Dear Sapnap3:

I understand the teaching of respecting one’s elders and one’s parents in particular. When your mother harms you repeatedly and still, and you submit to her under the teaching of respecting one’s parents, you experience yet more abuse.

“I respect all elders. I am kind to all so  I don’t know why I would be any different to my mother”- because she is still abusing you. (It doesn’t hurt less when one is abused by one’s mother; it hurts more).

“she came from a dirt poor family…”- I too empathize with your mother when she was a child, when she suffered abuse. But that child is long gone. The woman she became chose to hire the services of a man who sexually abused her daughter because he charged less than other handymen.

“We (your and your boyfriend) have a good relationship where we support each other and are friends. I am confused as shouldn’t that be good enough?”- you mean good enough for him to be willing to marry you?

anita