DO You, as a parent, ever hear yourself say "I, sound just like my mother (or father)" or find yourself doing things in the same way as your father or mother? Do you find that your marriage relationship repeats that of your parents in certain ways?

Maybe sometimes, during arguments with your partner, you shout "you're just like your mother (or father)". Perhaps, as a parent you find yourself repeating the negative patterns of irritability, ridiculing, scolding, comparing, threatening and so on that you experienced at the hands of your parents as a child? Or maybe you find yourself doing exactly the opposite from how your parents treated you - which can be just as problematic.

Unless you develop awareness, the probability is high that as a partner in a couple relationship and as a parent you will either repeat or directly oppose the patterns of relating that existed in your family of origin. This is not surprising for many reasons; for example, these are the patterns that are most familiar to you.

A major purpose of repeat patterns is to get you as an adult to face unresolved issues from your childhood and to face the continuation of childish dependence in your adulthood. You are likely to marry a partner who resembles the parent who most negatively influenced you. In doing that, you are faced once again with the negative aspects that were present in the childhood parental relationship. But now as an adult, unlike the child who is always a victim of home and other circumstances, you have a second chance to redeem yourself from the negative aspects of your partner's relationship with you.

Likewise, if as a parent you find yourself being over demanding and critical of your child, you can redeem both yourself and your child from the consequences of such neglectful behaviour. An example will clarify these processes.

A frequently occurring relationship is where a man who is aggressive, dominant, critical and controlling marries a woman who is passive, people pleasing, non assertive and docile. In such a relationship, the man may be like his father and have married a woman like his mother.

This woman may be like her own mother and have married a man like her own father. Both parties in this newly formed relationship have come from problematic families of origin. The likelihood that they will create a happy family is low. Why, in this case, would the man choose to marry a woman like his mother, who, after all, did not protect him against the wrath and abuse of his aggressive father? The purpose is threefold:

. To face the father within himself.

. To face his mother within his wife.

. To change the patterns of relating to self, partner, others and children.

This man's wife, who is likely to have married someone like her father and who is herself like her own mother, is also faced with similar responsibilities:

. To face her mother within herself.

. To face her father within her husband.

. To change the patterns of relating to self, partner, others and children.

The man's first task is to face the father within himself. He has to stand back from his aggressive behaviours and ask "why am I using these same means of relating to others as my father did in his relationship with me?" He needs to return to his childhood and witness again the effects of his father's behaviour on himself, on his mother and on other family members. He needs to feel the fear, hurt, humiliation, anger and helplessness that he experienced as a child so that he can be determined that he will not expose his children, himself and his partner to such sad experiences.

Most of all, he needs to learn to love and care for himself in a way that both his parents were unable to do.

Likewise, the wife who is passive, timid and fearful needs to ask herself "why am I as a grown up adult using these same ways of relating to others as my mother did in her relationship with my father, with myself and others?" She too needs to return to her childhood and experience again the effects of her father's dominance and her mother's passive behaviours on her. She needs to see how she as a small child would have felt frightened, abandoned by both parents and helpless, and how she protected herself by being "good and passive" (like her mother).

Out of this understanding she can determine to let go of these passive ways, so that she as a mother does not abandon her children to a fate of being bullied and dominated or neglected because of passivity on her part. Like her spouse, she needs to become the positive parent towards herself that she missed in her own childhood.

Unless parents become aware of the enduring influence that troubled families can have on them, the danger is that the dependent and neglectful relationship patterns will he repeated in the newly formed family.

Awareness is a necessary prerequisite to change, but unless it is coupled with determined, persistent alternative action that enhances family well being, then it will not bring about the desired change.

. Dr Tony Humphreys is a clinical psychologist.