Your Bad Marriage is Affecting Your Children
From an adult who has to heal from the trauma of my parent's constant arguing.
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If the “fighting is good for your marriage,” rang true my parents would be happily entering their 24th year of marriage. In fact, they would be the happiest couple alive…after all, they fought constantly. My brother and I were lucky if a day went by without some type of altercation between our parents. At least once a week, there was a huge blow-up.
Unsurprisingly, my parents separated around their 10-year mark but not without permanently scarring their two oldest children with the constant barrage of fighting that ensued between them. Now as an adult, I’m forced to grieve my household of land mines.
We normalize fighting in relationships a lot. Name-calling, voice raising or yelling, belittling, and fighting over non-issues so you don’t have to deal with real issues. And while disagreements, issues, and irritation are normal for most couples, it’s unhealthy every time it escalates to an aggressive state.
Yet, so many couples constantly engage in these escalated arguments turned fights. Not only is it hurting your relationship, but it’s also really damaging your children’s emotional health both present and future. Here’s what that long-term damage looks like:
1. I was left alone to unlearn and then teach myself constructive arguments and resolution
Growing up I knew pretty early I never wanted to engage in a relationship like my parents. I knew I would seldom yell, never throw pineapples across the room, and extend compassion. I knew what I didn’t want but I didn’t know what the alternative looked like. And honestly, it wasn’t until my 20s I realized how much I normalized their toxicity.
If you’re fighting all the time, you probably aren’t engaging in constructive and healthy resolutions. Because if you were, the fights would eventually die down and be less frequent. I don’t remember any of my parent’s resolutions, I’m not sure if there were any.
I thought fights ended when both parties were too tired to carry on, throats sore from yelling. I thought it was normal for issues and residual smaller fights to carry on for days, weeks, months even. I thought empty apologies were enough. I thought fights were automatically aggressive and negative.
I spent — and still to some extent spend — a long time avoiding confrontation. I witnessed firsthand how horrible, abusive, and aggressive arguments could easily become. I wanted no part of the toxicity I saw so frequently growing up so I would bury my discontent to avoid a confrontation. Which of course is unhealthy and usually fosters resentment of some kind. I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy learning how to bring up issues and I’m still learning how to overcome the anxiety I associate with relationship arguments.
Through my current relationship, I’ve learned a lot about healthy resolutions. But my journey was far from easy and made harder by only having unhealthy blueprints. Luckily my loving partner has been incredibly patient with me and my learning but most people with unhealthy examples aren’t so lucky.
2. My anxiety is on high alert any time my partner isn’t happy
When you grow up with parents who constantly fight, there’s never any security. Everything is a trigger for some random fight that most likely is about an underlying issue not being addressed. My household was always tense, always on edge waiting for the next shoe to drop.
My parents fought about everything. What to watch, how to cut the tomatoes, how to parent us, grocery lists, extended family…you name it. It seemed like nothing was off-limits to them, everything was a fight waiting to happen.
Now as an adult in a long-term relationship, I’m in constant fear I need to overcome. I grew up on edge, waiting for a sour face to turn into a huge 24-hour fight. So every time my partner is upset or looks down, my anxiety spikes. My mind races to think of all the possible ways I may have upset him, I worry if a fight is just broiling below the surface.
My partner and I don’t fight really, I think we’ve yelled at each other maybe three times. And despite our rather good track record, the wounds from a childhood consumed by fear are deep. I’m wired to be afraid of small triggers or just negative moods because everything was a fight waiting to happen growing up.
Maybe you’re not as bad as my parents, I hope you’re not. But do you fight about random non-issues often? Is your coffee table coaster the start of a 3-hour long bickering-match and side-eyes throughout the night? For a developing mind, children aren’t smart enough to realize the coaster isn’t really the issue, it’s the lack of communication in the bedroom (or whatever the issue really is). You’re teaching your children anything can be a catalyst for a fight and that automatically causes anxiety and long-lasting ramifications.
3. I’m a people-pleaser and peacekeeper to a fault
Since my parents were constantly at each other’s throats, as a child I felt super pressured to keep whatever peace was left. As the oldest, I found myself always catering to my family’s needs. There was so much chaos, I was forced into a position of eliminating any additional threats.
So I religiously did things to please my parents, they already fought so much I didn’t want my involvement in their life to be extra stressful. I had some understanding of the triggers so I would go out of my way to prevent my parent’s fights with each other. If my mom being late to an event would cause my dad to blow-up, I learned how to print directions from Google Maps, ushered my mother out of the door on time, and got us to whatever location.
I spent an entire childhood avoiding landmines and detonating ticking time bombs that I never got a chance to really be a child. My parent’s brutal charade forced me into a peacekeeper mentality. As an adult, at times I’ve found myself more inclined to maintain peace than to act on my own needs and desires.
Marital fights with kids in the same house is a recipe for disasters. Your children will naturally want the household to be peaceful and to please their caregivers, so if you constantly (subconsciously or not) thrust your kid into roles they shouldn’t take on…you’re harming your children. And yes, your kids do know you’re fighting in your room and they can feel the leftover tension.
My hope for society is we transition from the popular saying of “fighting is good for your marriage” to “expressing your needs and discontent in a constructive manner is good for your marriage.” I don’t think any relationship is perfect and I don’t think kids need parents with a perfect marriage. But if you are raising children with a spouse under the same roof, you need to have a healthy marriage.
As a society, we’ve conditioned ourselves to accept fighting in marriages. We even consider these escalated arguments to be healthy, not batting an eye at frequency or intensity. The reality is your constant or not-so-constant but unhealthy arguments are traumatizing your entire household. Children are sponges and they love so deeply. You’re just teaching them to accept toxicity and to deeply want your happiness, even at their own expense.
Emotional intelligence and emotional maturity are so important for children to witness. If you’re raising your child while married, you have an obligation to have a healthy marriage. Children deserve parents who constructively disagree and argue, always stemming from a compassionate and loving place. Have a f*cked marriage on your own, don’t rope children into your toxicity.
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