# Children marry their parents?



## RandomDude

You know the old saying; that men will marry their mothers and women will marry their fathers? 

Hence all this talk about men/women being good examples for their children as that will affect their children's choice of partners in the future... but do you agree with this? Did you marry someone like your parent? Has your children followed your example?

In my case... no way! As my parents divorced I saw traits in both of them that I never wanted to adopt, and hence I formed my own set of standards. But how about you guys?


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## TiggyBlue

No I personally didn't, there are some things my mum put up with I would never have so pretty much set my own standards.


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## Giro flee

Yuck, I didn't marry somebody like my alcoholic father, or my enabling, controlling mother. Thank God, because you always hear about children of drunks either growing up to be one or becoming one themselves.


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## Cosmos

I always gravitated to the exact _opposite_ of my father, even to the extent of steering clear of men who shared similar 'interests' (men's clubs, bars and alcohol) with him. It took a long time for me to find a balance in this regard, because for some time I even avoided men with similar colouring and stature!:scratchhead:


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## GTdad

In my case, I seem to have married my wife's mother ...


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## omega

I have a pretty nonexistent relationship with my father (when it crops up, it's bad and strained) and my H is nothing like him - basically the polar opposite in every way I can think of.

But... I am basically my mother, when it comes to wife stuff. So maybe my H married his mother in law? hehe.


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## imhisbeautifuldisaster

Hmm, my hubby is nothing like my Dad. He is a great mixture of his Mom and His Dad, more of his dad unfortunately. I wish Hubby was a little more like my Dad. I don't think I am like either of my parents either.


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## JustSomeGuyWho

I don't know about that. I certainly didn't marry my mother.

I have two daughters. As their father, I am their first significant male relationship and it will have a tremendous influence on their future relationships even if they don't marry someone who is like me.


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## RandomDude

Interesting... so where does this saying come from?


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## Lyris

My husband is a lot like my dad. Who is fabulous. So lucky me.


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## Dollystanford

My ex husband was the opposite of my dad. And now we are divorced because he was a d*ck, unlike my dad


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## cheese puff

NO my wife is nothing like my mother and i am nothing like her father. my wifes dad was a drug addict, abusive, in and out of jail, left when she was 3, she has never seen him since. im polar polar opposites of her dad no drugs, never been to jail and no abuse. my wife has major problems from this also. she finds me odd strange and feminine, our therapist tell us thats because of her past. i am different from the men thats been in her life so i do look odd to her. she struggled to be a wife and a mom at first. she is nothing like my mom at all.


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## RandomDude

It's becoming apparent that the old saying is false, makes me wonder who came up with it


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## Thor

In my case it is sort of true.

My wife tried to marry someone like her father. He was a stable, hard working, highly educated man. He was also a Nice Guy who put up with a lot of neglect from his wife. In that way my wife succeeded in finding someone like her dad.

But, she also set out to duplicate her mother's approach to marriage. Which was to find a safe person who provided a stable paycheck. Her mother *railroaded* her dad into marriage horribly. I was not railroaded, but my wife did set out to create the same sterile dysfunctional stable distant marriage she saw her mother create.

I on the other hand did not want to be like my dad, who is the child of an abusive alcoholic mother. My mom is a good person, and I wanted to find someone with similar attributes to her. I though my wife was like my mom, but it turns out she is very much more like my dad. W hid her true self from me, and only after the wedding did the effects of her childhood abuse become evident.

So my wife set out to marry her dad, and to some extent did. I set out to marry someone similar to my mom, and thought I did, but in fact W is much like my dad.

Convoluted, huh?


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## SimplyAmorous

I am nothing like my husband's Mother, she is very laid back, sweet - I am more intense, lively... she does crafts, is a hoarder, I love to organize and crafts would bore me to tears. 

My husband has some similarities to my Father -they are both Romantics.. excellent savers, both very responsible, hard workers... both introverted....both great handymen, can tear a car apart & put it back together.... but my husband is GREAT with kids.. my father sucked here...kids is not his thing at all....

