How Your Childhood Affects Your Perception of Marriage — And Ruins It

The first relationship you ever observe is your parents’

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of me, curled up and crying under the couch in the kitchen of my family’s two-bedroom apartment. A couple of feet away from me, my parents were yelling at each other, entangled in a ferocious argument and entirely consumed by it. Neither of them paid attention to their five-year-old daughter huddled under a piece of furniture nearby and sobbing in despair.

Thinking about it now, I am not even sure they realized I was there.

But I was there. It was one of the numerous fights I observed throughout the time that my parents were together. I don’t even remember what they fought about that night.

If there was a time when my parents were actually in love and happy together, it must have been long before I was born because I have no memory of them ever being loving or affectionate towards each other. All I can remember is never-ending, agonizing, excruciating arguments.

My father ended up moving out when I was about 8, but my parents didn’t officially file for divorce until a couple of years later. I was young and didn’t understand as much as I do now, but even the little me could sense the toxic darkness of the entire situation.

When divorce proceedings began, my parents started to divide things up. They divided up property and money. They divided up me.

My dad was good about the whole thing; I have no recollection of him ever badmouthing my mother or engaging me in the emotional mess that their relationship had become (and has always been). My mother, on the other hand, made every effort to turn me against my father by trashing him in front of me and using me as a manipulation tool to get what she wanted from him.

It was bad. It’s been more than 18 years since then, and all of these events feel like a distant, faded memory now.

However, unbeknownst to me, this experience has changed the way I viewed marriage forever.

What’s The Point Of Marriage?

Ironically, I was always convinced that my parents’ relationship didn’t affect me. I was happy that they split up because nobody should stay together if it makes them that unhappy. I believed that they each deserved to find their happiness, albeit separately from one another. I still believe that.

However, I think I grossly underestimated the severity of the impact their relationship — and especially how it ended — affected me and the way I view marriage and family today as an adult.

For me, marriage now is nothing more than a contract, a formality, a bureaucratic requirement. I do not attach any high value to marriage in and of itself and find it hard to take the traditional marriage vows as anything more than a glorified “I love you.”

Now, to be clear, I still very much cherish romantic relationships. I wholeheartedly commit myself to the traditional family values of fidelity, loyalty, devotion, and mutual support, and expect the same of my partner. However, I just can’t seem to see the point of marriage in all of this.

For me, marriage is about a legal obligation and ownership, dividing property, and splitting the money. It’s about manipulating your kids into making them come with you instead of your spouse. It’s not about sharing elevated values but about immigration benefits, life insurance, and joint tax returns.

And if it all crashes and burns in flames, you can most certainly expect to be needing a lawyer to get out of it.

To me, marriage is when people care more about having the same last name than they do about being on the same team. Marriage feels like confinement, the ultimate tool of social conformity.

Some will argue and say that marriage is about security, especially for women. But what security are we talking about? The security of knowing you will be able to sue your former spouse for alimony? The security of knowing you will get to divide up the house you shared? The security of being able to shift responsibility for your life onto someone else?

Others may say marriage makes some routine legal aspects easier, such as managing financial affairs, traveling, and obtaining health insurance. But I still fail to see why being married is a requirement. Can’t you own property jointly as two unmarried individuals? Can’t you open joint bank accounts? Most health insurance plans allow people to add their domestic partner as a dependent, even if you are not married. Immigration benefits is indeed the only area where being legally married is required to file a petition.

Some are convinced you to need to be married to raise a family. Again, why? Your marriage as a legal contract has nothing to do with the birth of your child. You don’t need to be married to write in the father’s name into the birth certificate. You also don’t need to be married to file for child support in case the two of you separate. And I have yet to see a child whose happiness and healthy development would be strictly predicated on their parents’ marriage certificate.

Others still will go back to the argument of traditional values. But I don’t see how being married guarantees one’s commitment to a set of values. I know people who have lived in a civil union for years, raised children together, and enjoyed happy, long-lasting companionships. I also know plenty of married people who cheat, betray, and end up getting a divorce at the end. If you need proof, go no further than the Ashley Madison scandal several years back.

Why do you need to sign a paper at a courthouse or a church to declare your commitment to another person? Why can’t you just love and respect your partner without announcing your feelings to the world? Why does external validation matter so much? Ironically, practice shows that the more expensive the wedding, the more likely the marriage to fall apart.

I am fully aware of the fact that my views on marriage were formed as a result of traumatic childhood experiences and may not necessarily be shared by a lot of people, especially if they, unlike me, observed a healthy and loving relationship between their parents.

However, it does seem like there is an evolving trend towards a more progressive stance on marriage.

Thus, a recent Pew Research Center study found that the share of adults who have lived with a romantic partner is now higher (59%) than the share of those who have ever been married (50%), a material change from 2002 (54% and 60%, respectively). Further, 60% of respondents said that cohabiting couples could raise children just as well as married couples. Finally, about two-thirds favor allowing unmarried couples to have the same legal rights as married couples.

Still, 53% of people believe that society is better off if couples who want to stay together long-term eventually get married.

But is it really?

“We Stay Together For The Kids”

Given where I come from, this stance is something that I will never be able to accept nor understand.

If you are a parent and your relationship with your spouse is anything like what I described at the beginning, believe me when I say that there is nothing good you can give your children by staying together.

It’s a known fact that kids learn by observing you. It doesn’t matter what you say; it only matters what you do. Of course, the relationship between parents is the very first example of romantic love that children ever behold, and what they see shapes the way they view family and marriage forever. Even if you preach to your child about the value of marriage, love, and companionship all day long, none of it will matter if, at the same time, you engage in ugly, cruel fights with your spouse before his eyes.

And the truth is, your relationship doesn’t even have to be openly and obviously hateful, filled with intense negative emotions and loud arguments, for it to be destructive for the kids. There are relationships where the spouses have long fallen out of love with and grown to resent each other, and they both know it. They don’t even bother expressing it anymore, instead of engaging in a passive-aggressive game of silent treatment and quietly spiteful remarks.

They may think that just because they don’t openly argue, their kids don’t see how they feel about each other, but they are sadly mistaken. Kids do see it, and it damages them for life because what they learn from this experience is that you have to deny your own feelings and stay with someone even if you clearly despise them.

So, whether or not you are formally married, don’t stay together if you are unhappy. Don’t stay together for the kids.

Because it’s very likely, they will model their future relationships around what they observed in yours, which will lead to the formation of toxic generational patterns.

Last Words

I am not sad that my parents got divorced. They were very miserable together, and I don’t believe people should stay together if they are unhappy. Both of them are a lot more content now because they get to pursue the life they wanted for themselves.

However, I am sad about all the memories of their resentment and indignation towards each other that I still harbor. These are the memories that I can’t erase.

I am also sad that their divorce was as excruciating as it was and that I had to be a part of it in the way that I was.

Because today, as an adult, I have to work very hard to sort through my own emotions and figure out what a healthy relationship — and healthy marriage — actually means.