Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in three continents, he has been training with Dr. Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr. Holmes and Mr. Baer:

I want to share that I have observed a common factor with my last two relationships.

One girlfriend “ANA” is the daughter of an angry man; the second “SUSAN” also didn’t have a good relationship with her family. Her father passed away two years before we met.

Moving forward, I guess it’s important for me to filter out candidates who lack a good relationship with their family. 

I can still hear “SUSAN’s” sentiments echo and disturb my peace. Susan would be butthurt about the idea that I talk to multiple women, and yet at that time, I haven’t made any exclusive commitment with any of them. 

For example if i sent reels to Girl A and not Girl B, does Girl B have the right to be mad? I’m drawing analogies to a person applying for work. We don’t put all our eggs in one basket, i.e.interview, and lock on to only one potential employer right? 

We diversify and distribute our CVs to as many good companies where we see we could fit and then take it from there to get to know them better ‘di ba? Likewise, it’s not like companies cast and interview one, and only one, candidate to fill the role they’re hiring right? Even for an employer’s perspective conducting a final interview with their one and only candidate on their list, they don’t take offense if the applicant has other pending applications right?

What do you think?

– SAM

Dear Sam,

Thank you for your email.

Let’s deal first with your notion that you should avoid women who don’t have good relationships with their families. While it is indeed sensible to filter who you should and shouldn’t date, this test seems too broad. After all, there are circumstances, e.g. alcohol or drug abuse, in which children might be wise to distance themselves from their parents, so it would be perverse to hold this against a prospective partner when they were simply acting in their own best interests.

Having said that, it is prudent to take family circumstances into account when considering the suitability of a partner since children are Inevitably shaped by their family history. However, while some children are permanently scarred by their childhoods, others are resilient, perhaps by nature or, for example,  through therapy, and rise above their travails.

So perhaps your test should be applied with some finesse, taking the broader family situation into account. At the end of the day, family background history is only part of an appreciation of your partner’s emotional development.

As for your views on commitment, it is important to realize that concepts like commitment have different meanings to different people. It is therefore helpful to ensure that you and your partner at least understand how the other interprets this if you are to avoid misunderstandings as the relationship develops.

Conflicting views have a way of impeding the smooth course of what is the complex process of learning to interpret the reactions of another person on all levels: emotional, intellectual, physical, etc. Good communication is therefore key as a relationship evolves.

In summary, rather than dissecting your partners’ backstories, look at how they have processed them. Avoid any excessive emphasis on psychological analysis which risks a purely intellectual analysis of a potential relationship and then concentrate on whether there are any prospects of emotional compatibility. 

Maintain open and transparent communication instead of sparring over definitions and semantics so that there is a fair chance that the two of you may actually be on the same page!

Best wishes,

JAF Baer

Dear Sam,

Thank you very much for your letter. I initially thought (silly me) that your question was so easy it was like shooting fish in a barrel. How wrong I was. Because what you wrote does make a lot of sense (thus easy). It is also true. There are many ways dysfunctional families wreak havoc on their daughters’ romantic relationships, but there are many which don’t.

Because there is so much research on the topic you brought up, I am sharing only my perspective, based on my clinical experience. I promise, however, that if there are methodologically sound studies that lead to conclusions different from what I write, I will let you know. I feel I owe that to you.

Why am I making such a big deal about this? Because everyone  has their own opinion on how one’s childhood/one’s past affects one’s present life.  

Of course, opinions based on personal experience are valid — made even more so if your behaviors towards potential mates change because of the particular experiences you’ve had…which will result in their own behaviors changing as a result of your behavior towards them. 

If that is the case, it is most likely your hypothesis that women who grow up in dysfunctional families make terrible partners will be true not necessarily because of the kind of families they grew up in, but because of how you behave towards them when you found out.

So, do women’s relationships with their families affect their relationships with potential partners? No doubt about it.

However, the effect can be good or bad, or partly good and partly bad, depending on how that particular woman deals with her own situation. Thus, the sum of all these “parenting effects” PLUS her own agency, may make her a more “worthwhile partner” than not.

She may actually succeed when she tells herself, no way will she become the sort of spouse her parents were, and no way will she inflict the same dysfunctionality on her own kids  In her case, it just might be true, even if, more often than not, those most adamant about making sure they do not wind up like their parents turn out to be like them the most.

I am glad, however, that you are trying to look beyond the more obvious reasons your last two relationships didn’t work out, rather than merely settling for the most obvious or most talked about reason.

Finally (for this column, at least — as there is so much more to say about how childhood can affect your romantic relationships) perhaps a clearer way for you to judge whether your hypothesis is fair or not is to ask yourself how you would feel if she rejected you based on the kind of upbringing you had. It need not even be whether your family is dysfunctional or not.

It could be a matter of money: Will she reject you because your family is well off and thus you are more likely to be entitled? Or might she reject you because you come from a lower socio-economic background and thus do not come from the right school, the right circles.

You see how unfair it can be, right? Judging individuals based on things they cannot help, things they didn’t choose.

And yet, AND yet, sometimes these things do matter. So I guess the best I can say is, in the final analysis, do not choose just one yardstick to make up your mind. Life is not that simple, neither are people.

All the very best,

MG Holmes

– Rappler.com