this is a habit with me, and I can't change it, or that is a habit with me and if you want to be a friend you better learn to live with it, or this is a habit and well, there it is..., or that is a habit with me and I'm too old to change now.
We adopt a habit and then defend it with all our might little realizing that this or that habit has us trapped, and worse, we've allowed ourselves to get trapped in it.
Pico Iyer's words come to mind: It so often happens that somebody says 'Change your life' and you repaint your car rather than re-wire the engine.
The same can be applied to a wrong habit - a habit that brings pain and grief and separation and hurt. Note, I'm specifying that it brings us pain and grief and separation and hurt, for if we love ourselves, we would not want to hurt or harm ourselves ( remember, unless we love ourselves, we cannot love anyone else).
Instead of changing the habit to a better one, or changing ourselves to get rid of the habit - which would mean hard work - we prefer to, in fact sometimes go to great lengths to whitewash it, or portray it as a virtue. We prefer to stick with the habit, instead of trying to re-wire ourselves to get rid of this habit that has trapped us and has us in its grip.