Dear Missxm:

You are welcome. You wrote that you accepted all parts of your father, growing up. A child has no choice but to accept all parts of a parent, because a child is so needy and inexperienced, not having a choice to leave existing parents and home and move to another home, different parents.

As an adult, you have a choice, however difficult, to not accept a parent’s abusive behavior. Because, hopefully, as an adult, you can leave and live elsewhere.

You wrote about your mother: “she is flawed naturally and says things often she does not mean (nothing too extreme)”-

First: when people say hurtful things to another, they do mean to hurt the other person. In anger itself there is the motivation to hurt or harm another. It is so with other animals, in nature, motivating an animal to fight another, that is, to harm another.

Better look into this and acknowledge your intent when angry.

Second: notice you accept this behavior in your mother, and so you accept it in you as well. At least as long as it is not “too extreme”. Maybe what she says is less extreme than what your father said, but more extreme than what other people out there say. So if you say hurtful things to a boyfriend that you believe is not extreme, it may very well be extreme in his experience.

Make it a rule for yourself, if you will, to not say abusive things to another, extreme or mild. Non. Communicate honestly, assertively and non-abusively.

anita