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Wondering if my experience is familiar to anyone here. My father was an alcoholic, mainly binge drinking on weekends and sometimes during the work week. He had a pretty controlling personality even when not drinking, and my mother never stood up to him. My whole childhood and teen years were spent walking on eggshells. You just never knew what kind of mood he would be in or if he'd be drinking.

My mother was pretty much emotionally absent, and don't remember her ever being really involved in what we were experiencing. The drinking was the proverbial elephant in the room--never spoken of at all. There was no physical abuse, but definitely emotional with a lot of yelling, and they yelled at each other, too. I have one sister, close in age, but we rarely talked about it with each other.

My father eventually quit drinking when I was 25 and married, but it was literally never spoken of after that. You'd think we had an Ozzie and Harriet childhood to hear my parents reminisce. He died almost 10 years ago, and in those last 15 years he enjoyed being a grandfather to my and my sisters children, warm and cuddly to them. My kids think he was the greatest grandfather and have nothing but good memories of him. I had a really hard time with his death because I felt that we had a lot of unresolved issues, and I never felt close to him at all.

My mom is still the same, we see her fairly often but everything is very surface--no talking about the past or anything, and have never felt emotionally close to her, which is very sad, and it really strikes me when seeing the difference between my relationships with my own children and my relationship with my mother. I feel that I was never really "mothered" at all, if that makes sense.

All in all, I'm very blessed, and am married to an incredible man that loves me so much, and we have children, with whom I feel very connected most of the time, yet I still feel like I'm holding something back. It's as if I'm afraid to get too intimate emotionally with anyone. This has gotten better over the last couple of years, and am sorry to say that it took me over 25 years of marriage to really feel emotionally intimate with my husband.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but just found this place and wanted to know if anyone could relate and if so, what has helped you to grow and heal past the anger (I still occ feel that way toward my mother for putting up with my father and not getting us out of there) and the feelings of never being parented properly--which sounds strange as a 50 year old, but it still hits me sometimes, especially when I see friends that are very doting and close to their elderly parents, and those parents are very interested in their adult child's lives.
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Thanks for replying, Dragonfly, and sorry you could relate so well.

I definitely understand that holding something back from being completely emotionally intimate. It's like I fear if he really knew me completely, I wouldn't be acceptable, even though there's never been one single reason to think this in my experience. It was right around our 25th anniversary, 3 years ago, when I realized I was suffering from depression (not long, maybe a year at the most), and I remember clearly thinking, "if I don't open up to him and embrace this relationship fully, then I'll never have that in my life--ever. What am I waiting for?"

Fortunately, my husband's parents had a very loving, supportive marriage and he had great parenting and married love modeled for him. I still avoid conflict like crazy, and find myself holding back on things that annoy me so not to appear bitchy. That's probably partly good because it keeps me from nagging a lot, lol.

Part of me thinks I'm ridiculous to be dredging all of this up now, so late in my life. But reading here has really made everything come into focus and so much of my personality and traits like avoiding conflict, feeling not good enough, afraid of intimacy, and more--it all makes sense.

I guess I just need to come to terms with the fact that I'll never have a close emotional relationship with my mom, not even sure she's capable of it, and I just don't want to even go there---the feelings are so raw and vulnerable, you know what I mean?
quote:
She never did leave him.Even when she could. Frowner somehow i find it harder to forgive her than him.I guess its because I am a mother myself and i could never let my children live through that.



I forgot to say in my last post a resounding YES!! to what you wrote above. I remember lying in bed as a teen, hearing them yell at each other when he was drunk, and wishing she'd just get up balls to kick him out of our lives. Having a loving family without screaming was so important to me, and was always drawn to friends that had warm family lives. Of all of the things in my life that's what I'm most thankful for, that we do have a warm, loving family and my kids have never doubted that their parents love each other or them. Not perfect at all, but sooooooo much better than what I grew up in.
Hey LisaM! We haven't "met" so Welcome

Going back to the initial post. Yes I relate in so many ways!

The binge drinking, the walking on eggshells, emotional and physical abuse and this conflict(for me anyway)in viewing my father as on one side mr nice guy - friendly/funny and on the other side possessive/aggressive. Submissive mother - I think I understand why though (although growing up I battled to understand that) and in some strange way I almost see a strength in it today, in that she stayed because financially she knew she would not be able to make ends meet and so she took a lot of the abuse herself, and she really did do it for her children. She must have never lost faith in changing him I guess. Last 2yrs of his life were much better (I was a teenager when he died). Had a hard time dealing with his death too due to regrets I guess. As a family we never really spoke about what happened at home. Not then and not now - the fights, hiding under the bed and in the cupboard. Bruises were always covered and hidden and nobody knew, well I don't think they did anyway. Now it almost seems disrespectful to talk about those things because he is dead and people choose to remember the good. As for my own relationships the affects of growing up like that have made me focus on conscious choices - the husband I chose is not aggressive or possessive yet he is friendly and funny. I go absolutely beserk if he gets drunk. I want to explode it is so triggering. Problem is I never told him about what I went through as a child as such, so he doesn't understand where the anger comes from. In the last year I briefly told him so he has been more respectful of that. I continue to have that "closed" side about me where I pretend to be fine when I am not. I'd hate for someone to actually know my reality??? Well not really ??? When it comes to exposing my vulnerable side in an intimate relationship - well I don't. So from a connection point of view I have probably done myself a disfavour, but like you, I feel blessed because my husband also came from a loving and supportive family. I am not sure why I am not brave enough to tell him everything that has happened. Probably don't trust men - yeah that's it. Have several reasons for that. I know you shouldn't generalise and I try not to, but it is hard. At one point I was thinking of maybe telling him but then T left me (and she was the only one I ever let in) so I thought I am better off trusting nobody.

So yes I relate, but no I have no advice.

B2W

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