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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Did your parents fight in front of you when you were little?
I've been doing a lot of counseling/reflecting lately and I'm trying to get to the root of why I fight/fought like I do/did in relationships. Usually I'm really good at just talking things out calmly, but sometimes I just get kind of disrespectful and condescending.
My parents fought in front of my brother and me a lot when we were little (they divorced when I was 15). I'm just wondering if your parents fought in front of you and maybe has made you more of a fighter in a relationship or if you never grew up around fighting and therefore you aren't really a 'fighter'.
Hope that makes sense...it made sense in my head.
Re: Did your parents fight in front of you when you were little?
I only remember one huge blow out fight where my dad grabbed a towel bar (from the bathroom) and threatened to hit my mom with it. My mom was crying and told my brother to call 911. My dad threatened to beat him also and my mom was able to leave the house in just her bra and underwear to get to a safe place. He moved our right after that.
Thing is, I always knew they were unhappy and didn't really like each other, but there wasn't any fighting. I sort of wonder if that's why I'm a little passive-aggressive?
I think kids should see their parents disagree (not full on fight) so they can see that people can disagree but still love each other, you know?
Yes, they argued in front of me all the time.
I don't argue in my relationships though, I am non-confrontational. I avoid it at all costs.
They see us rollin'...they be hatin'.
I remember one huge fight my parents had in front of me, but in general my mom was a screamer and my dad was non-confrontational and often ignored her or yessed her to death. Believe it or not, they are happily married, although I do think their communication style stinks. My mother would also bottle up her anger, and then explode (hence the screaming). She was a people-pleaser and didn't say no. She has gotten better.
DH and I rarely argue, but we do speak our minds to each other / in front of the kids (we won't discuss different viewpoints if it's about the kids / their punishments, etc). If something bothers us, we say so. I did not want to be like either of my parents.
Me too. I think that's why I'm non-confrontational.
When I was younger I would get so nervous when they fought that I would compulsively clean my room because I didn't want my mom to have something else to be mad at. Now, a messy room is a sign that things are good!
Yes, I overheard some pretty bad arguments when they thought I was asleep and once my mother woke my sister and I up in the night crying hysterically and took us to a friend's house. We didn't return home for a week after that and they separated soon after. It was pretty traumatic, as was the fighting during the divorce. I don't really know how/if it's affected me. I don't welcome confrontation, but if something needs to be addressed I want to take care of it rather than avoid it. I do seem to have a tendency to end up with men who want to avoid ALL confrontation at ALL costs, which makes for terrible communication. Maybe I should look into why that is....
There are healthy disagreements and unhealthy brawls, and I definitely witnessed the latter.
This is me, too. I definitely devoted several counseling sessions to how important it is that I speak up and set boundaries for myself in a relationship.
They didn't fight in front of us per se, and they were never screaming matches, but the decimal would sometimes reach loud enough for me to hear in my room upstairs. When I was older, junior/senior in high school, there were a couple really heated arguments. They're now divorced for about a year and I genuinely understand why people would say it's sometimes better for unhappy parents to divorce rather than stick it through for the kids. My parents weren't happy since I was 13-14 y/o and it effected our entire home life (I fight any resentment by knowing they wanted to make things work for the sake of my brother and I).
ETA: It has effected me in my relationship. I watch myself carefully but I can unknowingly raise my voice during little disagreements.
My parents fought in front of me all the time. In fact, my entire immediate family is very much a "yell and get it out" kind of family. There is always a blow up on holidays, always.
I, however, learned to avoid confrontation at all costs. I think it's because I hated feeling awkward as a kid every time my family would get into fights. It's completely dysfunctional because now I'm totally passive aggressive.
My parents are happily married (I think they're celebrating their 30th anniversary this year). I have never seen/heard them fight. I've heard them have political debates or otherwise discuss things that they disagreed about, but it was always a discussion and never a fight.
I do remember some very heated fights between my sister and my father, though. Yelling and name-calling--they're both yellers, whereas my mom and I are both quiet. I tend to be pretty nonconfrontational, but I'm getting better at speaking up when something bothers me. I do get snippy when I'm in a lousy mood, though, and I have a bad habit of taking it out on whoever's around...I'm working on it.
