By “modeling behavior,” I am not referring to “striking a pose” or “looking fierce” (although I have been accused of posing like at model). In behavioral psychology terminology, modeling, sometimes referred to as social learning theory, is when “people learn new information and behaviors by watching other people,” according to Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. Usually, we think of this as something children do – they learn to eat with a fork by observing their parents at the dinner table. My niece was classic case of modeling when she picked up a watering can for the first time at age one and knew exactly what to do with it from watching her mother water flowers.

At a previous job, I trained people to give tours by “modeling” good tour practices. This is all well and good when you have someone who is modeling good behavior and the person on the receiving end is aware enough to ask questions when he or she is unsure or something seems off.  Unfortunately, some of the trainees didn’t care about what they were doing and would just repeat anything they heard or saw modeled for them. A co-worker called it “mocking” behavior. We used to laugh at how lazy and ignorant these trainees seemed. Reflecting back on my poor attitude in this situation, it seems very hypocritical now because for years I’ve demonstrated the behaviors modeled for me by my parents without asking any questions or thinking anything was wrong.

I’m going to explore a piece of relationship behavior that was modeled for me by my parents and how unknowingly doomed every relationship I ever had with a man. Since this series is called The “Y” Factor, I’m going to leave my mother out of it as much as possible. Lord knows that she modeled some poor emotional behaviors for me. I love her and she is my best friend, but I can’t blame everything on her. My father has an equal share in f*%king me up emotionally. For example, Dad has this innate ability to shut everyone out when he doesn’t want to deal with something—an emotional wall larger and stronger than the Great Wall in China. He wasn’t raised to talk about or deal with emotions. My mother blames it on his parents—she says it’s “cultural” and “generational.” I say that’s bullshit. He’s old enough to recognize that he’s shutting people out. It’s just that he probably doesn’t see why he should start getting emotionally invested now. He’s scared and he doesn’t know how. The bottom line is when you take down the wall and let people in you have to feel, and take a chance that those feelings won’t hurt. My father is a very unhappy person because he’s shut himself off from feeling—it means that he rarely registers good emotions either. Several times I’ve asked him what makes him happy, and he just shuts me out and says that he doesn’t want to talk about it. It makes me so sad.

My earliest and strongest recollection of building emotional walls was when I was a competitive figure skater. On competition days, I would retreat inside myself and not talk to anyone. I was hiding my nervousness and anxiety—my fear of failure. Because if I had talked about it, that would make it real—I would have to feel and deal with those emotions. Instead, I kept them bottled up, as if I swallowed a tiger, it was scratching away at my emotional stability and destroying me from the inside out. I never knew when the tiger was going to jump out and get the better of me. Invariably, I would find some insignificant reason to get pissy (that’s what we call pulling an attitude in our family) with my mother and so she learned to stay away from me.  What a vicious circle we had.

The emotional wall came in to play in many relationships—I would shut out boyfriends because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be good enough and they’d leave me anyway, so I’d give them a reason to leave me by being emotionally unavailable. The love of my life, first man I had sex with, and coincidentally one of the two men I’ve dated who my mother wanted me to marry, was the first man to fall victim to this emotional wall. I would manifest this by withholding sex. I’ve always been accused of being a tease (more on this in a later article), and poor Justin* had to endure three years of this before I let myself stop pushing him away because I was afraid to “feel” for him. I kept pushing him away because I didn’t want to end up with a man like my father (BTW—Justin was nothing like my father in any way, shape, or form), so I didn’t let myself get too close to him or open up so I could feel love for him. Once we began a relationship, for the next two years it was all downhill. He was my first real relationship, and I had no idea how to act in a relationship—so, of course, I “mocked” what was modeled for me by my parents. Like the aforementioned tour trainees, I took my parents’ relationship at face value, didn’t ask questions, and assumed that was how one was supposed to be with someone. I was passive-aggressive towards him, nagged constantly, and played emotional games. It’s no wonder he told me one time that I was too much like my mother. I feel so sorry for Justin—he was so good to me and I screwed it up. I wish I could tell him that, but he’s happily married with two kids and there’s no need to drag my baggage back into his life. The important thing is that now I know where I went wrong (fifteen years later!), and I’ve learned from it.

One way I’m applying the “breaking down the emotional walls” lesson is with my parents. I recently lost a job and every time my mother would ask about my job search I would get annoyed and give her the silent treatment. I would never bring the subject up on my own accord.  At a recent session with my spiritual healer, I connected with the “not good enough” feeling that always sits in the forefront of my subconscious. I realized that my parents will always love me— that I am an intelligent, successful, and flawed woman and they will always accept me and support me. So in order to avoid the yucky feelings that I got when they asked about my job search, I was honest with them and told them that their inquiries made me uncomfortable, but that I would make an effort to be more forthcoming about what was happening. This felt like such a relief to me—like the proverbial weight lifted off my shoulders.

My emotional relationship with my parents has strengthened through this shift in my attitude. I hold out hope that by modeling this new healthy behavior for my parents that they will pick it up and start exhibiting it, too.

*Actual names have been changed here.

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psychcentral (April 6, 2010)

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PsychCentral (April 6, 2010)

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    Last reviewed: 6 Apr 2010