My childhood home was emotionally neglectful--tremendously so. Did not realize how much so until I had my own kids and realized how much love/conversation/validation they need in a given day.
Looking in the rear view mirror I see that I dated stable men from good homes and turned those situations down.
I know now that I married my H to fix my mother.
I also am coping with new found anger I feel toward my MIL. We have always had a friendly, joking relationship up to now. Currently, I just want to call her up and call her out for all the dysfuntion.
When my S was 3 and learning to express emotion, he told me hated me while she was in the room. I tried to talk with him about his feelings. Such big emotions out of such a little body! She told me I should lock him out of the house for the day and she was serious!
Sadly, this is one of the techniques she used on my H. I am realizing he never experienced unconditional love and was punished physically and emotionally for expressing himself.
Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13 BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room" 8/15: H back to MBR 10/15: H back in dorm room 1/18: H files, now divorced