I would also like to add that my father became physically abusive to my mother in front of me and my brother and that was very scary for me. They were married for 32 years and separated when I was 7.
I hated it when they argued, I remember it scared me (they would yell and yell).
I think that's the reason I am non-confrontational now.
They see us rollin'...they be hatin'.
When my parents were first married (married when I was 5), they would rumble like nobody's business and it was usually my Mom going off and my Dad just trying to calm her down although he would get riled up on occasion.
When they fought, my Mom would usually try to say it's over, so I learned that fighting was the end of a relationship so I avoided it all costs. Through counseling, I've learned to speak up and I'm working on fighting fair. I can be sarcastic and that's something I'm really trying to check myself on, along with learning that healthy fights are good and not earth shattering end-alls.
My parents aren't fighters. My dad is one of the most even-keeled, mellow people on the planet. My mom can get spun up about things (mainly fueled by frustration), but my dad just lets her go until she gets it out of her system. It's not directed at him at all; i.e., she'll rant about the washing machine for a little while, and then he'll step in and offer a solution. They balance each other out.
My mom and I are very similar, so we're usually the ones that are verbally sparring. We don't balance each other out.
In my past relationships (and current one), fights are few and far between. I'll certainly bicker with someone, but resolution is always reached with a minimum of hurt feelings or extra drama. That's my dad's influence, LOL. With XH, I can think of a handful of big blow-out fights, and they're all around a similar theme and with the same root cause. Once I accepted that incompatibility can't be fixed (especially through fighting), I became a lot happier.
I had quite the opposite reaction than what you described. My parents fought in front of us often and it even got violent from time to time.
I keep to myself and calmed others because that was the best way for me to cope with the situation. It resulted in me trying to "fix" other people sacrificing my own needs.
Now I am learning to channel that need to help other people through safe avenues such as volunteer work with a team. Through therapy, reading and daily practice on people, I am overcoming my weakness and speaking up for my needs and establishing boundaries.
However, I will have to say that I am a very emotional person per the way I was raised and grew up with. But that does not mean it is a bad thing, having emotions is good; I just need to channel them into positives traits and they help me with my intuitions with making better decisions when I am in tuned with them.
And my mom still is like that. Most of my parents fighting was over debt (my mom really put my dad through hell with credit card debt, etc. and my sister was very problematic for them, which in turned made them have tight leash on me). They would argue but not have an all out fight, I've overheard them but it wasn't anything too serious that scarred me for life. Also my mom is bi-polar and took her anger and frustrations out on me - since I was home a lot. It really put a rift between her and I for many, many years but we've since gotten over it and really get a long well - most of the time. My dad is very complacent and a totally awesome guy!! I rarely saw him angry but when he did...whoa..watch out!! They have been married for over 40 years and are in a much happier place now as when I was a teenager. The only thing that bothers me, and I just discussed this in yesterday's therapy session, is that I have the same tendencies as my mom - I stew and blow when I'm angry and frustrated but I'm really learning how to break the cycle.
My parents fought all the time. At the end of their marriage my mom would drag my dad to the car to fight and keeps us inside because she rather the neighbors hear them than for us to hear them.
Now as we've gotten older, I'm very much like my dad when it comes to relationships and is why I probably try to "make it work" rather than cut ties sometimes.
With my sister, she is just like my mom and can be very disrespectful, talk down on their SO and always snapping at them than simply saying "this is how I feel".
Yes my parents did fight in front of me and my brothers when we were little. As much as I hated it, I was the same way in my marriage. I think it had a lot to do with my STBXH though, we just didn't get along that well. It was scary to see that I turned out just like my parents. I don't have children yet but I will try my best never to fight like that in front of them.
Also, I hope my next relationship or marriage is way different then my first marriage. I refuse to end up with someone that I fight with like I did with the ex. I am holding out on the hope that if I find the "right" man and relationship, we won't argue much at all.
