  be something  like this:  “I’m  feeling very upset  with  you and with me. I feel angry and jealous. One part of me would like to kill you and another part feels hurt and another part feels like all of this is nonsense and another part just wants you to hold me. I feel terrible.”

Al,  too,  needs  to  separate  from  his  primary  rational selves and to learn to embrace his disowned feeling selves. If he were able to communicate  these, he might say something like: “I certainly  do feel attracted to other women, but the truth  of the matter is that I love you very much and I need you a lot. Surprisingly enough, there’s actually a part of me that feels very guilty about flirting, even though I talk so big and  strong  about  doing my own thing. I sometimes  get scared of your anger, and I even am afraid that you might leave me because of it. When I get fearful that way, another part of me gets very angry with you.”

Please understand  that we are not advocating what one should do or say. We simply want to point out that when we can  separate  from  our  primary  selves, we suddenly  have many more options available. If we tell Bea that her problem is that she needs to express her anger, then she expresses her anger  and  this  may  be very  freeing,  but  if that  anger  is channelled  through  the punitive  mother  in her,  it can do more damage than good. We do not know what people should do or say in a particular instance, but we do know that when we can accept these different ways of feeling and being and learn to communicate  them with some degree of awareness, relationship  becomes much richer and more textured.

The inability to communicate the feelings of the vulnerable child is the primary  source of problems and disruptions in  personal  relationships.   Of  course,  as we  pointed  out earlier, the answer does not lie in totally identifying with the vulnerable child.  People who follow that route become victims in relationship.  The  key is to be aware of the vulnerability that lies within each of us and to be able to communicate its reality while still being related to the power on the other side. To say to another person: “My feelings have been hurt by what happened  this evening and I really am feeling very  bad”  is not  a  sign of weakness  but  rather  a sign of empowerment.

Being powerful  in relationship  means  being identified with the parental  side and disowning vulnerability.  Under these circumstances  one learns how to express oneself, how to be very direct about things, and how to get what one wants or needs. It is obviously very important  to develop this side of oneself, because if this is not available, it is very easy to be a victim.

Being empowered, however, means something entirely different.  It means being related both to the vulnerable and the power sides and being able to communicate with both of these selves present.  This is an important thing to be learned by all of us who are trying  to establish  a more conscious system of personal relationships.  Being in touch with power allows us to get things done and be successful. Being in touch with vulnerability   allows  us to be intimate.   Being  identified  with power  brings authority  in the world and a  loss of intimacy in relationships. Being identified with vulnerability brings a loss of power and a guaranteed identification with victim status.

The power and destructiveness  of negative bonding patterns are awesome. When they are fully activated, love flies out the window  and one’s partner  or friend  can feel like a hated enemy.  These  are conditions  of high stress and pain; some of  the  deepest  moments  of human  suffering  occur during  these times. The possibility of verbal escalation into full-scale warfare is very great during  these negative bondings. Once a certain point is passed in a bonding interaction, any semblance of awareness disappears and each of us reverts to the law of the jungle.

In thinking  about  bonding  patterns,  it is important  to keep in mind that,  generally  speaking,  the development  of awareness is after the fact and not before. We have to live life and then become aware. If we try to do it the other way, we kill our passions. In a strong bonding pattern,  people might yell and  scream  at  each other  or  become  icily silent and cutting and, for us, this is all perfectly natural and inevitable. It is only afterwards that we can begin to examine the interaction to find out what the triggering mechanisms were. This examination will introduce greater consciousness into the  relationship,  but, despite  that, we  may  be  sure  that before long another conflict will escalate into war games and we will go through the process again. However, with time, the aware ego begins to enter  earlier in the transaction,  to have more choice, and to exert a  far greater influence over what happens.

Issue 96 –

Where Has Love Gone: Part 1
Bonding Patterns in Primary Relationship

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

What is it that happens to a perfectly beautiful relationship that suddenly causes the end of intimacy and understanding? One moment, one is in love, the beloved is a compassionate, loving human being and the world is harmonious. The very next moment, everything is out of balance and dissonant. The beloved suddenly looks like a childish fool who will never learn appropriate adult behavior, or like an unfeeling, critical, demanding parental type who thinks she/he knows all the answers to life’s questions.

