 Our childhood experiences make up the foundation of who we are, our beliefs, attitudes and even love style. A person's love style is defined as a specific pattern of behavior related to how they receive and express love. According to researchers, there are five different love styles that a person exhibits as a result of childhood experience. In this video, I will share with you the five love styles. 1. The Pleaser. Were your parents overly critical with you? Were they challenging to please? Or did you get the sense that they only loved you when you succeeded and were angry with you when you failed? The people who tend to express love in the Pleaser style grew up in homes with parents who were either angry and critical or overly protective. Children who were pressured into meeting their parents' expectations to have their emotional needs met tend to develop a compulsive need to please other people as well. The Pleaser might also have grown up in families with distressed parents or very wild siblings. Growing up, the Pleaser is usually the good kid. They do everything within their ability to be on their best behavior so as not to incur the provocation of their parents who will usually react harshly to any perceived misdeed. Rather than receiving comfort from their parents, children who turn out to be Pleasers are the ones who give comfort to their reactive parents. On the outside, Pleasers may seem to be well put together like they have everything figured out and other people may even envy them. Pleasers are usually very friendly, have a giving nature and are generally very committed. This is what attracts their partners to them. Their feelings, want, and need. When they are angry with their spouse, they express passive aggressiveness rather than directly addressing the situation because they are scared that a direct approach might lead to confrontation, which they don't like in the first place. Sometimes they might even lie about what they feel to avoid a conflict. They would rather create a relationship than talking about the problems. To build stable relationships, people who find themselves in this category should learn to be honest about themselves. They have to learn how to stand up for themselves and do what feels right to them instead of what is expected of them. 2. The Avoider Do you always say you are okay? Do you try to cover your pains just so that those around you will not know? Growing up, did you feel like personal concerns were rarely ever discussed within your family? If yes, then you have the Avoider Love Style. The Avoider Love Style is one characterized by inhibited emotions, a strong need for independence, and a fear of intimacy. People who develop this love style are those whose parents neglected their emotional needs and discouraged them from expressing their feelings. Growing up in homes devoid of affection, avoiders are not very good at expressing their love verbally. Instead, they might prefer to express their love through nonverbal ways such as quality attention, giving of gifts, and physical touch. However, even physical contact might be a problem for the Avoider. For instance, some avoiders might only be comfortable with physical touch during sex. During the early stages of a relationship, the spouse of an Avoider is usually attracted by the sense of stability, responsibility, and predictability in the Avoider's life. With time, however, the partner might feel like they are not needed and that they are left out in decision making. The spouse can also feel like the Avoider is indifferent or emotionally detached. To have healthy, stable, and long lasting relationships, Avoiders need to learn how to open up to their partners and freely express their emotions. 3. The Victim In the words of Eric Erikson's famous psychosocial therapy of development, when our parents act too controlling and overprotective of us, it cultivates feelings of shame, self-doubt, and helplessness that many of us will struggle to overcome even as you grow older. From a very young age, victims learn that the best way to survive is to be compliant and to stay under the radar so that they don't attract a lot of attention to themselves because they grew up with parents who negatively showed them attention. They learn to hide and stay quiet whenever the violent parent is around because they know the parent might get triggered by anything and take out his or her anger on them. So, if you're the type who feels that your spouse would get even angrier if you spoke up more or express your opinions more intensely, you are mostly exhibiting the victim's love style. The spouses of victims are initially attracted to them due to the victim's compliance and non-resistance. However, much later in the relationship, the spouse might start seeing them as a kid and start despising them because of their weakness. To build stable, healthy relationships, victims should learn to stand up for themselves instead of letting their partners manipulate and take advantage of them. 4. The Controller People who exhibit the controller love style grew up in homes where they were not given a lot of attention or any sense of protection. Without the parent's or guardian's protection, this children learn that the only way to survive is to toughen up and learn how to take care of themselves. People who adopt this particular love style are often assertive, rigid, and headstrong. They build a very thick wall around them so that nobody can come in and hurt them. Controllers feel the need to be in control at all times because this helps them keep away the feeling of fear, helplessness, and humiliation. If you take away their sense of control, they are usually left feeling very vulnerable. They are aggressive and tend to display violent anger, especially if they feel threatened. Are you the kind of spouse who believes that one person has to be in charge and if it is not you in control, you will be controlled? Do you get angry when things do not go the way you want them to go? Women who express the controller lifestyle are usually perceived as unsubmissive sadists. The spouses of controllers are initially attracted to them because they like the controller's decisiveness and their ability to take charge. Deeper into the relationship, however, the spouse might start feeling afraid or abused. To build stable, healthy, and long-lasting relationships, controllers need to learn how to trust others, how to relinquish control, and how to control their anger. Five, the vacillator. Are your relationships characterized by high level of internal conflict and emotional stress? Do you sometimes find yourself picking fights with your partner, even if you are not sure the reason behind the dispute? If this is the case, then your love style is vacillator. The vacillator grew up with unpredictable parents who are unstable and inconsistent with their care and affection. The vacillator is romantic and idealistic, but often to a fault. They have difficulty maintaining intimate relationships because they tend to idealize the people they love and hold them to incredibly high standards. They ask too much from their partners and don't give them any room for mistakes because they learn from a young age how painful it is to be let down by the people you love. During the initial stage of a relationship, the spouse of a vacillator is attracted by the fact that there is a lot of passion. But further into the relationship, the companion starts feeling like they're not enough. This is because no matter what they do, the vacillator expects more. They have an idealized image of what they want their spouse to be. This causes their partner to be too careful with them. For the vacillator to build a stable and healthy relationship, he or she needs to learn how to take time to know their partner before fully committing to their relationship and how to have realistic expectations of a relationship so they don't end up getting hurt by their expectations. Learning how your specific love style affects your romantic relationships can help you cultivate better relationships.