Are You Stuck Playing These 3 Roles in Love?

One of the stranger but more useful suggestions of psychotherapy — and in particular, a branch of it known as Transactional Analysis — is that all of us contain within ourselves three essential personalities:

A Child
A Parent
An Adult

Understanding These Three Personalities

The child is typically vulnerable, touching, trusting, weak, in need, and incapable of properly looking after themselves. They cry out for assistance, tenderness, support, structure, and some rules.

For their part, the parent is strong, dominant, in control, responsible but also often chiding, critical, hectoring — and busy from all their cares and duties.

Meanwhile, the adult is sane, thoughtful, in command, neither too weak nor too strong, creative, and kind.

Balancing These Personalities in a Relationship

In an ideal world, we would all be able to toggle between these three personality types with relative ease.

In a good relationship, we would constantly move between all three roles in ourselves, mostly hovering in the adult zone, but able to switch into parent or child mode when necessary.

For example, when we are feeling sad and under pressure, it should be part of health to know how to become a child again, to show our need, ask for help, curl into a ball, become small, and trust that we can be met with kindness and sympathy without fearing attack or belittlement.

Conversely, there should also be moments in a relationship when our usually adult partner has hit a crisis and descended into a childlike mode, and we must step into a parental role — being ministering, indulgent to weakness and tantrums, and calm in the face of irrationality.

If a couple has small children, then for long stretches, both may need to act as parents, but then once the kids are in bed, they might both revert to being sweet, slightly naughty children, or one might play adult to the other’s needy younger self.

The Problem of Getting Stuck in One Role

The difficulty for couples and individuals arises when people get stuck in particular positions, where they can only ever be children, only ever parents, or only ever adults.

There are relationships where, for example, one partner is always the child and the other is always the parent. The child-like partner is forever being a bit irresponsible, a bit naughty — leaving their clothes everywhere, forgetting to book a driving lesson, skipping the dry cleaner, or misplacing the keys. They can be highly endearing but unreliable.

On the other hand, the parental partner is always chiding, reminding, super-competent, forever stressed, indulgent yet on the edge of being cross and punitive.

The Fear of Transitioning Between Roles

A deep reluctance often exists for the parental figure to ever access their child self. They always have to be strong, always have to be in charge. They cannot allow themselves to be vulnerable.

Why do people — and therefore couples — get stuck in these roles? Why can it be so hard to move? Why are some people rigidly incapable of feeling their way into the role of Parent, or Child, or Adult?

The Impact of Past Experiences

In all cases, we are typically looking at something in the past that has made an easy transition between roles untenable or frightening.

Some people are stuck in the child role because adulthood and parenthood present insuperable difficulties. Perhaps they had a loving parent who couldn’t tolerate their growing independence, forcing them to stay a baby to be deemed worthy of love. Alternatively, they may feel they must stay in the child mode because a parent would be angry, castrating, or humiliating if they dared to show independence.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are people whose younger selves were so badly treated, who experienced such anxiety and lack of support as children, that the idea of being small again presents unbearable challenges. They may be happy playing the role of mummy or daddy, but they cannot ever be the baby.

The Path to Emotional Flexibility

The route out of all these impasses is, as always, self-exploration and mutual honesty in relationships.

Problems are never as bad once we bring them into consciousness and discuss them openly.

To admit to being a child who doesn’t dare to be an adult or a parent who doesn’t dare to be a child isn’t just a peculiar-sounding confession. It suggests the presence of someone profoundly committed to eventual maturity and on their way to being the best kind of grown-up.

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Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

I am waiting for your comments.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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