We like to think of ourselves as autonomous beings, that our personalities are our own, independent of others and their influence on us. But really, we live under the influence of everyone around us. Did your mother ever tell you that you were playing with your best friend too much and were behaving too much like her?
As fallible human beings with malleable psyches (albeit some less malleable than others and stubborn as mules), we tend to adopt the characteristics of those we spend time with--coworkers, parents, friends, significant others, spouses, lovers. We all steal verbal, physical and even psychological mannerisms from each other, and so our personalities are not purely our own. We are molded by the people in our environment.If you're involved in healthy relationships with healthy people in healthy environments, then you're cooking with gas. But if you find yourself entrenched in an unhealthy relationship or marriage, immersed in an unhealthy environment, then, even if you are a strong, stable individual, your odds of coming through the other side of that relationship unscathed are ZERO.
I often hear myself say, "I don't like who I become when I'm around my husband. This isn't me. This isn't someone I want to be." But it wasn't until recently that I began to suspect just how deeply his behavior and our mutually created, unhealthy relationship has affected me. In addition to a certain degree of PTSD I've recently struggled through (and there's more to come, I'm quite sure, once I take the leap and divorce the man), I've noticed that some of the habits I've picked up from him are creeping into my relationships with those I care deeply for.
For example, after a weekend of defensiveness and bickering, I may begin my Monday seemingly well. But while IMing a dear friend and things are starting to get tense between us, I'll quickly realize I'm bringing my weekend behavior into a treasured relationship I want to nurture. I often step back at that point and say to my friend--a gentle, tender soul I never want to hurt and who I've just stung, a person who truly makes me want to be a better person--I say to him, "I'm sorry. I was out of line. I had a bad night/weekend, and I'm carrying that over to you." And then I can more or less turn it off, while I ponder just how insidiously learned behavior can corrupt our lives.
Somtimes, I see my husband's behavior reflected in my son's, and it stops me in my tracks. I'm quick to point out the undesired behavior, and for good or bad I link it directly to my husband.
"Do you like it when Daddy does that?"
"No, Mommy."
"Then why are you doing it, too?"
That solves the problem very quickly.
It scares me how deeply my personality has been altered, in that negative way. It my not be a dramatic change, but the change runs deep. I know that, if I don't leave this relationship, I will continue to morph into the part of me I don't like. And I will lose that other relationship I treasure so deeply. And likely others, as well. Contentiousness will become my modus operandi, and I will become profoundly lonely, bitter and unhappy. I might even become a woman very much like my mother-in-law, a thought that makes my blood run cold.
Equally prevalent is the knowledge--and the dread--that once I do leave this relationship behind, I will experience PTSD very likely more intense than what I've already been through. (The first was brought on by leaving Germany--a place where I survived alone and with only remote support from my mom by phone--and returning to the US, a place of safety and security, and within easy reach of my entire support system.)
It's a struggle, sometimes, to keep that negative influence at bay. But at least I recognize it when it makes me ugly, and that's half the battle.
