I'm from a dysfunctional family, now I'm married with a kid?
Now I have my own family, and I'm afraid of reapeating the cycle from the dysfunctional family I grew up with. My mom was cheating on my dad, my dad was always lying to my mom. We were always late to everything, we were never on time. I always did bad in school and got picked on all the time. I used to cut myself as a teenager and now my little sister is doing it...she's fifteen. My brother was the lucky one. He got away and went to college and made a better life for himself. Now my parents are divorced and my dad has major issues and lives in our old house with five cats and four dogs that he can't take care of. My mom is with her boyfriend now and completely neglects my sister, who has been in and out of the hospital for depression and my mom refuses to put her on meds(she believes they made me worse. Sometimes I find my husband and I fighting about stupid stuff like my mom and dad did. I try not to be like my parents but sometimes I just can't help it. How do I break this?
You are naturally going to be like your parents sometimes. The very fact that you are afraid of repeating the cycle demonstrates that you have the self awareness essential to success in not doing so.
You are aware when you are replaying those negative, pointless arguments your parents had; again, that's a really good sign. You are into beating yourself up a lot, because you haven't reached some self appointed level of perfection. You probably grew up thinking everybody else's family was some perfect, TV family, and in the back of your mind, that's what you are striving for.
Your brother wasn't "lucky". Luck is winning the lottery. He made his own luck by sticking with it through college and - you said it yourself - "MADE a better life for himself". He took the continual, positive action necessary to get himself out of a negative life. You are doing the same.
Perpetual lateness is a symptom of control issues and a certain hostility - "I'm gonna make everybody wait for me." You have the power to simply get into the habit of being organized enough to be on time. Being late was your parent's problem, not yours.
I don't agree that you should distance yourself from your fifteen year old sister. She needs you. She needs your positve role model, especially if your mom is neglecting her. She also needs to see you interacting with your own child.
There is no silver bullet to "break this". What there is, is time and the willingness to make an effort, both of which you have. You don't say how old your kid is. But you have probably already experienced the joy of reacting differently than your parents would've done, to the same stimulus. Every time your kid does something that you know would have caused your parents to react badly (if you did it as a child), and you react calmly, you know you are a better parent than they were. It is the best therapy in the world.
Sometimes, parents are "negative gurus" - they exist to show you how you DON'T want to be. Sounds as if you are never going to get positive role models from them, so celebrate the lessons that you have learned from their negative example. You have already come so far; you just don't recognize it in yourself. There are no perfect families. Continue to develop the good habits you have started. Daily habits make or break a life. Continue to be aware when you start to say or do something "from the past", and please start patting yourself on the back for your present. You deserve it.
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