Here’s a new hypothesis that I just came up with, inspired by many couples I know. This is not aimed at any one person in my life. Furthermore, this is only written from a male point-of-view, as I have not really thought about the obverse situation.

For the majority us men tend to look for ladies that remind us of our mothers, and ladies look for men that remind them of their fathers. Especially during the teenage years, eventually there becomes some conflict with the father-daughter relationship. If that relationships have been severely damaged and they never forgive their fathers, very often those ladies will struggle to get close with any guys they date / marry or may even sabotage their relationships.

If the guys they date / marry do mean things to them at any point in the relationship, then the ladies have a reason to validate their belief that their boyfriends / husbands are just like all the other men: jerks.

As we are all human, we are all bound to make mistakes and do things we wish we never did. However, if these ladies are never able to forgive their fathers *and* their boyfriends / husbands make drastic improvements, these ladies will find ways to sabotage these relationships. Gone are the bad guys. The challenges to find the “jerks” and turn them into nice guys is gone. Since they never changed their way of being, these ladies will still never believe that their boyfriends / husbands, just like “all” men, are jerks.

I understand I am being very bold by sharing these thoughts. I also understand that I am not a therapist, so I have no proven information to back this up. These are just thoughts that go through my mind throughout my day. The point of this post is to express my deep desire for each of you to do anything possible to heal your relationships with your parents, regardless of who may have caused any problems. If you love your parents, you will stop at nothing to see the completion of this goal. This may very well save your own marriage.

Love,