He'd rather hang with the guys in the garage with a few beers, my husband really enjoys our children, he plays board games with them, watches movies with them.. very involved.. My dad.. I can't even remember that happening once in all my years growing up.


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## RoseAglow

My mom and sister, and even my aunts and cousins, joke that I married my dad. My DH has my dad's good traits: very funny, very friendly, outgoing, even a bit of a ham. My dad was also very kind, dependable, loyal, and a family man, and my husband shares these traits, too. Add in a love of TV and movies- especially cheesy sci-fi/horror movies- plus diabetes, and yeah, they are a lot alike.

Still, my DH has a lot of differing characteristics, too. My DH is way more adventurous than my dad was; my DH is much more modern, he really is a partner-ship and partner-oriented guy, whereas my dad was "old school", and wasn't very involved either with us as kids or even his marriage, honestly. 

My DH says that the only thing I share in common with his mom is that we are both brunettes. His mom drives him nuts, but he is still very good to her. I think she and I have a few more things in common, like we both speak our minds, we are both independent and goal-driven. I believe I am not nearly as intense as his mom, though.


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## john117

I married my mother in law...

(As a public service announcement to immigrants who marry other immigrants and families are far away... Bad idea. Make sure you meet the in-laws before saying I do, otherwise you might as well be saying I Duh)

My parents were pretty normal people, public servants, and aged quickly mentally. I took the opposite road, spent a dozen years in college and I'm as immature as it can get.


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## Wiltshireman

I think it would depend on whether children thought that their parents had a successful relationship.

Although my parents divorced when I was a teen they did so amicably and maintained a civil relation afterwards. When our mother died our father accompanied us to her memorial service. They were both always "there for the kids".

For myself my wife has the same "mummsy" appearance as my mother and does share many of the traits I admired in my mother (loves the kids, endless patience) and some of the annoying ones as well (a bit of a hoarder, not that good with money). 

Thinking about it there are similarities between myself and my FIL so there could be truth in it.


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## RandomDude

So whats with all this preconceptions in regards to daughters seeing how daddy treats mum and hence will expect to be treated the same way by future suitors?

Now I'm not saying I should be an a$$hole to my wife, but based on the responses and my own experience it seems that children will grow up and make their own independent decisions regardless of their parents marital woes


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## Jellybeans

I didn't marry anyone like my father. Which is really too bad. Cause my dad is the the bomb dot com. He treats my mother like a queen, is dignified and is such a good man.


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## Self Help

I think it depends on how much disfunction was in your childhood home. Mine was disfunctional. I feel I married the parent that is the opposite of the one that I related to growing up. My SO is more like my controlling parent was. My SO was also raised in disfunction and married the opposite, a nice person. Go figure


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## omega

RandomDude said:


> So whats with all this preconceptions in regards to daughters seeing how daddy treats mum and hence will expect to be treated the same way by future suitors?
> 
> Now I'm not saying I should be an a$$hole to my wife, but based on the responses and my own experience it seems that children will grow up and make their own independent decisions regardless of their parents marital woes


Well, I think it happened to me, to some extent. Although my husband is in NO way like my father, I still treat my husband much like my mother treated/treats my father. We learn a lot of things from our parents. Why can't one of them be "how to be a spouse"? So an example is that my mother ALWAYS cooks for my father, always has. Although my husband knows how to cook, and lived alone from age 17 to 32, and obviously stayed fed, since the day we moved in together, he has not ONCE cooked. He makes his breakfast but that's it. I even make his coffee. Did I grow up seeing that and internalize it? Or did I independently make the decision, regardless of my parents, that I am the one that makes the coffee/cooks/does the dishes, etc? Who knows. But it's a nice coincidence at least. (There are a lot of other things like this too. I am like a 1950s housewife because my mother is a 1950s housewife probably because HER mom was a REAL 1950s housewife. Except I also work.) NONE of this is because my husband chose it / encouraged it. He likes it, though, and hasn't tried to stop me.


