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[quote=Anonymous]I have a terrible relationship with my father and will not mourn him when he passes.

I have a complicated relationship with my mother and do resent her somewhat for not protecting us or intervening, because I do think she knew it was wrong.

I waited until my late 30s to have a child because I didn't want to be an abusive parent and that's how long it took me in therapy to feel confident I had the emotional maturity to handle the stress of parenting differently and not fall into the patterns I was raised with. This is also why I only had one child -- it was too late to have more and also I didn't want to take on too much given that I was breaking generational patterns.

I became a people pleaser and developed the habit of always putting the needs of others first even (or perhaps especially) when they are unreasonable or harmful to me. I am still working on this in my 40s and have wound up in abusive relationships with friends and at work because my people pleasing attracts people with abusive personalities who are looking for someone who will accept and accommodate even their worst behavior. I'm finally getting better at recognizing this pattern early on and removing myself from relationships with people who seek to take advantage of my enabling behaviors.

I do think I'm fortunate in that I figured out a lot of this early enough to avoid abusive romantic relationships. I knew I didn't want to marry a man like my dad and was on the look out for certain behaviors. My husband is not abusive and would never hit, and also I made it VERY clear before we got married that I would never tolerate that. I also got married in my mid-30s though -- I think having an abusive father resulted in it taking me longer to find and settle into a romantic relationship because I didn't have any real model for what a healthy marriage looked like. I had to learn from therapy and surrounding myself with people who had healthy relationships.[/quote]

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