 

The overwhelming feeling tone in life changes from one of optimism and grace to one of disappointment, despair, and the distrust of all relationships. One simply knows, at a very deep level, that this is yet another proof that relationships cannot work, that they all turn out the same, and that nobody is to be trusted. Obviously, this relationship, too, is doomed to failure; actually it is probably over already, because nothing could survive the current set of dreadful feelings. These catastrophic feelings are the definitive signs that the negative aspects of a bonding pattern have taken hold in the relationship.

 

Previously the reader was introduced to the idea of bonding patterns in relationship and the concept of vulnerability. We saw how critically important it is to be in touch with the vulnerable aspect of our beings, and how vulnerability is at the core of most of the difficulties in relationship. We moved then to a discussion of falling in love and how this changes our lives.

 

In these tips we will concentrate more fully on the nature of the bonding patterns themselves. It is the work with these bonding patterns and the eventual understanding of how they operate in our lives that enable us to learn from each of our relationships and to use them to help us move forward.

 

To help you to understand bonding patterns, we will choose a wide range of examples to present to you. They portray many different kinds of conflict situations that occur and re-occur in relationships. Our discussion attempts to show how , in each case, the primary selves and disowned selves are playing off against each other between the people involved. From our perspective, the awareness of bonding patterns, and the experience of the different selves that we identify with and disown, is the key to the development of more conscious personal relationships. Let us now observe the dance of the selves and learn how they move with each other to create the marvelous music of human relationship.

The Ignition of, and the Fuel for, Bonding Patterns

 

By definition, a bonding pattern in relationship is the activation of parent/ child interactions between any two people, that is, the bonding of the child selves of one to the parental selves in the other. For example, the mother self of a woman may lock into the son self of a man, or a father self of a man might bond into the daughter self of a woman. These patterns occur in primary relationships, both heterosexual and homosexual, in familial relationships, in friendships, at work-in short, anywhere two or more people are interacting with one another.
This process is much the same as the bonding process that occurs between the infant and its parents. The original, and prototypical, bonding pattern is between the infant and its parents. It is natural, instinctive, and unconscious. It is the way in which we are able to give and receive nurturing . Thus, it represents a most basic unit of human interaction. The bonding patterns that we set up in infancy and early childhood remain with us throughout our lives. They represent our primary way of making contact with others, until awareness enters the picture.

 

Bonding patterns are perfectly normal processes that come and go constantly in all relationships.

 

When they are operating in a positive manner, they tend not to be a problem. For example, a woman might live the mother role in her relationship to her friend, who lives the daughter role, and for many years (perhaps even for a lifetime) there might not be any conflict between them. This bonding pattern then represents the form of the relationship.

 

However, one of the interesting things about maintaining the positive aspect of these roles in a bonded relationship is that the negativity in the relationship is generally disowned and tends to remain unconscious. If something happens to trigger one of the couple, the disowned negativity of many years may erupt, either or both women become very angry, and neither of them knows quite what has happened. It very often feels in this kind of situation like being kicked out of paradise. There is an almost unbearable feeling of betrayal when a positive bonding pattern is broken, because it involves the loss of a nurturing parent.

 

Thus it is that bonding patterns generally come to our attention when things start to go sour with them, when they begin to break up. The problems inherent in positive bonding may be quite obvious to friends of a couple, but the individuals involved in such a relationship are generally the last ones to know that they are living in such a pattern. The negativity and pain that we experience when things go sour in relationship lets us know that we have been in a bonding pattern of which we were unaware. Working through the negativity can then become a real education for the two people, once they can step out of the rage, judgments, righteousness, and victim status that characterize negative bonding patterns .

 

We start with the basic premise that bonding patterns are a natural part of all relationships and that in their positive form they generally go unnoticed. As people become more aware in their personal lives, living these bonding patterns full-time becomes less acceptable. More and more people today are not satisfied with this kind of relationship.