How Your Parents Affect Your Relationships

When you're a little kid, the best learning tool is through observation within your environment. You pick up what love is, what it means to be a mother, father, spouse, what it means to trust, and how to express emotion.

When you see your parents interact, you assume that is how to treat your significant other. But what happens if the parents relationship puts the child in a hostile environment, or if the child has to go through a divorce?

As we know, divorce can get ugly. Co-parenting amicably after a divorce or separation is rarely easy, but it give your children the emotional stability needed.

How much has your parents' relationship affected the way you handle your relationships later in life?

Females who come from divorced parents are 60 percent more likely to get a divorce than females who are part of non-divorced families. Males who have divorced parents are 35 percent more likely to get divorced.

Dr. Joseph Shrand is an instructor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and an assistant child psychiatrist on the medical staff of Massachusetts General Hospital explains how your parents communication and habits influence your own relationships.