A member of our studio audience writes in with the following problem. I have edited out some of the entry for brevity’s sake.
My father has been married seven times & recently got engaged to #8. However, less than three weeks later they were also done. My dad has literally cheated on all his wives & all his girlfriends. This makes me obsess over the fact that “all men cheat.” Logically, though, I know that isn’t true.
However, I have an immediate physical and emotional reaction every time some touchy subject (like pornography) comes up with any man I’ve ever had a relationship with.
It has happened again with my current boyfriend. I know he’s only fanticizing about women in porn. On the other hand, he has had a history of cheating in the past. (Of that, he says, he was young & stupid, and has learned his lesson). My irrational – oh, yes – I KNOW they’re irrational – thoughts make me believe “well, if he’s fanticizing about another woman – what’s to stop him from going out and finding another woman?” Even though he was “young & stupid” there’s no denying he’s done it before. What I really want to know is this: could my father’s behavior really be the root cause for all these nutty and irrational fears and feelings? If so, how can I learn to let that go so that I can have healthy relationships?
I hope you can give me some guidance as to how I can help myself – and if necessary – what type of mental health doctor I should consider seeing.
The quick answer to your question is “yes”. It is likely that your father’s behavior is the root cause for some (if not all) of your nutty and irrational fears and feelings. If you can imagine for a moment that we all keep within ourselves the “ideal” image of what something should be like. The perfect vacation, the perfect car, the perfect job, child, parent, boyfriend etc, etc. This ideal (I don’t mean “perfect” here, I just mean ideal like “what we think it should be like”) is what we compare our reality to. If this ideal is too perfect, you cannot live up to it. This is a set up for disappointment. For example, if you have an image of an ideal friend and your real friends don’t live up to this ideal, then you will be chronically disappointed in your friends. If your “ideal” is too flawed, your reality may too easily live up to the ideal. You won’t necessarily be happy, but you will also not necessarily be disappointed. For example, if your “ideal” for a friend includes behavior such as lying or stealing from time to time, you will tolerate friends who lie and steal from time to time. You might not like it, but you will tolerate it. We each tend to move around in our own little universe comparing our situations with our internal pictured ideal of what things should be. That then tends to drive our mood one way or another. Your situation is obviously more complicated. The “ideal” father that is pictured in your head is a cheat. But, you REJECT that picture as your ideal–but you cannot get it out of your head. With every boyfriend that comes into your life, you then compare them to the “ideal husband figure” that you learned from your father and assume (on a subconscious level) that they will be like him. Any feature of that boyfriend that remotely reminds you of your father (for example, the ancient history of cheating on someone, or the viewing of pornography) will be used as confirmation of their similarity to your father and bring about the same feelings of anger/fear/anxiety/or whatever that your father induces in you. You will then likely find yourself protecting yourself by pushing your boyfriend away to minimize the chance of your getting hurt by him. The therapy treatment for this would be cognitive therapy with the goal of restructuring your internal “ideal” of what a father/husband is (cause your father ain’t no ideal nothing) and supporting you as you do realistic evaluations of your boyfriends behavior. The therapist that does that should be skilled in cognitive behavioral therapy.
Now, just because your father was a jerk and you have certain sensitivities does not mean that all of your sensitivities are necessarily wrong. If you don’t want your boyfriend to view pornography and fantasize about other women, it is reasonable to ask him not to. If he cannot do that for you, he is not the man for you. Drop him now and find someone who is more responsive to your needs. Couples in relationships need to be able to ask their partners not to do things that are directly upsetting to them. Partners need to be able to be sensitive to the needs of their significant other and respond accordingly. A therapist can help you determine what expectations are reasonable if you are not sure. I wish you well.
-Dan Hartman, MD
