How My Childhood Shaped the Way I Date, Love, and Marry

For many years, I didn’t realize how much my childhood shaped the way I dated, the partners I chose, and even the kind of love I believed that I deserved.

I thought that I was just making normal life choices.

But when I look back now, so many of those choices weren’t really mine.

They were shaped by survival.

By expectations from others.

By a version of “love” I grew up watching – even when that version wasn’t healthy.

And I suspect I’m not alone in that.

Doing What Was Expected

When I was younger, I was very good at doing what was expected of me.  I was expected to:

Be responsible.

Be strong.

Don’t cause problems.

Hold everything together.

Keep moving forward (no complaining!).

So, when I started dating my first husband, it didn’t feel like a bad relationship. But it also wasn’t a great one. I just didn’t know the difference, because I didn’t grow up seeing what a healthy relationship actually looked like.

I remember thinking:

“Well… this is better than what my parents had. So, I guess that means I’m doing better. I guess that means I’m winning.”

But “better than bad” is not the same thing as healthy.

I didn’t know that yet.

Somewhere along the way, I had read that relationships are most successful if you date for about two years before getting engaged. And instead of treating that as a guideline, I treated it like a rule. Like a deadline.

So when we hit that two-year mark, I thought,

“Okay… this is what comes next. This is what we’re supposed to do.”

I was only 21. There was no real reason to rush.

But… people were asking when we were getting married.

Family had expectations.

And I was so used to living up to other people’s expectations that I didn’t even stop to ask myself:

Is this what I want?

Is he really the right person for me?

Are we really compatible? (News flash – we weren’t!)

When Love Felt Like Safety and Obligation

Here’s the part I understand now, but couldn’t then:

With my first husband, it was the first time I had ever felt loved by anyone – truly.

Even though, in the long run, he turned out to be a very bad husband (immature, irresponsible with money, and unfaithful), I hadn’t felt that kind of attention or affection before. And once you’ve lived without it for so long, it’s hard to let go when you finally get a taste of it.

I grew up in an extremely conservative Baptist church where the expectation was clear: marry young and be a wife. No one really talked about it being acceptable to choose something else.

When I was 18 years old, dating a 24-year-old named Nick, my parents started telling me they had “been praying for me to find a husband.” I was only 18. Why on earth was that the priority?

It was especially ironic given that my father had continued abusing me until around that age. Looking back, I suspect that once I was “too old” for his interest, the focus shifted to marrying me off to someone else.

My ex-husband Victor was twelve years older than me. He felt mature. He felt safe. He was also my boss when we started dating (which comes with its own set of red flags that no one in my family ever questioned).

At nineteen, I didn’t see it as inappropriate.

I saw it as being chosen.

His love bombing hit a place in my soul that had been lonely and unloved for a very long time. It took years to realize that once he had “caught” me, the effort slowly disappeared.

And then, shortly after we married, we got custody of my sisters.

At that point, divorce felt impossible. I was terrified I couldn’t survive financially on my own. I believed dual income was the only way I could keep everything together.

Turns out, I was wrong.

His spending was so careless that I was actually better off financially after leaving. There was fear when I divorced – a lot of it – but there was also relief. And eventually, there was happiness.

Caretaker Love and the Feeling of Being “Needed”

Looking back, the pattern is so clear now.

I kept ending up in caretaker or fixer relationships.

I was the steady one.

The responsible one.

The one who carried the emotional load.

And on some level, I think I believed:

“I’ve been through so much… maybe this is the only thing I can really offer another person.”“Maybe people who are fully healthy and secure don’t choose damaged people like me.”

Being needed felt like love.

But it wasn’t partnership.

It was draining.

For a long time, I didn’t know how to ask myself the question I now use as a compass:

Is this relationship nourishing me… or draining me?

Back then, the answer would have been draining.

And I stayed anyway.

Therapy, Intuition, and Re-Learning Love

Therapy changed that for me.

Not overnight. Not magically. But slowly — conversation by conversation — I began to see my patterns.

I learned how often I overrode my own intuition.

I would notice red flags and tell myself:

“No… it’s fine. I’m overreacting. I can fix this.”

My therapist helped me recalibrate my internal meter.

We talked through dates, situations, and relationship dynamics. And over time, I started to understand what healthy actually feels like… and what it doesn’t.

I began asking better questions:

Whose expectations am I living up to — mine or someone else’s?

Is this relationship nourishing me or draining me?

Do I feel chosen — or just useful?

Am I being taken advantage of, or is this an equally contributing partnership?

Once I started asking those questions, my relationships and outcomes shifted.

The Moment I Knew This Was Different

There was a moment with my now-husband that made everything click.

We were engaged and having our first serious conversation about finances. I was incredibly anxious. Money had been such a source of pain and instability in my first marriage that I carried a deep fear of being financially damaged by another partner.

I was emotional during parts of the conversation.

But we talked it through.

We discussed pros and cons.

We made a plan that worked for both of us.

We discussed prenups and what to do if we ended up divorcing.

And afterward, I remember thinking:

Holy cow… we can have hard conversations without yelling.

Without anger.

Without punishment for having a different perspective.

And he understood my fears and was amenable to finding ways to mitigate them.

That was new.

It was the first time I felt what partnership actually looks like.

Not perfection.

Not agreement on everything.

But safety inside disagreement.

What I Feel Compassion for Now

When I look back at my younger self, I see how much I tolerated – from both men and women I dated.

I gave too much of my time.

Too much of my money.

Too much of my energy.

Too much of my love.

And yet… I don’t think I would change it.

I learned what the bad looks like.So now it’s easier – or at least getting easier – to recognize the good.

Even my first marriage had a strange, complicated gift inside it: because I was married, I was able to gain custody of my sisters. The courts likely would have been skeptical of a 22-year-old single woman raising two teenagers.

Being married made that possible.

I don’t give my ex any credit for that.

But it softens how I judge myself for the red flags I ignored.

It all worked out in the end – not because the choices were perfect, but because I kept growing.

Closing

My childhood shaped the way I dated, loved, and married.

But healing shaped the way I love now.

If you grew up without healthy relationship models, that doesn’t mean you’re broken or incapable of love. It just means you had to learn it consciously instead of by example.

And that kind of love – the love you grow into through healing – is  powerful in a quiet, steady way.

If any of this resonates with you… if you’ve ever stayed for expectations, ignored your intuition, or found yourself in caretaker relationships – you are not alone.

And you deserve a relationship that nourishes you too.

Thank you for being here with me.

I hope my stories help you to tell yours.

Some of these reflections live in spoken form too.

If hearing them feels helpful, you can find related conversations on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@janaecherie