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## Thor

RandomDude said:


> So whats with all this preconceptions in regards to daughters seeing how daddy treats mum and hence will expect to be treated the same way by future suitors?


My wife has held up her parents' marriage as being desirable and as being better than average.

They had a polite non-confrontational relationship. They both contributed to the family, but they did not do a lot of consultation. They each had their own duties. There was no physical affection on display. Dad came home from work and pretty much went off to do home improvement projects, worked on the cars, or did yard work. Mom did her own thing in the evening.

Pretty sterile.

My wife strives to make our marriage just like her parents'.


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## mace17

I think it has been true in my life, My father was a controlling domineering person and I have had a bad habit of being with controlling men. He was also emotionally unavailable and a child molester, and I married those types too. The men I have had serious relationships with all seemed to be completely different, but in hindsight they all some some traits in common with my father. 
In my current marriage, apparently I am a lot like my mother inlaw. I never met her since she passed away before I met my H, but I have heard that after years of putting up with my FIL's "always right" mentality and never getting any help from him with anything, she simply withdrew from everything and basically crawled inside herself and never came out. Which is sort of where I'm at from dealing with the same kind of behavior from my H.


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## hambone

I did not marry my mom..

I married a women who is much stronger emotionally than my mom. And physically stronger. When I was flipping houses... my wife was right in there elbow to elbow helping me. My mom couldn't have done that.

In my mom's defense. She was married to a tyrant who stripped her of all confidence.

My wife would have knocked my father into next week with a frying pan if he tried to treat her like he treated my mom. 

I say that but at the same time... I recognize that inside that tough guy facade of my father... lives a wimp. There are probably 10 million people who came with in an inch of having their butts waxing floors... and they never even knew it. My dad is tough, tough, tough when he's out of ear shot.... He had my mom convinced. 

But, what my dad would see as a direct challenge to his authority... I admire...


All that said, my son is attracted to women like his mom.. And my daughter... she is always pointing out to me how her boyfriend is like me... She want's my approval...


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## arbitrator

*Agreeing largely with Ham: I do not think that I "married" my Mom, figuratively speaking that is. I'd be more correct in saying that I "became" my parents, adopting the same sexual and social mores that they embraced.

Neither of my W's was remotely anything like my Mom, as both of them could not even come close to embracing the morality that she had instilled within her.

And much like Ham, my boys compare their girlfriends to their deceased grandmother!*


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## bbdad

My wife is nothing like my mother, and I am grateful for that. I think my wife really wanted to marry some one like her father. To this day, I think she regrets that she didn't get that. Her family is very matriarchal where all of the women just walk over the men. I don't put up with that one bit. It has caused tension with me and the women of her family as well. In her family, most of the men don't work, or have very menial part time jobs and rely on the women to provide support. The men in her family are the true example of beta males.

I think my wife liked the idea of an independent and strong male in theory, but in practical ways, she hates it. That is where a lot of our struggles in marriage arise. She has only known in her life where the wife dictates everything and rules with an iron hand. When I don't take that, she gets really upset and defensive. Sometimes, I wonder how we have made it so long with such differing outlooks.


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## looking for clarity

My parents had a good and bad marriage. I don't remember a huge amount of fights when I was little. But they were so different. My mom is bossy and controlling and emotional. My dad was passive aggressive . He let my mom be bad cop and he was always good cop. My mom resented this.

As a result, I loved my dad and to this day my relationship with my mom was frosty. But then my dad developed a sleeping pill addiction and he had a psychotic break when I was 16. His whole personality changed and then I wanted to marry the opposite of him.

My husband is a lot like my mom. He is bossy and controlling and I am the opposite. However, my husband is now on disability for anxiety including bad insomnia. I now realize he is the mixture of both my parents and I'm screwed.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## looking for clarity

Do you mean you're going to be a parent
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Anonymous07

My husband is a lot like my dad, even though I tried to find someone unlike him. While dating my husband was different, but has become more like him over time. He now shows his impatience, not being understanding, and anger issues. Lucky me...


