Love Lessons From My Parents’ Crappy Marriage

A cautionary tale of what NOT to do

You know how “they” say that kids learn about love by watching their parents?

“They” are right. Except in my case, I didn’t learn anything about how to succeed at love. Instead, I learned how to fail at it.

It’s taken a lot of time, therapy, and self-reflection over decades to slowly undo the toxic relationship lessons I learned from my mother and father.

Constant yelling

This seems like a no-brainer, right? Yelling is aggression and aggression is bad. But when you’ve grown up with yelling as the primary mode of communication, it becomes second nature. Even if it’s not yelling in anger, hollering from one bedroom to another instead of walking to that person creates a state of stress and anxiety.

When your spouse is constantly yelling, it puts you on high alert at all times. Instead, your better half should be a place of peace and calm; the place you emotionally call “home”.

My parents had the relationship of two opposing canons firing at each other instead of a cozy retreat, side by side.

No physical affection

I have never seen my parents hug or kiss. I believe it stemmed not from a lack of caring, but the result of being extremely religious. I vaguely remember hearing my parents fighting and my mother mentioning that the last time they had sex was to conceive me.

First off, ewww.

Secondly, that’s pretty sad.

My parents lacked physical touch for over four decades and it eroded their affections. Without intimacy, my mom and dad didn’t show any signs of love.

Speaking poorly about each other

Part of being in a team means having your partner’s back. My parents were quick to throw each under the rug and smack talk the other person.

My dad wasn’t the worst of the two since his grumblings about my mother were often under his breath. My mother constantly bad-mouthed him to us. On one hand, we had to respect him. On the other hand, she complained that he made her life miserable.

You’re only as strong as your weakest link. My parents’ only link was very, very weak. If you don’t have respect and trust in your partner enough to keep a united front, what’s the point?

Keeping secrets

Here’s the deal with religious parents: one is more religious than the other. That’s the key to playing your cards as a kid when breaking the rules.

My parents’ communication skills were poor at best. Not having each other’s backs meant they kept secrets. Lots of them. In hindsight, I’m not even sure why they were secrets…they seem pretty mundane.

On weekends, my dad would go off on religious excursions. As an adult, I’m questioning what the heck that means. My brother and I never wondered what that meant as kids because it was an excuse to order pizza and watch Dr. Who (yeah, religious rebels who watched sci-fi, that was us!).

My mother hid everything. Everything. I once found a hidden sex book from the 1970s she bought as a used bookstore. She wasn’t hiding it from us kids; she was hiding it from my dad. She also hid her teeth bleaching kit. My dad was strict but I’m pretty sure he didn’t care about our teeth whiteness.

To go clubbing, I lied and told my mom I was out watching late movies with friends. My mom knew that my religious dad wouldn’t be on board with going to the theater so she lied and told him I was babysitting. My dad probably thought I had a financial empire with all the babysitting I allegedly did.

Lies build upon lies. Once you go down that path, there’s no going back.

Violence

My parents had no qualms about smashing and breaking things during their endless fights. Now that I have kids, it horrifies me that anyone would do that in front of children.

During one fight, my dad punched a hole in the wall. It was right above my mother’s sewing machine. I don’t know why I remember that detail. I also remember my dad going to my bedroom to calm down. Terrified, I huddled in my brother’s room fearful that our dad was breaking my Barbie dolls.

It wasn’t until I had kids that I put my foot down about any violence in my house. No relationship should ever, ever be violent. Ever.

Leading separate lives

Did you know parents actually travel and do shit together? I didn’t. My parents were true roommates. My dad did his thing (usually some religious excursion) and my mom did her thing (watching TV).

I used to think it was fine for couples to go off and have their own interests. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that they should have some common interests. It’s those little hobbies and activities that create bonds between people. Without them, there’s no connection to avoid becoming roommates.

Putting others before your spouse

When they say, “family comes first”, no one explained who in the family comes first. My mother was almost an orphan with no family. My dad has a village of brothers and sisters. He also has a continent full of cousins and other extended family.

ALL OF THEM came before my mother.

Not speaking the same language as them and standing out like a sore thumb, my mother was left on her own to deal with her in-laws (since men and women stayed in separate rooms during social visits for religious reasons). My dad could have a grand time in another room chatting it up in Urdu with his family while my mother sat for hours, bored, listening to a foreign language with no one speaking English to include her.

She wasn’t silent about her misery with the constant visits to visit his relatives. My dad turned a blind eye. His family came before her. Period. It added to the toxicity of their marriage and fueled the enormous bag of resentment.

Sometimes it’s not what you saw as a child that impacts your future relationships. It’s what you didn’t see. I didn’t see mutual respect. I didn’t see laughter or joy. I don’t think my parents have ever cracked a joke to each other. They’re an old-school, militant married couple. They’re in the business of keeping each other alive while occasionally feeding a chipmunk named Chippy in their backyard.

So I’m flipping the script. I failed epically most of my life. I can’t blame them entirely because eventually, you become an adult and it’s on you to recognize your childhood baggage. I learned it quite late, but hopefully, it’s better late than never to course-correct and become the partner I want to be if I should be lucky enough to find someone who will love me in all my damaged glory.