11 Ways Having Parents That Hate Each Other Messes You Up For Life

1. You search for flaws in all your partners. You’ve never seen a healthy relationship so when things seem too perfect, you get suspicious. You start to dig for problems, because you refuse to believe the person you’re dating is as nice as they seem. You assume they’re hiding something.

2. You can’t stand confrontation. You remember hiding away in your room and blasting music as your parents screamed through the walls. That’s why you’d rather push your feelings deep down than confront someone about a problem. You avoid fighting at all costs.

3. You shy away from affection. You didn’t grow up seeing your parents plant kisses on each other and say, “I love you” before leaving the house. Affection is foreign to you. That’s why you’re so uncomfortable with PDA.

4. You settle for less than you should. You don’t know what you deserve because, outside of movies, you’ve never seen how two people that love and respect each other behave. You’ve only seen the dark side of relationships. You’ve never seen the light.

5. You create problems. You feel damaged. You feel like you don’t have what it takes to be a good partner. So, sometimes, you walk away. Or you push someone away. You ruin a perfectly good thing, because of your paranoia.

6. You’re extra sensitive about cheating. You always have your eyes open. You watch to see if your partner comes home from work too late, texts too much, goes out too much, Snapchats too much. Even if you trust your partner, there’s still a little bit of worry hidden in the back of your mind.

7. You feel like love is for idiots. You wish you were emotionless, but that’s far from the truth. So whenever you fall in love, you hate yourself for it. Why? Because it’s hard for you to stay positive. Because your parents will make comments about how they used to be that happy and about how love never lasts.

8. You’re usually single. You get scared off if someone is too nice to you. Or too mean to you. Or too indifferent. You make excuses to stay single, because — even if you don’t realize it — you think the single life is easier.

9. You come across as anti-family. You put off introducing your partner to your parents for as long as you can, because you don’t want them in the same room at the same time. But it’s not that you hate your family. You just hate certain aspects of your family.

10. You have to unlearn everything you were taught. Remember all of those screaming matches where your parents accused each other of lying and cheating and using? When you were a kid, you thought that was normal, but if you treated one of your partners like that now, they would leave — which means you have to relearn everything you learned throughout childhood.

11. You don’t know if you believe in forever. When things get serious, you freak out. You like the idea of commitment, but you really don’t want to end up like your parents. You’re terrified of making a lifelong promise to someone and eventually falling out of love with them. That’s the worst thing you could ever imagine.