Roles in romantic relationships - The child, adult and parent

People play three roles in their romantic relationships, the parent, the adult and the child. These determine the way they interact with each other.

Everyday people relate to each other in multiple ways. They relate to their family, friends, partner, colleagues at work or even strangers. The way they connect to each other is called transaction. This includes not only the explicit behavior, but also the non-verbal communication that occurs between two people.

Eric Berne, a psychiatrist, claimed that there are three possible roles (also known as ego states) that a person plays in their transactions with other people. These are determined by childhood experiences, family life and environmental stimuli. These roles are the parental role, the adult role and the child role.

The Parent Role

The parent represents parental figures, the way he has experienced them in childhood. He is a dominant figure, who makes decisions not only for himself, but also for his partner. He tends to control his partner by means of criticizing him for his behaviour and giving him directions for proper acting. This tendency is often expressed as a willingness to protect, not as manipulative behaviour.

The Adult Role

The adult is supposed to be the ideal state. He is objective, does not get carried away by external stimuli and has found the proper way to match the rules he has adopted with his sentiments. He is independent, has formed his own opinion and has found ways to support it, if necessary.

The Child Role

The child represents childhood memories, not as actual events but as the feelings they had evoked to it. The child is led by sentiments. It is dependent and in constant need of somebody else. It usually is obedient and tries to conform to other people’s needs.

How Couples Relate

There are two types of transactions: the complementary transaction and the crossed transaction. The first type occurs when both partners address the ego state the other is in. If both partners are Adults then the relationship is harmonious.

Another example of a functional relationship (though not an ideal one) is that of parent and child. The parent is in the power position and the child obeys to his will, due to his reliance on the parent. Still, this type of interaction can lead to abusive behaviour or martyrdom. The "child" may regret this attitude of dependency, either because of guilt for having abandoned his or her own desires, or due to disappointment of the unfairness between them.

The crossed type of transaction leads to conflict. If a partner is an adult and knows how to express his opinion openly and frankly, he cannot be understood by an individual who is assuming the child's role, as the child responds with emotion. Moreover, an individual in the adult role cannot be manipulated by a parent, since he is self-sufficient.

Knowing the roles that people assume in a relationship is very important for understanding the criteria for choosing a partner, possible reasons for maintaining a dysfunctional relationship and ways to help people adopt the adult’s role, which is the ideal ego state.