it's a love/hate thing..though after talking to them some more after the fire has settled the more I appreciate all they have done and understand why I am the way I am and how I became this way..the positive traits at least lol.

(:

hmmmm, my issue with my folks are somewhat different, but yeah I don't particularly like my mother. It sounds like you are holding on to resentment, whereas I am not feeling particularly angry at my mother, but I have no connection with her which would compel me to work with her to create a relationship of any kind. We don't talk. I just don't like who she is as a person, so how to have a relationship with someone with whom you have no affinity for, feel nothing in common with and whose traits get on your nerves? So I simply don't. My dad is swell though...

Holding onto resentment and anger is something different. I've wondered, if you despise them, does that mean you love them beneath and are angry because of the betrayal of that love? I don't know that answer to that, but I think it may be true for many people who, once they get over the anger, find room to love. Do you just not like them but you love them beneath? Or you don't like or love them and have no relationship at all? Hrmmmm, thought I had something to say about this but maybe I don't because I don't know how much commonality there is between our situations, but in answer to your question anyway, no I do not like my mother.

I have been thinking a lot about my parents lately. At am 60, my father died in my 30s and my mother died last summer. My parents divorced when I was 5ish and I lived with my mother until 15 or so, when she threw me out and sent me to live with my father. I went back a year later, but she threw me out again, and that time I stayed gone. My mother was extremely abusive, mostly verbablly, but physically to, and she was the one responsible for subjecting me to 4 surgeries on my right ankle, the last one of which caused fairly severe permanent damage (a limp, atrophy, on top of scars).

So, we did not have a good relationship.

My father was a sweet to me, but when I was forced to live with him as a teen, (that is a long story) it put a strain on our relationship that never healed.

So as soon as I came of age, I ran away...and never stopped running. To make a long story short, I ran from New Jersey to California, but inside I ran much further then that. It took me years and years to realize it, but now I bitterly regret running out on my father. I miss him terribly, and I only wish he were alive so I could tell him. But he isn't, and I ended up alone, as I was unable to create any stable relationships of my own. To a lesser extent, I regret chosing to live so far away from my mother too, as by doing that I denied us any chance of resolving our issues, and I think we could have and that would have been a good thing.

I never hated my mother, but there was anger there. Mostly, it was cold indifference. But with age, my feelings mellowed, although we hardly ever kept in touch, even right up to the end.

Standing on one leg for 4 hours is torture, not disicipline. You have every right to not like your parents. I strongly feel that most human beings should refrain from having children, as there are more bad parents the good ones. You can look at them, however, as a valuable opportunity for a lesson in forgiveness, even though it may take a long time for your to get to a place like that. Age seems to lessen the pain and resentment however, as you come to realize that we are all dealing with our own private demons, and they probably were doing the best the could at the time.

My advice to you is to follow your heart. Do what it says. If it says to cut them out of your life, do so, but keep the door adjar if you do, so that the healing, on both sides, can take place, if and when you are ready. It is not healthy to go through life carrying grudges.

I have conflicted feelings about my parents. I believe that most people do. They are completely different from me on most all levels. I used to think it was because I was adopted, and sometimes I still do believe that.

We had a terrible Thanksgiving together. Christmas yesterday was fine. But they make me nervous, and I don't know why. I do love them, and I know they love me. They are in their 80's now, and I know I won't have them much longer. I try to remember that.

They are not warm and affectionate people. I am the opposite.

What I worry about most now is being a Mom. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. I wonder whether I'm doing a good job. I worry about that a lot. My son has Aspergers, so it's a bit different. He is not warm and loving, similar to my parents. He has some issues.

I spanked him as a young child, and then one day after walloping him in a park (he was 4 and ran away down the street from me in a busy city), I decided never to strike him again. It was never what you call beating him, he would get a swift hit on the butt, or I would grab him roughly when he wasn't behaving. Mostly I was a yeller.

After living through an abusive marriage, I decided one day never, ever to strike him. Not in anger, or fear or anything. And when he asked me at 8 why I never spanked him, I told him that I had made that decision. I am bigger than he, and I remember what it was like to be physically hurt by someone bigger also.

When he was 11 we were in a local cafe. My son was being very rude and condescending to me. I had enough. So I told him that I wanted to slap him. He told me that if I did that around all those people, they would call the police. I then told him I'd take him out to the car where no one would see us. It was then he reminded me of my promise. I was furious with him.

So after we left, we were sitting in the car and he was still making me mad. So I reminded him that it was I that made that pledge...his father had never said that......And Dad was due to be home within a couple of hours... That certainly gave him pause for thought.

I have dealt with his Aspergers, and his fathers clinical Depression for a long time. The one thing we are missing in this house is friends. We just don't have a big social life. And even though we have gone places, we are mostly homebodies. This house has real love, but I feel like there is something missing here for my son. I get lonely. Even though he has friends, I wonder if he is lonely too. His Dad could spend the rest of his life never meeting another person, and going to work and then coming home.

It's what I worry about the most. Being a parent is very difficult. You wonder.

Molly