One of the repeated patterns that I see as a counselor is people choosing partners with whom marriage is a "tradition" started by their background and parents. When that "heritage" is neurotic, destructive or dysfunctional, I call it "hurtage." Sometimes the "hurtage" is blatant, sometimes subtle. However, what matters is that the choice of partner and relating style or pattern stems from some psychological factor such as 1. a role model; 2. defending against a painful or negligent aspect of one or both parents; 3. internal unconscious association with some aspect of life which stemmed from that parent or that environment; 4. striving and longing after some intense emotional need; 5. self-image; etc. (or any combination, as may apply in individual cases).

When parents make demands, criticize, emotionally neglect or reject, emotionally or physically disappear, seek their needs from their children or psychologically "put their stuff" onto their children; the children are deprived of their childhood, of the development of their intrinsic personality and their potential to have a full and authentic life as the individual they were created by G-d to be. This can include the child's direction in life, profession, capacity to function as a normal and independent adult, inner happiness, co-dependent and dysfunctional relationship choices and abilities, and spiritual or material achievements in the world. This can be tremendously costly in the context of the child's growing into being a spouse and parent.

Whether the child's emotional prod is to perpetuate or to escape their parents' psychological poison, their mate selection and marriage conduct is profoundly and destructively impacted. Often, they do not see what they are doing and seek to put blame on everyone else for what does not work. When two people's neurotic needs feed into eachother, the combination of the "packages" together generally makes for extremely difficult, painful, complex conditions. Some people constantly rescue or protect another person, some deny or bury their feelings, some try to control and manipulate, some let themselves be used (generally out of desperation for love and approval) and then feel resentful, some constantly feel disappointed or unappreciated, some are malcontent or bored unless a relationship is unstable or exciting; some are perfectionistic, critical, judgmental, punitive, compulsive, abusive, workaholic, nervous, tough, or overly cautious; etc. Since most are seeking one-sided relationships in a blind drive to satisfy needs, their relationships generally start with a romantic stage in which the two are "winning" eachother. Then the relationship grows comfortable and tends to degenerate to angry, intense, near-constant, unbearable and incomprehensible hostility ["it was so beautiful once!"].

Often when we trace the person's psychological history in counseling, there is tremendous wound, emptiness, defense, resentment, terror, insecurity, anger, anguish, emotional starvation, tension, restlessness and/or frustration.

When adults are caught in the complex web of having come from a negative and deficient childhood, we have to decide on how to approach each situation on its own merits. We always try to increase the person's understanding of the origins of his feelings, behaviors and patterns. After intellectual realization, it is imperative to progressively bring this to the point of EMOTIONAL ASSIMILATION. ONLY THEN does lasting change take place, when the root of a problem is rooted deep beneath the surface. Behavior modification does not work, and sometimes backfires, if a person's issues start beneath the surface and his behavior is only changed on the surface. The neurosis just keeps manifesting in new ways. Since Behavior Modification somewhat stems from study of animals, there is a halachic problem with Behavior Modification for the observant Jew. Tosfos [Chulin 42b] says that it is forbidden to study animal behavior for the purpose of learning human behavior. This fits our premise very well. When there is no under-the-surface pathology, a Torah variant of Behavior Modification was used by the original baalai mussar for midos and spiritual elevation, which is permitted to use.