Parent-Child behavior in adult relationships

[PVK444]

I hope somebody will notice a known pattern in my story and  can point me to suitable references for further study, or even just help me with identifying the proper psychological terms I could use for further research. This is actually something I struggle with myself, and I want to understand better what's going on as well as of course maybe find some suitable ways of dealing with the situation.

I am married since about 10 years. My wife is, and has been, suffering with anxiety disorder and depression since even before we met, and needs constant medication, albeit in small doses. Initially we had a relationship I would call "normal" at least when it came to things like "autonomy", "independence", "self-reliance" and "intimacy". Although I have to add that even during this initial period, there were often un-proportionally violent (in the emotional sense, not physically) outbursts when we had some differences most couples would have at times. But I attributed those to the effects of the drug, or rather to episodes where she wanted to get off the drugs.

Shortly after this initial stage, lasting perhaps a little more than one year, a new pattern evolved. Although it does not do the situation full justice, the best way I can describe it is that the relationship slipped into something like a parent-child relationship, rather than an intimate, adult relationship of equals. Given the past of my wife, she definitely would have some issues of "maturity", as she does not act, behave or even think like a woman being over 40.  This starts with things like lack of self-reliance, difficulty to make decisions on her own, taking on and carrying responsibility, to areas such as exhibiting child like stubborn insistance rather than being rationally firm etc. Although in hindsight, traces of such behavior were around early in our relationship, it seems as if such behavior increased over the years, where I truly often feel like in a parent-child relationship.

To add another twist to this story, my wife actually is fully aware of these behaviors and she herself identifies this as a problem and wants to change. To be precise, she appears to have these "revelations" periodically, oftentimes triggered by some argument between us, or between her and her parents, and then she desperately wants to become more "mature" (her own words). But shortly thereafter, the old behaviors start to emerge. Mostly she refers back to a very protected childhood, a more mature intermezzo in a long term relationship, and then switching to become a "teenager" at the age of 30. [Btw, not quite unexpectedly, most times I bring this topic up in a discussion, it would result in her becoming very defensive and often emotionally hurt. But that, I guess, would be a normal human reaction]

I am at a point now, where this situation starts feeling like a real burden. We (rather I) decided not have children as I don't see my wife being able to handle potentially stressful situations in an "adult like" manner. Further, I am getting dragged into this child like behavior (sort of by assimilation, I presume) which affects me personally in ways I don't feel comfortable with.

I want to understand better what's going on here, how to break this pattern, or see whether I might even be encouraging (triggering?) such interactions in unwanted ways.

Any pointers or ideas where to look for answers would be most highly appreciated. I am sure this is not an unusual problem, but since I have no psychology training, I fail to even be able to narrow the subject down with the proper terms.

[INTP]

First of all i think its important to nail down her personality type, because if you can see her type, you can look at what more mature individuals of the same type have that she is lacking(or what parts of their personality they have control over that your wife doesent have control over)

If you look at personality consisting of these four things(which everyone has, but some people dont have conscious control over, unless they are mature persons)

T - making decisions based on principle of logical and rational analysis
F - making decisions based on principle of whats of value
N - perceiving according to principle of possibility
S - perceiving according to what is(fact that can be perceived, not about logical analysis)

now all of these function can be either directed towards external or internal world, if you prefer S for example and direct it towards external world, N is less conscious since it opposes N and is directed towards intdrnal world, same with the two decision making functions.

When the most preferred function is directed towards external world, the person is extraverted and if most preferred function is directed towards internal world, the person is introverted. remember that we all have two introverted and two extraverted functions, its just a matter of to which function and direction we consciously are used to use.

Personal development could be seen as developing the functions which arent naturally preferred.

To me she seems like she prefers introverted feeling(f oriented towards internal world)as primary way of judging/deciding what to do. hard to say if she prefers one extraverted perceiving function more(based on your description). which would suggest that she has poorly  developed T oriented towards external world. So her becoming more mature would mean that she needs to develop T in her.

