Relationship Role Models.

Parents are sposed to be great influences on us. They are spposed to show us what is right, and what is wrong. They are sposed to show us what to do, and what not to do. (Basically, parents are good people, I'm lazy and I don't feel like coming up with more examples and metaphors.)
But, when it comes to relationships, should we listen to them? Should we follow their example? Should we listen to their words of wisdom, when we have a heart and a spirit of our own to lead us to our decesions?
Should a man who has had an affair influence his son's relationship with his girlfriend, when he has cheated on his son's mother?
Take my cousins for example. Their parents, like mine, are divorced. Their mother takes care of them, and has relationships that are seperate from their home life. Their father on the other hand, decided to be one for the kids, and built a house just for his kids. A few years later, he met a woman, that he had feelings for. Instead of being a classy father, and doing the dating thing slowly because he has children, (some say it's because he's cheap), he brings her home with him. Over a couple of years, he gets her pregnant, and the rest of the family stops speaking to him until Sonny gets sick. Now, my cousins are old enough for serious relationships. I often wonder if they will do the same thing, hiding their other person from people, getting them pregnant (well not practicing safe sex), and marrying someone that people don't think is right for you, and then finding yourself unhappy, and unable to get out of a situation.
"Don't follow your father's footsteps", my mother always warns them.
People say that you should always listen to your parents. But, if they have made mistakes, then why would you listen to them? If all they do is make mistakes, then why would you even want to follow them?
But then, like us parents were young, and stupid and make mistakes like all of us. are now. We will make mistakes, of our own, and maybe ones that many has made before us.
Maybe relationships are something that we do not need a role model for. Maybe, it's something that we need to come an answer to on our own.