- [Narrator] When it comes to relationships,
everyone has their own way of showing love.
Sometimes, these behaviors and thought processes
can be negative rather than positive.
According to a study,
children who had a secure relationship
with their parents growing up
tend to have better interpersonal relationships later on,
while children who had more unstable relationships
are more likely to have unhealthy behaviors
and instability in relationships.
Dr. Milan and Kay Yerkovich
determined that there are five different love styles
that often are determined by your childhood.
So what does each love style say about your childhood?
One.
The avoider.
People with the avoider-type love style
often come off as distant or unengaged.
They don't allow themselves to feel emotions
in order to protect themselves and often feel uncomfortable
when other people around them get emotional.
Avoiders value their personal space away from other people.
If you have the avoider love style,
as a child, you may have grown up in a home
that didn't show a lot of affection,
that put more focus on being independent and self-reliant.
If you were upset by something,
you may not have gotten the comfort you needed,
whether it be emotional or physical.
Maybe at some point,
you stopped paying attention to your own feelings and needs
so that you could deal with the stress and anxiety
from having little to no comfort
from your parents or caretakers.
Two.
The vacillator.
The term, vacillate, means to alternate
or waiver between different opinions or actions,
or in other words, to be indecisive.
If you have the vacillator-type love style,
you may tend to idealize new relationships.
However, when the other person shows any trait or behavior
that you didn't imagine,
you begin to doubt the relationship
and may even consider ending the relationship altogether.
As a child,
you probably grew up with an unpredictable parent.
Maybe they were always finding a reason to leave home,
going out often or meeting new people often,
even when you needed them.
Whatever the case may have been,
your needs weren't your parents' first priority.
Because of this,
you may have developed a fear of abandonment
due to the fact that you didn't receive
consistent affection from your parents.
As both a child and an adult,
you also probably were very sensitive and perceptive,
noticing even the slightest sign
that someone in your life was distancing themselves.
Three.
The controller.
If you have the controller love type,
you probably feel the need to have control in a relationship
to avoid the vulnerable,
negative feelings you experienced as a child.
By being in control,
you can ensure that you limit your exposure
to feelings like humiliation, fear, and helplessness.
The one emotion doesn't make you feel vulnerable is anger,
so you may use anger to express your emotions.
You probably have a particular way you like things done,
and when those expectations aren't met,
you may get angry or stressed.
If you identify as a controller,
you probably grew up in a home
where there wasn't a sense of protection.
When there was some sort of harm in your life,
no one was there to make sure you were kept safe.
You didn't like stepping out of your comfort zone
and did whatever you could
to keep yourself from experiencing negative feelings.
You learn to be emotionally tough
and how to take care of yourself
because if you didn't,
you were susceptible to being hurt.
Four.
The pleaser.
Someone with the pleaser love type has the main focus
of making sure others around them are happy,
even if it means sacrificing their own wants and needs
in order to do so.
Pleasers have a habit of monitoring the moods
of those around them to make sure they are kept happy.
If someone has a negative change in mood,
the pleaser may have an internal struggle
with feeling anxious, upset, or stressed.
If you're a pleaser,
you don't enjoy or handle conflict easily,
so you may lie or do or say what the other person wants
just to avoid conflict.
It's often hard for a pleaser to say no.
As a child,
you grew up with a parent who was overly protective,
angry, or critical.
They may have had overly high standards
they wanted you to meet,
and if you didn't do as well as they wanted,
you wouldn't get a positive response from them.
People usually saw you as the good kid.
Rather than receiving comfort from your parents,
you may have actually been giving them comfort
when they were being reactive or apologizing for things
that were out of your control.
Because your parents reacted in such ways,
you may have done whatever you could
to avoid getting a negative response from them,
even if it meant lying about something.
Five.
The victim.
Victims often lack self-worth
and more than likely suffer from depression or anxiety.
Rather than living,
they just tend to go through the motions.
In relationships,
it's not uncommon for them to gravitate toward a controller
as they mimic what they experienced in childhood.
Victims are used to complying.
They find it easier or even comforting
to be with a controller in order to get by
as that's what they're used to.
If you have the victim love style,
you probably grew up in a chaotic home.
You had parents that would be angry or even violent.
Learning to be compliant helped keep any attention
off of yourself.
Did you ever use your imagination
to escape the negativity surrounding you?
That's common with victims
as being fully present is too painful for them.
These five love styles help us understand
more of the negative way we react and behave
in relationships,
and also why we are this way
due to our childhood experiences.
Did you relate to any of these styles?
Leave a comment below
and let us know if any of these love styles
describe you and your childhood.
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(lighthearted music)