When you think back to how your parents behaved towards one another when you were growing up, how does that compare to how you and your spouse treat each other now? Do you feel a sense of familiarity because your actions mirror what you witnessed at home? Or have you put great effort into avoiding the kind of relationship your elders had?

Our parents’ marriages end up shaping our own in many ways, but the seven discussed below are among the most common, and the most powerful.

1. The way you talk to each other.

There are many different ways that people communicate with one another, and some are healthier and more supportive than others. Some people grew up with parents who snapped or punished each other with the silent treatment, while others observed their parents discussing everything calmly and supportively, with gentle humor and love.

This study from the Journal of Personality and Psychology offers insights as to how parents’ communication styles can shape their children’s relationships once they reach adulthood. It discusses the important fact that parental relationships don’t exist in isolation: everything that happens between them is witnessed by their children, and influences their own marriages in kind. As such, children who grow up observing marital discord may emulate their parent’s behaviors as adults.

How parents communicate with their children is just as important as how they behave with one another. People who were constantly told to shut up as children, or that they were stupid and didn’t know anything, may parent their own offspring the same way, leading to conflicts with spouses who were raised in loving environments.

2. Your position on fidelity.

How your parents dealt with fidelity (or the lack thereof) may have influenced your views on monogamy, loyalty, and devotion in your own marriage. Studies show that the children of parents who cheated on each other often end up cheating in their own marriages. Furthermore, daughters of unfaithful fathers often emulate their mothers’ choices and marry men who behave similarly to their own fathers, thus perpetuating the cycle. Yet they might question why they keep getting cheated on in relationships because they don’t see the link to their childhood experiences.

That said, although this behavior does repeat itself in many marriages, the opposite can also happen.

My parents didn’t do much to hide their infidelities and even weaponized them against one another like one-upmanship. Their friends seemed to thrive on infidelity as well, if the stories they shared around the poker table were to be believed. Witnessing this type of infidelity influenced my early relationships, as I found it difficult to trust whether my partners were faithful to me and I often broke things off if I felt that they were being inconstant. Fortunately, I grew past that and got over my fear of being cheated on. I am now wholly trusting and monogamous with my partner, whom I have been with for several years.

2. How you manage conflict.

Conflicts are inevitable in any marriage, but the ways that people handle them differ greatly. As such, the way that your parents dealt with conflict likely informed the way that you handle it in your own marriage.

For example, when a conflict occurred, did your parents deal with it respectfully? Did they take breaks to cool down and de-escalate, and then talk until the issue was resolved? Or did they scream, throw things, insult each other, punch walls, threaten, and escalate issues until they weren’t on speaking terms?

According to Psychology Today, children assume that what goes on in their homes is normal, and tend to emulate what they’ve experienced firsthand. This can perpetuate cycles of escalated conflict. Or, on the flip side, you may have learned to fear confrontation and thus avoid conflict at all costs. It’s also possible witnessing your parents’ poor conflict resolutions has made you an exceptional communicator and loving partner. Some people who grew up in tense (even violent) households choose not to continue those cycles, and use their parents’ marriage as an example of what not to do.

5. How you define the roles in your relationship.

Some people grew up in households where parents had defined roles, either based on gender, education level, social status, or any other hierarchical measurement. If you grew up in a family like this one, you may have been raised to believe that one parent’s background made them “better” than the other, so they didn’t see them as an equal, which allowed them greater power and influence over the family.

For example, when it came to financial management, the parent with a higher level of education may have pulled rank and decided that they got to have a greater say in how money was spent, even though they may have been horribly irresponsible with finances. Alternatively, one parent may have been relegated to do the majority of domestic labor while the other one only did the bare minimum, even though both of them might have worked full-time jobs. There may have been defined roles based on gender, especially outdated ones relating to housework, cooking, parenting, and breadwinning.

Whether there was equality and fairness in familial roles undoubtedly influenced how you view marital partnerships. You may insist upon equal responsibility and respect in your own marriage, or you might emulate one of your parents’ behaviors and either take advantage of your spouse or martyr yourself to them.

4. How you express your emotions.

How your parents expressed various emotions will have influenced your own expression as you grew up. If they dealt with anger calmly instead of screaming, you most likely emulated that same behavior. Or if they were emotionally neglectful to each other (or you), you may have mirrored those traits in your adult relationships. Alternatively, you might not want to emulate that behavior and as such, you treat your own spouse with far more loving gentleness than your parents showed one another.

Similarly, if you witnessed your parents express love, gratitude, and friendship to one another on a regular basis, in whichever love languages worked for the two of them, then you may have taken a cue from them and lavish your own spouse accordingly. The same goes for how they expressed their own emotions both to each other and to you: were they honest about how they felt so they could work through them as a team? Or did they repress them and behave like everything was fine all the time?

6. Whether you trust each other and prioritize honesty.

There are so many reasons why honesty is important in relationships. And whether parents trust each other and are honest in their interactions can shape children’s behavior quite significantly. This learned behavior then goes on to shape the children’s own marriages once they reach adulthood. For example, some parents think it’s cute to show kids how they hide snacks or money from their spouses so they can keep it all for themselves, but this may teach their children to lie to their future partners as well. Similarly, people who witness their parents checking each other’s phones or otherwise spying on one another may learn to be suspicious and think that a lack of trust is normal in a relationship. It’s not, it’s a disrespectful behavior that is never ok in any relationship.

The same goes for whether they witness their parents being honest with one another or not. Did they really throw out the leftovers because they had gone bad? Or did they eat them all themselves? Was that bill really lost in the mail? Or how do they honestly feel about their spouse’s close friendship with a work colleague?

Honesty can also relate to whether parents sincerely wanted to be together as a married couple, or felt that they were forced to stay married “for the sake of the kids” or because they were reliant on each other for financial support, caregiving, and so on. People who maintain a facade of marital bliss and stay together when they don’t really want to, end up being far more unhappy than those who divorce amicably. And their children may grow up to mirror these behaviors in their own marriages.

7. Whether you respect each other’s boundaries.

In some marriages, one parent will sacrifice their well-being and happiness for the sake of keeping the peace at home, while the other steamrolls everyone and always gets their way. As with the other situations mentioned on this list, this can either lead to children emulating these parental roles, or choosing to be different, better partners and parents in their own marriages.

Similarly, if children grow up with parents who disrespect or even ignore each other’s boundaries, they may learn that their own are invalid, or that it doesn’t matter if they don’t honor their spouse’s wishes — they’re married, and that allows them to walk all over one another, right? Alternatively, they may grow up to fiercely defend their own boundaries in relationships and respect those of others, making them the kind of spouse that anyone would be delighted to have by their side.

Final thoughts…

While some parents were paragons of virtue and amazing people to look up to, others provided prime examples of the types of people we never wanted to be. Their actions have shaped ours, for better or worse, in many different directions, but our behaviors can always be changed by personal choice. Our lives are shaped by nature as well as by nurture — unhealthy behavioral patterns can be unlearned, and every minute of every day offers us the opportunity to take the brighter, nobler path in our own relationships.