<a href="http://s941.photobucket.com/albums/ad259/laurens1122-bfp/?action=view
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Yes, most of them were small disagreements and they would end up on the same page. Now that I am older they are more "open" about how tough times were growing up. They fought a lot about money, but I do not remember witnessing a big blow-up or anything. I think it actually helped me to realize that it is ok to have different opinions or to share your thoughts even if they conflict with your spouse. They also kept the big/serious stuff private from us.
Funny thing is my friend's parent divorced when we were in middle school and while talking to me about it a few years later she said:
"I never thought my parents would divorce cause I never saw them fight about anything... EVER! I thought your parents would be the ones to divorce cause they would disagree in front of us."
Like I said never a big blow-up, but they were not afraid to disagree/bicker about things. They always fought fair though.
I have a friend who took her parents' divorce very hard because she thought everything was fine. It really came out of the blue, and so she didn't trust the "no fighting" thing in her own relationships. She ended up dating a lot of shiitheads.
Yes, on occasion.
I come from a family of yellers on both sides, so people screaming it out one minute, and then laughing and joking the next minute is a normal part of my life. Funny enough though, people don't usually yell or scream at the kids, only adults yell amongst themselves.
On one hand it's bad because I have become a yeller myself at times, but on the other hand it's good because I don't equate getting into a serious argument with someone with the end of a relationship. My parents have been married for 34 years and most of my family members have great relationships with each other despite getting into some major screaming arguments at times. There is one legendary incident of two of my aunts getting into a screaming match in an airport, and being denied entry to the plane. Their teenaged kids went ahead home without them and they ended up working it out by the time they caught the next flight.
In my last relationship, I did yell, and my XH was not a yeller so I think that was damaging. I've tried to work on it. Interestingly, F comes from a family of yellers too, and it's something he's been trying to work on as well, so we're both reformed yellers.
Yeah... sounds just like my friend. I think after reading other responses I wouldn't classify my parents spats as "fights" maybe it was more just dissagreements.
They were never screaming at eachother, but the did make it clear they did not approve of certain words/behavior or whatever.
I just think it was healthy to see things are not always perfect, yet you need to always be respectful.
I agree completely with this...I don't think it's healthy to completely shield kids from all disagreement, but they need to be shown/taught that it's ok to disagree respectfully.
All. the. time. They divorced when I was 13. My mom was a rageful yeller and my dad is very soft spoken and non-confrontational. She would yell at him until he would react and then she would yell at my brother and I. It was very traumatic; so much so, that I had nightmares about it until about a year and a half ago when during one of the nightmares she was standing on one side of these heavy double doors like in a university and I was on the other and I pulled both doors shut with such a ferosity I could see her yelling from out of the window, but couldn't hear her anymore. I haven't had a nightmare like that since then.
She's way different now and is definitely not rageful, but I very much have acquired her temper. I try to keep it in check, but can yell or send hateful messages. It's an awful thing and I'm working on expressing myself in a more healthy way.
This is interesting. My parents never fought in front of us. They had some disagreements but it always ended up with laughs. I don't think they ever had huge arguments. They respected each other.
Now, I was confrontational in my marriage. I would say it was situational. My XH has a huge lack of respect for anyone. He uses people to his advantage with no guilt. And he feels justified. If you're like me and stand up for yourself, this is going to clash. One example was he was supposed to pick me up at the airport. I was back from my mom's funeral. He was at a 4-day long party and he didn't really want to leave the party and pick me up like he said. Yeah, I confronted him about it. And I confronted him everytime he did something as shiity as this example. And it was constant.
Yes! My parents fought a LOT in front of us. I remember one in particular. I don't remember the details of it; however, I do remember that it was at Christmas time and they started fighting. My mom started throwing things at my dad. There was a little ceramic church (just the steps and door) and 2 girl carolers and a pine tree. My mom threw every one of them at him and broke every one but the blonde caroler, although she got chipped. Anyway, my mom and us three kids all ended up in the upstairs bedroom crying and hugging each other. Still brings tears to my eyes. They divorced when I was 13. This probably happened when I was around 9 or 10.
I notice that I tend to hold things in and then blow up. It was probably a way to prevent my parents (my mom mostly) from yelling at me. I tended to talk back a lot. I also tend to nit pick a lot. Probably learned that too, but I'm not sure.