"Describe your relationship with your parents"


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AJ73 is offline AJ73 Post #1  August 12,2009, 10:39am
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Okay, I have a question, I occasionally get this question during the matching process "Describe your relationship with your parents".

I always thought it was just one of those questions EH put in there just to give people many choices on what to send to a match (i.e. useless filler), but I've been getting it more often than I anticipated.

So, my question is, does it really matter what my relationship is/was with my parents-- I mean, I'm a grown man, I don't live with them or anything.

Mind you, I have a good relationship with them, I just don't necessarily talk/see them every week. Why is this so important ?
 
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Mr_Right is offline Mr_Right Post #2  August 12,2009, 3:00pm
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I'd get and give this question at times, and I think they're trying to see what your relationship is with the other significant woman in your life - your mother. Do you treat her nice, do you get along with her, do you remember her birthday, that sort of thing.
 
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neardc is offline neardc Post #3  August 12,2009, 3:19pm
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Hmmm...

The kinds of information I might be looking to learn would include the following (at my age, of course, these questions will be retrospective for some...):

1. Do you have a positive relationship with your parents? Or, is it filled with conflict?

2. Are your parents loving and supportive? Or not? Do they make live harder for you or better for you?

3. How connected are you to your parents? How much time do you spend with them? Are you providing some sort of care or support for them?

4. Is your family wacky/dysfunctional/etc., or do they seem healthy? Do your parents provide a good, positive model of a loving adult relationship?

5. If you are not connected with your parents, are the reasons good ones (e.g., highly dysfunctional), or an ancient feud of some sort that should have been resolved decades ago?

Stuff like that....

The reason that it matters even when we are adults is because we are still members of our family of origin. Our parents are our first model of what a marriage is and how spouses relate to each other. Much of what we learn from our parents can help us to be better people, but there are also sometimes scars that affect us as adults and impact how we relate to others.
Last edited by neardc; August 12,2009 at 3:21pm.
 
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AJ73 is offline AJ73 Post #4  August 12,2009, 5:17pm
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neardc wrote :
Hmmm...

The kinds of information I might be looking to learn would include the following (at my age, of course, these questions will be retrospective for some...):

1. Do you have a positive relationship with your parents? Or, is it filled with conflict?

2. Are your parents loving and supportive? Or not? Do they make live harder for you or better for you?

3. How connected are you to your parents? How much time do you spend with them? Are you providing some sort of care or support for them?

4. Is your family wacky/dysfunctional/etc., or do they seem healthy? Do your parents provide a good, positive model of a loving adult relationship?

5. If you are not connected with your parents, are the reasons good ones (e.g., highly dysfunctional), or an ancient feud of some sort that should have been resolved decades ago?

Stuff like that....

The reason that it matters even when we are adults is because we are still members of our family of origin. Our parents are our first model of what a marriage is and how spouses relate to each other. Much of what we learn from our parents can help us to be better people, but there are also sometimes scars that affect us as adults and impact how we relate to others.
Hmm, interesting. So if we had the misfortune of being raised by dysfunctional parents, yet still managed to come out alright despite this, we adult men would still be viewed negatively?

Not describing myself, I just find that kind of amusing that someone would be judged by how their parents were. Reminds me of a Star Trek:TNG episode where Worf had to carry the crimes/shame of anything his parents did with him wherever he went back home.
 
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neardc is offline neardc Post #5  August 12,2009, 5:42pm
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AJ73 wrote :
Hmm, interesting. So if we had the misfortune of being raised by dysfunctional parents, yet still managed to come out alright despite this, we adult men would still be viewed negatively?

Not describing myself, I just find that kind of amusing that someone would be judged by how their parents were. Reminds me of a Star Trek:TNG episode where Worf had to carry the crimes/shame of anything his parents did with him wherever he went back home.
Oh no! That wouldn't be viewed negatively at all. The fact that someone has worked to overcome an adverse beginning says something quite positive about him.

The point is that knowing about these relationships can help you understand someone better.
 
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melman is offline melman Post #6  August 12,2009, 6:26pm
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This is a fine example of a question that does not deserve to be answered seriously. You might want to give your match the benefit of the doubt for asking - she may have just selected it from the canned list, without much thought. But regardless, it's not a smart "ice breaker" question to ask. Would you walk up to someone at a party, introduce yourself, and go right to "describe your relationship with your parents?" Ick.

I've been asked it, and I've tried to lighten the atmosphere. "They made me eat liver and onions. Oh, the horror!" Stuff like that. You're trying to create attraction and interest, not answer questions like a job interview.

Actually, I start to lose interest if I get asked the canned questions. I never use them. How much effort is it for her to write 3 questions of her own?
 
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CreolePrincess is offline CreolePrincess Post #7  August 12,2009, 7:22pm
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There's a theory that the best indication of future behavior is prior behavior. That's where I thought eH was going with this....as in, how you related to your parents is how you would relate to your mate. I don't put much stock in that theory, because the environment and situation would have to remain constant. In other words, the best predictor of future behavior is prior behavior in the exact same conditions. Since anything is rarely exact....I suppose a woman could use it a radar to see if her match was a "mama's boy", but other than that, I don't see where this question really helps in finding a mate.

Or it could be that I'm too tired at the moment to see it.
 
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IcecreamMoon is offline IcecreamMoon Post #8  August 13,2009, 12:50am
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That's a really weird question to ask someone you've never even met. If someone asked me this question and in this format, even during the first couple of in-person dates, I would be thinking that they are trying to psychoanalyse me...

In my opinion, this is the kind of information that is better voluntered or brought up in a relevant context, rather than asked as a dry question. What if someone parent(s) have recently passed away? It can be a really difficult subject to discuss, especially with an online stranger...
 
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Mr_Right is offline Mr_Right Post #9  August 13,2009, 3:29am
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IcecreamMoon wrote :
That's a really weird question to ask someone you've never even met. If someone asked me this question and in this format, even during the first couple of in-person dates, I would be thinking that they are trying to psychoanalyse me...

In my opinion, this is the kind of information that is better voluntered or brought up in a relevant context, rather than asked as a dry question. What if someone parent(s) have recently passed away? It can be a really difficult subject to discuss, especially with an online stranger...
"So... how does this make you feel?"
 
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Gr8Guyn2008 is offline Gr8Guyn2008 Post #10  August 13,2009, 4:49am
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First I do not view the Guided Communication process as wasteful and any of the questions as "useless filler".

Second the relationship you have with your parents and all the rest of your family gives an indication of how you may have turned out as an adult and how you may react and relate to people in your life today. In other words if you grew up in a disfunctional home as a child then you are more likely to have carried that into your adult relationships.
 
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