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Why are we attracted to people who remind us of our parents?

WORDS BY MIA HARRISON

“What felt familiar to you as a child is likely what will feel familiar to you as an adult. You may find yourself repeating similar relationship situations that all follow a pattern.”

Have you ever had that awful shuddering feeling when you realise that perhaps there are some noticeable similarities between the people you sleep with and your parents? Maybe you’ve never actually noticed it yourself, but someone has pointed it out to you (thanks for that, asshole). 

You could be one of the lucky ones that this has never happened to. You may be reflecting on your romantic history and breathing a sigh of relief when you realise your type is worlds apart from the people who raised you. But I find it hard to believe you’re totally unfamiliar with this concept.


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Look, we’re all well-versed in the game ‘siblings or dating’, right? I hate to break it to you but being attracted to someone similar to a family member isn’t just a spectacle you see on the internet. It’s a very common occurrence. In fact, take a look at the people around you and at their parents and partners – you may just start to see a pattern in the way we choose lovers.

But there’s no need to freak out. It’s safe to say (I hope) that nobody’s intentionally hunting for a lookalike of their father or mother when seeking out romantic and sexual partners, but it definitely can happen unknowingly. Research shows that, although it’s not exclusive to, it’s more common in heterosexual and monoracial couples, and often the striking similarities are between the parent of the same sex as the person you’re seeking out.  

Much like, I don’t know, everything else, it’s safe to assume we can somehow blame this on our childhood. But why does it actually happen? I spoke to sex therapist and the Director of Love Therapy Australia, Lauren Bradley, to find out why it happens.

So, we’ve heard about attachment styles and love languages being derived from the patterns of parent-child relationships, but what does it mean if the people you’re attracted to share personality traits and physical attributes with your parents? 

Early attachment and interpersonal experiences play a vital role in what we perceive as healthy and satisfying relationships. As a young mouldable human being, we develop a relational template for what to expect within close relationships. This template forms from our experiences with those closest to us and we tend to gravitate toward similar experiences in life as we grow.  

What felt familiar to you as a child is likely what will feel familiar to you as an adult. You may find yourself repeating similar relationship situations that all follow a pattern; you desperately need your prospective partner and become anxious, and they avoid and become distant, for example. Our templates for healthy relationships aren’t always formed from our parents. It just takes one secure, stable individual to teach us what healthy experiences feel like and that could be anyone in your childhood.  

Positive sexual imprinting’ is the name given to the process where a person uses physical features (often called the phenotypes) of their parent as a template for features they find attractive in partners. The research was conducted on heterosexuals and found that the people they were attracted to often had facial and body characteristics in common with their parents of the gender they were attracted to.  

If someone finds this pattern of familiarity in their relationship history  does it suggest they have some Freudian-type romantic attraction to their own parents? 

Research found that the phenomenon of positive sexual imprinting was more common in people who experienced positive interactions with their parents in childhood. Before you dry retch into your bowl of cereal, this absolutely doesn’t mean that they find their parents sexy or are trying to have sex with someone who looks like their parents. Attraction to form close relationships and sexual desire are two very separate things. Research has also found that humans experience a sexual aversion to people that look too similar to their close family – this is called negative sexual imprinting or ‘the Westermarck effect’.  

Positive sexual imprinting is not the same as the Freudian Oedipus complex. Freud focused on the unconscious sexual desire he proposed a child had for their parent, while positive sexual imprinting suggests the attraction for relationships and close connection. It also comes hand-in-hand with negative sexual imprinting that prevents incest. Essentially, our biology may be telling us unconsciously to gravitate toward the familiar for connection, but not for procreation. Family are for loving, not for lovemaking (unless you’re on Game of Thrones). Feel relieved now?  

What about ‘mummy/daddy issues’? Is there evidence to suggest this phenomenon is more likely if someone’s had a turbulent and/or absent relationship with their parent? 

If your partner has features that are similar to your parent of the same gender, you don’t have ‘mummy/daddy issues’, you’re just following a biological line that draws you to what feels safe and familiar. Your biology is also highly likely to reject close family as prospective sexual mates, which accounts for that ‘Eww gross’ thought you’re probably thinking as you realise your husband and your dad both have brown hair. The best evolutionary advantage for the human species it seems is to get close to what you know is safe and healthy, but not too close that we damage the gene pool.    

Despite it being a weirdly common phenomenon, there’s also plenty of evidence to suggest this isn’t a universal thing. Is there anything that makes someone more susceptible to seeking out this familiarity? 

We definitely consider more than just simple biology to select a partner. We have evolved to consider multiple facets above and beyond the primitive. Many people also experience complex parental relationships that simply aren’t great templates for what we need in stable healthy partnerships. We must execute judgement and choice over what is right for us and continue to evaluate that over time as our circumstances and partners change along with ourselves.  

What would you like our readers to know about this topic? 

It would be fascinating to see research conducted on positive sexual imprinting from other positive interpersonal relationships such as a great childhood teacher, neighbour [or] family friend. Perhaps those relationships leave a lasting impression on what we find attractive too, and without the repulsion element?  

Remember, attraction and closeness versus sexual desire [are] not the same. Wanting to be close to your parent, liking their attributes and wanting those qualities in a partner, does not mean you want to have sex with your parent. It means that your parent has done an excellent job role-modelling healthy experiences for you in your childhood.  

You can find Lauren Bradley on Instagram here or visit her website Love Therapy Australia.

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