In a relationship, your partner's family background shall be potentially considered. The saying "Like mother, like daughter" and "like father, like son" isn't a myth. It doesn't mean that the girl you marry will turn out to be exactly like her mother nor that the man will be exactly like his father. This just means that we're greatly influenced by our parents.
If a boy's father is controlling and verbally abusive, don't be surprised if in ten years he has similar traits. We are all products of our environment to some degree and research indicates that abusive men were always abused as children.Some may doubts that we can't learn from their poor example and change our behavior. But the key word is "learn". If the son of an abuser does not take specific steps to understand abuse of his father and what he needs to do to break the pattern, then he is likely to repeat it.
If a girl's mother is alcoholic, statistically we know that she is more likely to become an alcoholic. But she is not destined to alcoholism and if she takes positive action to understand alcoholism and learns more constructive ways to respond to stress and disappointment she can certainly break the alcoholic chain. Then, in a relationship if either of you has a parent with a destructive lifestyle, the responsible action is to enroll in a class, read book, talk with counselors and discuss with each other waht you're learning.
To take a simple example, look at the physical appearance of your same-sex parent and you are likely looking at yourself twenty years from now. If the father is balding, the son may well look the same in twenty years. If the mother is always active and energetic, so will the daughter be.
Communication patterns are another area in which we tend to be like our parents. For example, if you notice that her mother often interrupts her father when he is talking and corrects the details of his by saying such things as "No, it wasn't on Tuesday, it was on Wednesday." Then you can expect the daughter to do the same. Perhaps you have already observed this behavior when you are talking. If this irritates you, now is the time to talk about it.If this pattern isn't changed before marriage, it won't automatically change after marriage.
Because we've grown up with our parents and we don't recognize their patterns of communication as being unhealthy. For us, it is simply the way it has always been. It often takes someone outside the family drawing the communication pattern to our attention to help us understand why the pattern needs to be changed. Because we are influenced by our parents' communication patterns,we're very likely to adopt them as our own. What's good is that these communication patterns can be changed and the time to make the change is while you're dating.
However, in today's fast-moving culture, dating couples will spend little time with each other's parents. They come to marriage without any clear understanding of the parental model with which the other person grew up. When couples spend time with each other's parents, they're not closely observing the behavior and communication patterns of parents. They tend to express appreciation for the positive things that they observe but are likely to ignore negative patterns of speech or behavior.
Based on what has been stated above, “Like mother, like daughter” and “like father, like son” is not a myth. Couples shall be encouraged to have enough exposure to each other's parents to get to know their responsibilities, communication patterns, values and especially how they relate to each other. Anytime you observe things that trouble you, these need to be discussed thoroughly with your dating partner. If your concerns are serious, you need to discuss what steps will be taken to make sure that the old saying "like mother,like daughter" and "like father, like son" will not become a reality and you will independently manage a relationship of your own.
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