This cant be done if she doesent make a conscious effort on stopping and considering the thing at hand from T perspective.

Because(or if) her her preferred judging is F in introverted attitude, she prefers either S or N in extraverted attitude. Developing this non preferred perception(that is directed towards internal world), will give her more grounding perspective.

So i suggest either analyzing which functions she uses and her developing the functions she is lacking, by stopping and trying to see the thing also from this non preferred perspective before making a judgment or deciding that something is as she perceives.

[PVK444]

Many thanks for this interesting reply!

I am familiar with the personality types you mentioned, and similar "classifications" but I have not seen the breakdown into these functions before. Is this part of a specific approach / branch and if yes, would you have any references for more indepth study? It makes definitely sense.

Thank you again!

[INTP]

I assume you have heard of MBTI. MBTI types are based on these functions, which were developed by carl jung. the problem with MBTI is that it makes huge generalizations about type and these functions and pretty much only looks at the surface of personality(like big 5, but makes types from them unlike big 5). reading about MBTI can give you some understanding of types, but jungs typology will give you alot more insight to type. MBTI is basically a dummy version of jungs typology, alot is left out and even more is simplified so much that it sort of distorts the whole idea. but the problem with jungs typology is that its really complex and hard to understand in its totality, so its good to read both, but keep in mind that MBTI is just a distorted dummy version.

If you want to learn about the subject(which in my opinion everyone should in order to really understand others, self and to grow as a person), you should definitely read jung book 'psychological types', which is where MBTI was developed from.
 http://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Types-Collected-Works-Vol-6/dp/0691018138

here is the chapter 10, type descriptions: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm
the descriptions themselves are really important to read, but there are other equally important chapters in the book.

Here is a link to podcasts made by jungian analyst, there is 3 chapters for the typology. some of the others might be good to listen too, but stuff like dream analysis doesent really help you with your problem, chapters of individuation tho is really important to listen. Also model of psyche, chapters about persona and shadow/anima might be good ones to listen. http://www.jungian.ca/jung-podcasts/

Also there is another system than MBTI made from jungs work called socionics. Im not really fan of that, but it has looked bit on type relations. Just remember that socionic type codes are different from MBTI. MBTI determines J and P in type code based on how the person prefers to act with external world and with socionics its about dominant function. So for example MBTI INTP would be socionics INTj, because of functions Ti Ne Si Fe, the first function is J(udging), but most preferred E(Ne) function is P(erceiving). MBTI INTJ (NiTeFiSe) would be INTp in socionics. extraverted types have same code in both systems naturally.
 http://www.socionics.com/rel/rel.htm
I dont suggest reading other stuff on socionics than type relations, because its simplified and looks at surface worse than MBTI and tries to form conclusions about the simplifications, thus fails pretty badly. Even the type relation stuff shouldnt be taken as a fact, but more as, well if it fits, it might explain something, if it doesent fit, dont worry about it.

One reasonably good book(which i have read) about MBTI side of this is Lenore Thompsons 'personality type; an owners manual'. But there is one big problem with it, it assumes that we use all four functions in both I and E orientation, when infact its just that undeveloped(undifferentiated) functions cling on other functions and make it seem as if the undifferentiated/unconscious function has changed its orientation. But these added orientationed functions in the book(called crows nest and double agent functions) do explain reasonably well how functions work if they are unconscious and chained to other functions. Also what lenore says about brain type stuff has been pretty much debunked, but that part of the book doesent make much difference to the subject. This might be the book to buy if you want something easy to read, but listen to what jung says about this stuff too and especially try to understand the differentiation and individuation concepts.
 http://www.amazon.com/Personality-Type-Lenore-Bentz-Thomson/dp/1570629870

Also if you are interested on learning about this, there are some forums about the subject(but people mainly use just MBTI, not jungian stuff there). My personal favourite forum about the subject: http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/forum.php
Plenty of good people there.