Dear Kay:

“I think my mother did not  like me and my father because we have weak  personalities and we are too sensitive”, so her solution was to make the two  of you individually, more weak, by attacking each one of you. She attacked  you physically at  times, not  talking to you at  other times, and threatening to abandon you at yet other times. She is still “rude and verbally abusive” to your father. You wrote that if you would have a relationship with a man, you would “never be  bad  or abusive”.

Some  people attack those they perceive to be weak. Even a child that is born weak, dependent, who has no choice  but to be weak. Attacking the weak is what  animals do in a herd or in a social group when they feel that the  weak  is slowing them down, making it more possible for a predator to catch up with the herd. So your mother is still trying to .. get rid of your father so that she can go back to live “with her parents” and have money and be happy, like she was before.

It doesn’t make sense, does it. But we are animals, and follow similar behaviors, and when we are not aware, we don’t know that  it doesn’t  make sense, that it doesn’t serve us well. Your mother should  have done her best to provide her husband with safety and  support in the marriage, so that he will get stronger.

Well,  what now?

anita