5 Ways Growing Up in a Broken Home Screws Your Love Life

By John Cheese April 03, 2014

I've talked before about the oddball habits one picks up coming from a broken home and how they can spank life's ass pretty hard (not in the fun way). What a lot of people don't realize is that these aren't just annoying quirks that we learn to navigate around. They are relationship time bombs, and when they go off, they explode-fuck everyone who dares to be in our personal sphere at that moment. It's hard for a "normal" person to understand that when you come from this sort of environment ...

#5. Confrontation Is a Battle

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You Either Use What You've Learned ...
In most of the screwed-up relationships I've seen and been a part of, the pivotal person in the circle jerk tends to be an extremely dominating, hyper aggressive figure. For me, that was my dad. People who have lived through it can tell you that any confrontation, no matter how small, becomes an all-out war. Any objection on your part is taken as a sign of rebellion by the ... we'll call them "douchebags." The douchebag explodes over every little thing, and the people who don't want to go through their douchestorms tend to give in to their every whim.
Eventually, you learn that this is a normal means of leading a family. The domination and the outbursts become a sign of strength, and when you grow up in that hell, you can see the direct result: They have control. Later in life, when your own relationship flops out a big ol' veiny conflict, you use what you've been taught: douche it right on up.

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"I'll shit directly on your soul, you human toilet!"

... Or You Do the Polar Opposite:
Some of us are lucky enough to learn that the douchebag's system wasn't just wrong; it was abuse. We vividly remember the fear we felt when they were Massengilling up the joint, so we vow to never do that to other people. Unfortunately, many people who make that decision end up going too far in the other direction, avoiding conflict at all costs.
The longer that goes on, the more it seems like we're walling off or have become emotionally disconnected, and that's when the relationship really begins to collapse. But worse, if we continue bottling up and avoiding confrontation, it can eventually build until an emotional mushroom cloud shoots out of our heads.

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"Dude, all I said is that fedoras are kind of stupid looking!"

We're not all that great with the middle ground, and you'll see that theme throughout this article. It's not our fault, really. Broken homes are set in extremes by definition. If the parents weren't violent and abusive, they were neglectful or passive-aggressive. They were still douchebags, just a different brand. Like Douche Bagmatic or something. I don't know my douches. But the point is that it takes an entire childhood of witnessing the middle ground in order to understand it and utilize it, and we simply didn't have that.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-growing-up-in-broken-home-screws-your-love-life/#ixzz2xwNBE1NY