The soul of the family is larger than the people we know

When we say “my family,” we usually think of people. Mom, Dad, siblings, grandparents, partners, children. Maybe also those we are in contact with and those we are no longer.

Family exists in time as well. A person can die years before we were born and be part of the family reality we arrive into after them. A child who dies changes the lives of their parents and the home in which their siblings later grow up. Divorce changes the structure of the family. The immigration of grandparents can determine where the next generations will live, what language they will speak, and which family members they will know.

We arrive into the family at a certain point within its story. There were lives in it before us and there will be lives in it after us. Our place within it is not the place of those who came before us, even when their lives influenced the conditions into which we were born.

There is what happened, and there is what the family tells happened

Every family has a story about itself. In one family they tell with pride about the grandfather who built everything with his own hands. In another family the story about the woman who held everyone together during a difficult time repeats again and again. There are families that know exactly who sacrificed for whom, who was “the good child,” who succeeded and who disappointed.

The family story is always partial. Alongside it are people who are mentioned little, events about which there is no clear version, and questions that no one can answer anymore. A story can pass from generation to generation until it is hard to know what in it is fact, what is interpretation, and what was added along the way.

We also grow up within the version the family tells about itself—whom they admired, at whom they were angry, who is to blame, who was forgotten, what is spoken about and what remains outside the story.

The family constellation view is also interested in what does not enter this version. Not in order to forcibly complete what is missing, but in order to remember that the story we know is not the entire family.

Belonging to the family does not depend on closeness

A brother who died in childhood remains a brother even if his name is hardly spoken. A father remains a father even if his children are not in contact with him. A former partner was part of the life story even after the relationship ended. A person who was distanced from the family was in it before they were distanced.

Belonging is not the same as closeness. This distinction is especially important in families where there was a need for distance or disconnection. Acknowledging belonging does not require forgiveness, reconciliation, or renewing contact. It is possible to acknowledge that a person is my father and choose not to meet him. It is possible to know that someone is my mother and maintain a boundary that protects me.

For those who live without family support, there is a significant distinction here. I do not need to erase the family I came from in order to choose distance from it. The distance determines the relationships I maintain today. It does not change the fact that these are the people I came from.

I wrote extensively about this tension within couplehood in the article My partner cannot be the family I didn’t have.

What happens to those who disappear from the family story?

There are those whose picture hangs on the wall and about whom they tell the grandchildren. Of another person only a name remains. A child who died and whose name is hardly spoken, a family member who was distanced, a former partner who was erased from the story, a person who did a difficult deed and became someone they don’t talk about.

From the family constellation point of view, precisely these people deserve attention. Not because it is possible to know what their influence is on the family members living today, but because their absence from the story does not cancel their place in the family.

This distinction is delicate. Giving a person a place does not mean justifying their actions. A person can belong to the family and also bear responsibility for serious harm. The one who was hurt by them is not required to get close to them, forgive them, or change their story in order to acknowledge the fact that they were part of the family system.

When you return to the picture a person who was forgotten, you do not fix the past. The picture simply becomes more complete.

Can family patterns begin before we were born?

A woman who fears abandonment may discover that in her family there were many separations and losses. A man who has difficulty getting close to his wife may recognize that in the home where he grew up closeness was also complicated. A woman who feels she must take care of everyone may see before her several generations of women who carried great responsibility for the family.

In family constellation we may be interested in such connections, without rushing to turn them into an explanation. The fact that two stories are similar does not prove that one caused the other. Even a strong experience that arises in constellation does not prove what happened in the past.

The value is sometimes found in the very possibility of seeing our lives within a broader picture. A person who was convinced they are dealing with something that belongs only to them may discover that the issue is very familiar in their family. From here it is possible to look at it differently—as part of a family story and also as part of their own life in the present.

How much do we really know about our family?

We know something about our parents, and we also knew them first of all as parents. Their lives before we were born we know through what they chose to tell. About the grandparents we know less. Another generation back, and sometimes only names, country of origin, a few pictures and stories that passed in the family remain.

Behind these names were whole lives. Loves we did not know, siblings we did not hear about, wars, immigration, poverty, successes, illnesses, separations, decisions, fears and secrets. Most of them will never reach us.

There is something important in agreeing not to know. The systemic view does not require us to fill every gap in the family story with speculation. We can acknowledge that there were lives we do not know, people about whom we know little, and events we will never know exactly how they occurred.

They too are part of the family.

The soul of the family within emotional and couples therapy

A person comes to therapy because of what is happening in their life now—difficulty in couplehood, loneliness, a complicated relationship with parents, a fear that is not clear where it comes from, or a pattern they recognize and cannot manage to change.

The family constellation view allows expanding the picture. Alongside what is happening to the person today, I can also be interested in the family into which they were born—who were the significant people in it, what losses and separations occurred in it, who remained close, who distanced, and who almost disappeared from the story.

I am not looking in the past for an answer that will explain the person sitting before me. I am interested in their place within the picture. Who came before them, to whom they belong, who was missing, and what relationships and events preceded their life.

In couples therapy two family pictures meet through two people. Each brings with them a different history of closeness, loss and belonging. Familiarity with this history does not exempt anyone from responsibility for what they do within the relationship today, and it can help us see that the couple’s meeting does not start from zero.

In the article The orders of love: You love each other. So why is it so hard for you together? I expand on the place from which partners meet each other within the relationship.