Surviving Your Parents’ Fighting

By: Annagail Lynes

“Why can’t you do anything right,” I heard my father scream. Then a door slam. His screaming woke me up from my sleep. It was going to be another one of those nights. He walked in the door after work long after I had gone to bed. He would come in angry and start yelling at my mother. He slammed things, and the yelling would escalate and wake me up. As much as I just wanted to hide under my covers and go to sleep, I knew as long as he was screaming, she would scream, and I would never get back to sleep until they were through.

Have you ever been through one of your parents’ fights? Regardless of whether they fight in front of you or not, you are still involve. You still feel like it is somehow your fault. Maybe, you think, if you hadn’t been born, there wouldn’t have been a financial strain on the family.

Perhaps you feel that maybe if you had just done better in school or didn’t get in so much trouble, they wouldn’t be fighting. All you want is peace, and you’d do almost anything to get it.

Your parents’ fighting is not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. It is a disagreement between them. You don’t always get along with your brothers and sisters, do you? You don’t always get along with your friends, do you? And your parents don’t always get along with each other. Sometimes people just disagree.

Instead of confronting people when they do me wrong, as I grew up, I went out of my way to avoid it. Whenever people were fighting or conflict would arise, my first instinct was to hide. As it is to this day. I want peace at all costs, and that quest for most of my life has paralyzed me from being all that God wanted me to be.

My friend Allison, though, grew up in a similar environment to mine. Her Dad was an alcoholic instead of a manic -depressive like my father. But she is the opposite of me. Whenever conflict arises, she goes toe-to-toe with anyone who get s in her way. In fact, some times she is overly confrontational. Both of us took our parents’ turmoil and internalized it. And we have allowed their conflict to dictate how we deal with conflict now.

We survived our parents’ fighting, yes, but we still have the scars to prove that we barely made it out alive. We made our parents’ problems our problems. But when you are waiting to see what the outcome will be–will they make up or break up–you become frustrated and try to find some reason, any reason, why they aren’t getting along. And because you have no recollection of what they were like before you were born, you think that the problem must be you. After all, they got along just fine to have you, right?

Your parents’ fighting is about your parents. It is not about you. How can you survive their fights? There are many things you can do.

• Pray. Pour out your feelings to God. Pray for your parents, and if you need to, forgive them, and give the situation to God. Surrend all control of the situation to Him. Their fighting is no surprise to Him. He is watching everything and everyone. And He is as concerned about them as He is about you. He will help you through it, if you let Him.
• Read Your Bible. This maybe hard to do when if they are screaming at the top of their lungs, but reading the Bible has a calming effect on the body. Especially if you read the Psalms.
• Call A Friend. Instead of focusing on who did what to whom, call a friend that either you haven’t talked to in awhile or who has been through a similar situation. Focus on what is going on in their lives. Ask questions because it will keep your attention on the conversation rather than your parents.
• Count Your Blessings. It is very easy to lose sight of what you don’t have and the chaos around you, but take a moment and jot down what you are grateful for, what you do have, what is going right in your life.
• Journal. Get all your feelings down on paper. Angry feelings. Sad feeling. Cry or hit a pillow, if necessary, but don’t bottle your feelings. Get them out. Give them a voice. Bottled up feelings make up sick physically as well as emotionally.
• Listen To Music. Put on your headset and listen to your favorite music. Music is both healing and relaxing.

Remember your parents’ fighting is not your fault. It is not about you. It is about them. Being able to distinguish between others’ problems and your problems is a skill necessary to survive not only your parents’ fighting but life as well.

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