Dear lostcloud:

You are welcome.

Regarding your childhood/ your parents, you wrote: “It could be small things rather than one big event of neglect or abuse”- I agree, except that for a young child a small thing is a big thing. It is only retroactively that we say things were “small things”.

“I feel guilty even saying that as my mum and dad are both lovely and as an adult have been so supportive”- don’t worry, they will not know that you are looking at those “small things”, or considering those, if you do. If they don’t know, no harm is done to them. The reason for you looking into your childhood is to make your life better, and it is a good aim, to improve your own emotional health and function better and better in life.

Regarding your ex boyfriend, you wrote that his mother “excused his behavior. She would say he was a ‘silly boy’ for cheating etc.”- I wonder if you ever considered that she did not excuse his behavior but encouraged it, that is, approved of it?

It is likely that he cared about his mother’s approval of him and tried to please her. After all she was the person in the family “who wore the trousers” and a child wants to please the parent who is in power. It is not likely that he didn’t care about her approval (“he didn’t seem to care he was disappointing her”).

“He was clearly the ‘apple of her eye'”- and he wanted to stay the apple of her eye by continuing to behave in the ways that pleased her. She reprimanded him but she didn’t mean what she said when she reprimanded him. “They are an ‘all talk no action’ kind of family”, you wrote. Maybe the talk is indeed just talk. He knew his behavior pleased her regardless of what she said.

I suppose how she said what she said was more convincing than what she said.

anita