On relationship deja vu--Family edition

I'm not totally sure which direction this post is going to take, but I decided that it's kind of a big topic so I should probably break it into two.

I am reading a book now called Intimate Partners about marriage relationships. It starts out talking about family histories and roles and how people tend to fill roles that are familiar to them, that have been modeled for them. For example, the girl who grows up in a home with an alcoholic father finds herself in a relationship with an alcoholic husband. It's something familiar to her. She knows how to be the supportive wife of the alcoholic husband because that is what she has seen modeled for her in her home. She may not consciously want to be there, but ends up there because that's the role she knows how to play. It is, of course, more complex than that, but I think this much will suffice for what I want to say.

After reading that section of the book, I got to thinking about what roles I know how to play, which ones have been modeled for me. I know how to be the strong, independent woman, the single mother. I grew up with my mother and grandmother who are both kind and capable and funny and do it all themselves. I can see in myself even now that I know how to do that, and I'm comfortable with it. It scares me just a little bit to realize that I don't know the loving and beloved wife role. I've never seen it. It's unfamiliar and therefore very scary. I can be pretty uncomfortable even being a girlfriend. It's not that I think I'm so terrible at it (I am a good person and a good friend, after all), it's just that I'm so unsure of how to be and what is appropriate. It's unfamiliar, which makes it stressful, which makes being alone a lot easier, which brings me back to the single woman. Relationship deja vu.

Something else in my book led my thoughts in a rather personal direction. The author says that people tend to recreate in their marriage relationship the same dynamic that existed in their relationship with their parent, especially if there are unresolved issues or feelings. Zing! That struck a chord. I think that Steve, my former therapist, was hinting at this once and that I didn't fully capture what he was saying. My dad abandoned and rejected me when I was a young girl. It was a good thing in many respects but was also terribly painful. Although I didn't realize it, I really wanted and needed a father. I didn't know it, but I wanted him to come back, I wanted him to love me, I wanted him to change his mind. I've recreated this same scenario with young men I have dated. When they break up with me is when I want them most. I want them to realize their mistakes and to come back and to love me. These thoughts and feelings are pervasive and difficult to let go. Lurking in my subconscious there seems to be this idea that a young man coming back to me will make up for or somehow resolve the conflict of my childhood, that it will fill the gaping hole that was created when my father left. Relationship deja vu.