My Parents are Divorced…Does that Mean that I’m Likely to get Divorced, too?

Many people who grow up with divorced parents carry around an unspoken worry: “Am I destined to repeat the same pattern?” Whether you’re married, in a serious relationship, or not currently partnered, that lingering fear can affect how you show up in love. It might even explain some hesitation, chronic worry, or relationship-phobic tendencies.

You may have noticed yourself falling into some of your parents’ old patterns—habits that didn’t work for them and aren’t helping you either. It’s easy to assume that our upbringing seals our fate. But is that really true?

In this video, George Pransky offers a fresh and deeply reassuring perspective on why your relationship future doesn’t have to follow your parents’ past. While it’s true that we unconsciously absorb habits and beliefs from the environment we grow up in, those habits aren’t set in stone. What’s more, they aren’t the main reason couples split up.

The biggest driver behind relationship breakdown isn’t personality differences or even conflict—it's misunderstanding the nature of thought and the role it plays in how we relate to each other. When we don’t see that our moment-to-moment experience is being created from the inside out through thought, we get caught in reaction, blame, and disconnection.

George explains that what determines the success or failure of a relationship isn’t background or “relationship baggage,” but our understanding of how relationships actually work. If you see where your experience is really coming from, you don’t get swept up in insecure thinking. You find yourself more resilient, more connected, and far better equipped to ride the ups and downs of any relationship.

No matter what your family history looks like, it doesn’t have to dictate your future. Your capacity for a close, healthy, lasting relationship isn’t determined by your past—it’s available to you now, in the present, with a shift in understanding.