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## heartsbeating

I'd liken my husband more to my grandad with the way he can put people at ease, is funny, the way he can be assertive yet gentle, and for the respectful and loving way he treats me; as I witnessed my grandad towards my nan. They were married 60 years. My parents divorced.


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## SurpriseMyself

I thought I was marrying someone very different from my dad, but have come to realize that the core issue I have with my father I recreated in marriage.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## arbitrator

GTdad said:


> In my case, I seem to have married my wife's mother ...


*With XW No. 1, it was this way! And vice-versa with her marrying her dad. But it was in no way indicative of me marrying either one of my own parents.

With skanky XW No. 2, there was no rhyme or reason to this, other than she looked way too much like her mom, but did not properly behave anything like her since XW always seemed to have a discernible wild streak to her!*


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## turnera

ebp123 said:


> I thought I was marrying someone very different from my dad, but have come to realize that the core issue I have with my father I recreated in marriage.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I married my brother. Who I can't stand. But then, he tried to take over as my father when my father moved out when I was 12. So there you go.


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## RandomDude

This thread worries me, as I know when my daughter grows up and she brings home another 'me' I'll be saying this to him:

I need you to be focused! - YouTube


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## turnera

Well, as long as 'you' is good, no problem!


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## ScarletBegonias

First time around I married someone like my mother.OMG what a f***ing disaster that was.

This time I married someone who is blissfully unlike anyone in my family.It's fabulous.


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## RandomDude

turnera said:


> Well, as long as 'you' is good, no problem!


Well 'me' has a rather specific trait of wanting someone for a committed relationship but 'me' is also a man who (mutually) uses women for 'benefits' in NSA/FWB arrangements in between relatinoships.

So if my daughter brings home another 'me', and doesn't impress me with his commitment to my daughter then no, I'm driving nails into his knees and electrocuting the hell outta him.


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## jld

I think I married the opposite of my dad. Thank God.

Dh does have my dad's jawline, though. Hmm.


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## turnera

Aw, RandomDude, I think you're an ok guy. She'll pick up on _that_.


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## turnera

btw, there's an amazing book about this, if I haven't mentioned it. It's called Getting The Love You Want, and it's about how we pick our partners based almost solely on who/what/how our parents were when we were growing up.


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## jld

Turnera, does the book explain why we marry the opposite of our parent, like I did? I guess I did not quite get that from the review I just looked up.

And really, dh just kind of happened into my life. Isn't that possible, too, as opposed to people "picking" each other?


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## turnera

jld, it talks about how, if you get dysfunctional parents, you get a dysfunctional partner, for the most part. I believe it talks some about getting out of the rut and choosing better, it's been a while.


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## jld

Okay, thanks, turnera. I think I was probably just lucky.


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## Fenix

I set out not to marry someone like my father, who had rage issues, and was verbally and physically abusive. Instead, I married my mother who is passive aggressive, lies and is a coward. Lucky me, huh?!

Btw, I am like neither one of them. I manage my rage and am not abusive in any way.

Hopefully, my next choice will be better!


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## turnera

Both are dysfunctional and harmful to a marriage.

DD23 and I talk about this a lot. She's only dated 2 guys in the last 5 years (for no more than 8 months all together), because she simply can't be bothered to date someone she knows isn't what she wants. She knows exactly the type of personality she wants, and looks for it - confident but laid back, funny, fun-loving, dedicated to learning and getting a professional job - and avoids insecure, controlling, passive, non-funny, or angry.

Of course, she misses going out, and I have to remind her that, considering her standards, she has to accept the aloneness. That she'll find someone eventually - it just may be later than her friends (nearly all of whom who took the first guy and are miserable, btw).


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## jld

Your dd is smart, turnera. Mine is, too. Choosy pays off, I think.


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