9 Signs You Grew Up with Unhappily Married Parents and They're Still Affecting You Today

If you grew up in a home with unhappily married parents, there’s a good chance it’s still affecting you. Various studies including one led by a team from Penn State and UNCshows that the family dynamics around which children grow up significantly impact their ability to make connections and maintain relationships in adulthood. So, if your parents were constantly fighting or putting each other down when you were a kid, it makes sense that now that you’re an adult, you might have trust issues or a fear of conflict in your romantic relationships.

It may not be fair, but the truth is that people who grew up with happily married parents find it easier to form healthy relationships than even their closest friends who grew up with parents who always seemed to be on the brink. divorce.

Here are 9 signs that you grew up with unhappily married parents and it’s still affecting you today

1. You are a people pleaser

Woman looks unhappy in front of her partner. garets workshop | shutterstock.com

Children with unhappy married parents tend to grow up overly sensitive to other people’s feelings for they were generally the peacemakers of their homes. In adulthood, it is difficult to unlearn these sensitive triggers and tendencies, so they continue to please people by protecting other people’s feelings at the expense of their own.

This hyperawareness not only triggers anxiety-induced obsessions, but also prevents adult children from having real conversations and interactions without the burden of avoiding conflict.

2. Arguments and conflicts quickly drain you emotionally

The man looked sad with his head in his hands. Lightfield Studios | shutterstock.com

Accordingly A study on cognitive changes Individuals who have experienced childhood trauma have a reduced ability to process conflict, as do many adult children from similar environments. Not only do they show high sensitivity to tense emotional conflicts, but they also often develop mental health problems and anxiety disorders as adults.

Without healthy coping mechanisms To ease the burden and handle arguments or disagreements, many adult children growing up with unhappily married parents begin to sabotage their own otherwise healthy relationships.

3. You have difficulty forming long-term relationships

Man looks angry near his girlfriend. Just Life | shutterstock.com

Without a childhood example of a healthy, long-term relationship, marriage therapists Phyllis and Peter Sheras They say many adult children have difficulty with commitment due to fear of disappointment or uncomfortable emotions.

Commitment may feel like a trap rather than a stable support system. Maybe you’re always worried about having your heart broken and you leave one foot out the door so you can be ready to escape when necessary.

This inability to commit and dive head first into the potential for a committed relationship is both detrimental to your ability to find a healthy relationship and a deterrent to developing a comfortable identity even with a partner.

4. You try to ignore intense emotions and feelings

Angry looking woman is looking away from the camera. Olha Nosova | shutterstock.com

One avoiding intense emotions It’s another of the major signs that you grew up with unhappy married parents, and it still affects you today; whether you’re avoiding them in other people or trying to cope with your own family.

Ignoring intense emotions does not make them go away. In the end, you will have to suffer the consequences of avoidance; whether it comes on uncomfortably out of nowhere or continues to destroy healthy connections and relationships throughout your adult life.

5. You have high expectations for yourself

The woman looked smug and confident. Bricolage | shutterstock.com

Despite the range and diversity of relationships, many people who grow up with unhappily married parents hold themselves to a standard of perfection that is impossible to achieve. They see the first sign of conflict as a “red flag” and sabotaging the potential for healthy relationships by micro-analyzing other people’s behavior.

Accordingly A 2018 study published in the journal Psychological BulletinPerfectionism is becoming increasingly popular among adults, and these particular adult children are using a perfection-oriented mindset to create impossible expectations about their lives, achievements, and connections. Like the toxic dynamic of their childhood, they fear failure and prioritize avoiding pain above all else.

6. You struggle with anxiety

Anxious woman clutching her chest. Ground Image | shutterstock.com

In addition to the physical discomfort and long-term pain suffered by adult children who have experienced childhood trauma, A 2020 study on adult anxiety found that many developed lifelong anxiety disorders and mental health problems as a result of their needs not being met while growing up.

As their parents’ toxic relationship disrupted their own sense of emotional stability, these children quickly learned to maintain peace by sacrificing their own peace. If you struggle with anxiety, juggling relationships, interacting with other people, or sitting at home alone, it may be an emotional response to your upbringing.

Although childhood trauma never fully resolves (it’s part of your unique identity and most valued personality traits), experts suggest that therapy, healthy support, personalized healthy routines, and creative expression can help you heal from that trauma. helps relieve anxiety often associated with it in adulthood.

7. You isolate yourself to deal with conflict

Tired woman looking at camera. People Paintings Yuri A | shutterstock.com

If these adult children’s ability to please people and protect themselves from conflict fails them, which is likely to happen once in a while, they retreat to their own friends to cope. This type of social withdrawal is not only linked to the early development of mental illness. Neuroscience and Behavior ReviewThis is also a way for them to hide their weaknesses.

Many of these adult children, for whom so much emphasis was placed on their parents’ emotional well-being while growing up, find it difficult to make room for their own intense emotions in their adult friend groups and relationships; They feel worthless about accepting help and are uncomfortable sharing their emotional burdens.

8. You are protective of your independence

Confident redhead woman sitting at home. stokfour | shutterstock.com

Now that you are an adult from a tumultuous family defined by your parents’ unhappiness and disdain for each other, you have the power to do this. protect your own emotional healthhealth and program. When friends disappoint you, work stresses you out, or a romantic partner triggers conflict, you retreat with false beliefs that you’re better off on your own.

Your coping mechanisms do not allow you to trust others, you have difficulty accepting help, and you try to support yourself by eliminating the possibility of disappointment.

While independence is a virtue that many people try to emulate, this excessive independence can be harmfully isolating; Intention can be a tool for gaining control that harms your ability to form healthy, loving relationships.

9. You live in ‘fight or flight’ mode

Nervous woman sitting on her couch at home. Inside the Creative House | shutterstock.com

Many children who experienced emotional neglect or unhealthy parental relationships grew up in “survival mode.” A review of research on childhood trauma. He often struggles and struggles to unlearn these coping mechanisms and emotional states in adulthood. They experience tremendous stress and anxiety in adulthood when their emotional stability is compromised, and they channel a similar “survival instinct” that they had to use to maintain peace in childhood.

Overly focused on emotional security as a result of having unmet emotional needs or fewer interests as children, these adults often struggle to intentionally make time for other passions and relationships in their lives that can create healthy connection and community.

Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News and Entertainment Writer at YourTango, focusing on health and wellness, social policy and human interest stories.