I don’t know what’s worth fight­ing for
Or why I have to scream
I don’t know why I insti­gate
And say what I don’t mean
I don’t know how I got this way
I’ll nev­er be alright
So I’m break­ing the habit
I’m break­ing the habit tonight

—Linkin Park, Breaking The Habit

Studies have shown that kids with divorced par­ents are much more like­ly to end up being divorced them­selves. As role mod­els, we take the way their par­ents treat each oth­er and use this as a mod­el for our own rela­tion­ships. And even­tu­al­ly, our kids end up treat­ing their kids the same way because that’s all they know¹.

I used to take my girl­friends for grant­ed. It could have been a way for me to dis­tance myself to pre­vent get­ting hurt (as ther­a­py has shown), or it may have just been what I thought rela­tion­ships were like.

I can recall my par­ents doing the same thing to each oth­er. They did­n’t mar­ry out of love, they mar­ried because it was the thing to do when you reached a cer­tain age. Eventually, they mere­ly inhab­it­ed the same house, not even sleep­ing in the same bed or room.

It’s a cycle, a trap. But that’s not an excuse for me.

I refuse to be like them. I refuse to end up like they did. I’m going to do my best to change that about myself.

And I will break the cycle.

1. At least, that’s the excuse my mom uses. [↩]