When you’re a kid, you look to your parents as a model for everything, from what you eat to what you wear to the way you brush your teeth.
But even after you’re all grown up, your parents and your upbringing still have an influence on you — and that’s especially true when it comes to how your parents’ relationship affects your love life as an adult.
Of course, there are all kinds of factors that shape the way we view love, sex, and relationships, but the example we are given by our parents plays a huge part in how we’ll conduct our own love lives as adults.
Whether we realize it or not, the relationship (or lack thereof) between our parents subconsciously informs how we navigate dating and relationships as adults.
Here are seven ways our own relationship habits can be influenced by our parents’.
1. Our willingness to accept abusive behavior
Growing up in a toxic household affects you in a lot of ways — including in how you view your own relationships. As awful as it, being a victim of or witness to abuse between your parents can cause you to normalize abuse in your own relationships. Individuals who had parents fight in front of them and who used abusive language may be more prone to follow in this pattern or even accept this from a partner because they are used to it.
2. How comfortable we are with intimacy
If you grew up with parents who were super affectionate and lovey-dovey, it might be second nature for you to shower your partner with affection, too. On the flip side, having parents who were cold or distant to each other might make you less open to receiving physical affection from a partner.
3. The way we handle conflict resolution
One of the most important components of a successful relationship is the ability to resolve conflict in a healthy way. But if the example of “conflict resolution” you grew up with included a lot of yelling, you might be prone to following in your parents’ footsteps. Our parents (or guardians) serve as the main role model of how to conduct a relationship. For instance, if our parents resolve conflict by having yelling matches, we may learn that yelling is necessary in order to solve conflict.
4. How we express our emotions
Being able to effectively communicate how you feel is a crucial part of maintaining a healthy relationship — because how can you work through problems if you can’t articulate how you feel and why? If our parents didn’t express their emotions, we may have difficulty learning how to identify and express our own emotions.
5. Whether we exhibit controlling behaviors
Although there is such a thing as healthy jealousy, it’s absolutely *not* healthy for a partner to be so jealous that they resort to controlling behavior. But if you grew up with a parent who exhibited these kinds of behaviors, it might cause you to assume that’s the norm and then repeat the same mistakes in your own love life.
6. How much independence we crave
Having a partner to experience life with is awesome, but the healthiest couples are those that understand that it’s good to have some degree of independence in a relationship. If you grew up with parents who were *never* apart, that might make you desire a similar closeness with your partner — or it might make you wary of being too clingy. If your parents were very independent and did most things separately you may want the same for your relationship,
7. How trusting we are
Being able to trust your partner is essential to building a healthy, long-lasting relationship — but unfortunately, not everyone grows up with an example of what genuine trust in your partner looks like. A loving, supportive parent encourages a trusting view of others, whereas a hostile, rejecting, or unavailable parent erodes trust and safety and contributes to the belief that others cannot be counted on for love and support.
