One of my dream jobs was to be a movie critic growing up. What a great job! To get paid to watch movies.

If you think about your favorite movie or the most iconic movies, they have many things in common. Do you know one of the things that can make or break a movie?

The soundtrack.

The right song played at just the right moment makes all the difference. 

Some soundtracks are iconic and stay with you. 

Did you know that every relationship has a tone, a soundtrack?

This tone, this soundtrack is how a relationship plays out. There is a rhythm, how things are done in every relationship we have. 

Some of them just happened to show up. You showed up in the midst of some of them, like when you get a new job or join a new friend group. Some relationships you have left because of the tone and soundtrack. 

​​When we think of tone, we immediately think of communication. Think of the words used in a conversation or even how a husband and wife talk to or argue with each other and how parents and kids talk. Or how a boss and employee interact. And how friends speak to each other at school. 

While that is part of the tone, the tone is so much bigger and more profound than that.

The tone is the atmosphere of your relationships, your marriage. It’s the feeling you have in your house or that someone feels when they come over. It’s the feeling you get when you walk into work or school. It is the attitude, the emotions of your marriage and family.

The tone is not something you decide one day to have; it is embedded. It is often decided without being discussed. Culture just happens unless we do something.

But where does it come from?

For many of us, the tone of our relationships began a long time ago, before we were even born in our Family of Origin.

The tone of your marriage began a long time ago and had nothing to do with you. It started in the home you grew up in, the house your parents grew up in, the place your parents grew up in, and so on. It was passed down from generation to generation. Then, when you got married or went to college and moved out, you brought this story, this tone with you. 

Your spouse also brought theirs, if you’re married, and they collided together. You see it in small ways at the beginning in deciding how to do holiday traditions, where you will celebrate something, how you will parent your kids, how you will spend money and save.

Then, you see it in interactions: eye contact, how you speak to each other, and how you treat each other.

For girls, as teenagers and adults, how you view men and how you let them treat them is often connected to your relationship with your dad. 

For boys, the way you view women and treat them is often connected to how you watched your dad treat your mom. 

Every family has a tone, a narrative. Every relationship has a tone. It is inescapable. We often don’t think about it, though, for a simple reason. The tone and narrative we grew up with is all we know. It is how we see the world; it makes sense to us.

Think for a minute:

• What was the emotional atmosphere of your home growing up?
• Were your mom and dad emotionally close or distant?
• Did either of your parents rely on you for emotional support?
• Were either of your parents detached or uninvolved in your family?
• Were you ever mistreated by verbal, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse?
• Were either of your parents alcoholics?
• In your family, what were you allowed to do or not do? What were you allowed to be or not be?
• Lastly, what is the deepest wound you suffered in your family of origin? Abandonment, abuse, addiction, walking on eggshells?

The list goes on and on.

This is the tone.

Let me give you a few examples:

• Money was tight in your family, so you saved and saved. Money was your security. The tone of life is hectic, stressful, always watching every penny. The tone of your relationships very quickly becomes one of desperation.
• One parent is an alcoholic. The tone is one of walking around quietly, silently, and not wanting to do anything to set that parent off. The other parent makes excuses. You eventually make excuses to others for that parent.
• Perfection is the name of the game. Everything must be perfect. If you aren’t perfect, at least appear perfect. Always look perfect, act perfect. If a relationship isn’t perfect, pretend it is. Eventually, you have no idea what is real or not, but perfection matters.
• Grades. Grades are the key to getting ahead. If you excel in school, you win and get attention; a good job. This carries into your career. The way to win attention is to be good at what you do. Weakness is for the people who lose. Fear of failure overwhelms you. If you feel, it shows you are inadequate.
• Never good enough. The tone of this family is that we can never win, we can never get ahead. The only people who make it is everyone else. This is almost like Eyore from Winnie the Pooh in human form. Nothing good happens to this family or in this family.

Those are just a few examples, but I could go on and on.

The point is we all have a story, a narrative we carry with us from our family of origin. 

This is the tone of our lives, the story we know, the story we tell, and the story we live. When we get married, we bring this story, this tone with us, and our spouse brings a different story and tone. Our interactions with each other are based on this.

And this is important: The tone of your relationships determines the outcome of your relationships.

Growing up, the tone in your family has determined a lot of your life today. It has determined how you view authority, money, sexuality, and so much more. It has shaped the way you see yourself and the world around you.

We often do our best to run from it, but it usually stays with us.

So what do we do?

Too often, we try to jump into changing something without knowing what we are trying to change.

To change anything, we must name it. We must be aware of it.

So, what was the tone or narrative of your family growing up? How has it shaped you in positive and negative ways? What wounds are you still carrying that you need to deal with? What hurts are you covering up or running from?

There is freedom on the other side of these questions, but they are difficult paths and often need to be walked with a trusted friend or a professional counselor.