My wife grew up as a neglected child. Around the age of 9, her parents split when BOTH were cheating. Her mother was a drunk and did little for the children. She had many boyfriends in the house. My wife essentially had to run the household at the age of 9. Often the mother was gone for several days. My wife had to raise her siblings. THe house was a mess, they often slept on sheets the dogs had peed on. Often my wife had to call realatives to bring food over when there was no food in the house. My wife has scars on her body from childhood falls that should have been stiched up, but the mom never took her to get fixed up. The mom eventually remarried and the stepdad may have tried to sexually assault my wife, although she now says that he was to drunk to do anything and passed out (but this story has been toned down over the years). At 16, she moved out and went to live with an ex boyfriends family. Her natural mother had a digust for men in general, they were the cause of her problems in life, and her adopted mother at 16, is possible the most fridgid women I have ever seen, she has slept on the couch for like 50 years. So obviously there are no good female roel models in my wife life. In addition, many of the men if my wifes life have LEFT her. First her DAD, then some of her long term boyfriends. She was also always poor, and sometimes I think she married me for my wealth potential, which did not materialize. We are not poor, just not rich. She seems to value THINGS in her life.
I still think she has the "who wants to want" problem. This condition can supposedly appear well into the marriage. It basically is the situation where as children we want love from our parents, and when it never comes, we learn to NOT need love from others, we build walls between us and REAL intimacy, for fear that it will not last. My wife would of course DENY this, she is afterall a strong women with no problems.
