We always mold our partners to make them conform to the definition of what a partner is that we carry with us since childhood. It isn’t something people do consciously, of course. Without having the slightest clue that we are doing it, we create a relationship pattern where our partner has no choice but to slip into the role we have created for him or her.
Here is a funny illustration of what I mean. My father has very curly hair. When he was younger, he had a mass of pitch-black tightly wound small curls on his head. When he was deep in thought, reading, or writing, he would slip a finger into one of these ringlets and start twirling it.
This habit drove my mother crazy.
“Misha, stop twirling your hair already!” She would sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
I never told this story to N because it didn’t have an interesting punchline. And then I noticed that after living with me for years N started twirling his own hair when he was deep in thought. And he did it on the same side of his head as my father.
N’s hair is not curly which makes it pretty hard to twirl. So he takes a straight strand of hair and worries it to the point where it becomes matted and impossible to untangle.
N has no idea why he started doing it and what compels him to continue. He doesn’t know that he is recreating my childhood memory of my father for me.
Clarissa's Blog 