The other point you raise, though, is another piece that worries me, and that's this idea of "patterning." What do Themselves learn about what parents do as they grow up in this situation? The soon-to-be-ex-Mrs.-SP [and N.B. @DanceQueen, she is no longer "WAW" in the Saga because I no longer consider her to have "wife" status] is no worse a mother -- and in many respects is a better mother -- than her own was. And as to the maternal grandmother, well she more-or-less gave her baby daughter to her Maiden Sister and bolted for the Coast to get a job and be an exciting working woman with "freedom" -- and this in the 1940s! Her sister is childless (and gleefully so -- which STBXMRSSP is intensely jealous of). So there's no real maternal role-model for the STBXMRSSP other than me.
Yep, and H's father was worse than he and his father died when he was 6 and so perhaps the best we can hope for is that one generation is "better" and more present than the previous one. So, in fact there is a decent likelihood that our kids will at least fare better than their parents, which would be wonderful as far as I'm concerned. Yes, let's settle a bit, lower our expectations a tad...as long as there is some positive evolution, that's something.
