Dear Peaches:

Regarding your parents: if your mother believed your father when he complained about his mother neglecting and mistreating him, there may have been a meeting-of-the-minds-and-hearts between then, and maybe, maybe there would be less anger on your father’s part. He may have gone through his whole life not being believed, that he was mistreated as a child, and this is the anger that keeps emerging.

I think it angered and angers your father that your mother took and takes such good care of his mother, the woman who mistreated him badly. The most loving thing your mother could have done for him was to take his side in the conflict with his mother, a conflict that is ongoing still.

He was a good boy, accused of being bad and he proceeded to become a bad father.

Which brings me back to you: having grown up with a bad, abusive father. And with a mother who didn’t take his side on the matter that… matters most to him, here you are, 26, living away from them, independently (good!), having an unsatisfactory relationship with a man (first thread).

Are you considering ending that relationship?

anita