Though not very often, I have these moments. Little moments in which my mind suddenly goes back two decades to show me a memory of my parents fighting.

After more than twenty-five years of marriage they have been happily married for ages now. Still together. But despite they’re still together and nothing bad ever happened, just fighting, it was still fighting. Big, indiscreet, verbally advanced and powerful fighting. Right in front of me. And still, even after all those years, I sometimes need to slow down my pace, catch my breath, reflect on what happened, and try to let go.

Parents fighting. It definitely doesn’t stop with the emotions and feelings of the mum and the dad. And it ain’t over when it’s over. Both common sense and research recognize the effects on the thoughts and views of the child about arguments and conflicts in their own relationships later on. This doesn’t surprise me, because it’s the closest a child gets to observe the do’s and don’ts of a relationship between a man and a woman. Of course this has effect on your further life. Question is: what is the effect exactly?

I think this depends on a lot of variables. But I believe two of them are leading. The first one is of course whether the parents fought or not. What could the effect of a conflict be when it doesn’t exist? Still, existence is a difficult criterion in this matter. Because the second variable is whether a child saw its parents fight or not. Even if a child never saw its parents argue, it knows when arguments are being dealt with behind closed doors. It still feels the negative energy. This leaves us with four possible combinations, like a quadrant, with probably four different effects.

Curious as I am I decided to investigate a little more and ask some of my friends about their own personal experiences. But both Matt and Darrell couldn’t help me with any saucy bits of their parents’ private life. Sure their parents did argue sometimes, but not in a way they feel it made a huge impact on their lives. Not like mine.

Speaking of devilish behaviour, what would I begin without my own personal demon? Willard. One of the more major things that broke us apart was the 180 degrees difference in experience with parental conflicts. While I have little more youth memories left than my parents quarrelling, Willard never saw his parents fight. This made a huge impact on the way we’d argue with each other.

I was used to conflicts and the pattern they usually have, and therefore wasn’t, and still ain’t, scared to, maybe too easily, dive head first into a blazing row. He tried to avoid conflicts. With not being used to fight, he felt insecure about what would happen when an argument did occur.

Then I realised there is a third variable that’s important regarding the effect of your parents’ disagreements: the outcome. Are the parents still together, or did they get divorced?

Though Willard’s parents never fought in his presence, his mother had been with other men for over two years when she finally but suddenly filed for a divorce. I can imagine such an experience would make every row a frightening, horrifying event. Because every row could mean the end. My parents never split. And I’m a hundred percent positive they never will.

Suddenly terror strikes. Now I understand. This is probably one of the main reasons I’m such a drama queen. And such an inconsiderate, unfair, harsh and cruel person to fight with. Because deep down inside I constantly feel this one thing my parents unconsciously have taught me: No matter how bad the fight and how humiliating the comments, it will probably somehow be okay.

Apparently, not only does seeing your parents fight or not have an effect. But, when you take some time to ponder on this and think things over, it becomes clear what strange or inconvenient points of view on arguments you’ve created.

We all know that family flaws, despite the trauma they have caused, tend to go on generation after generation. Think child abuse or domestic violence. How logic it is that the same counts for the less life threatening habits in quarrelling behaviour.

However, realising your parents are responsible for a great deal of your own propensities considering conflict handling, can’t be the end of this line of thoughts. It is in fact the beginning. The start of where change begins and cycles are broken.

Column published by Cecile on Monday, May 14th, 2007.

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