After this heart-rending child abuse story
(http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=74221)
and the subsequent thread, I’m wondering if any of you dopers were subjected to emotional abuse, if it was, and how you’ve been able to reconcile it, if you have.
My parents were terrific individually but as a couple they were lousy. I was never physically abused (never even spanked) nor was I verbally abused that I can remember. As a child I didn’t realize that they disliked one another – they stayed together for religious reasons and ‘for the sake of the children.’ I don’t know if they had divorced what the difference would have been to my psyche. It was only as an adult that I realized (and from what they told me individually) how rotten their lives were. They didn’t tell me these stories as a me vs. him/her type thing, but as a caution toward what I might face ahead.
Because my parents felt they could never divorce, they never argued – what would be the point? They led separate lives. My mom became the ideal stay-at-home possessive mother and my dad became the ultimate workaholic. This worked for them. I can remember conversations at the dinner table that, initiated by my dad, began, “Tell your mother that…” followed by, “Tell your father that….”
I had difficulty reconciling problems when I later got into relationships. I thought that to argue meant that the relationship would end. I didn’t know that it was possible to have a difference of opinion that could be resolved. Years later when I was going to a counselor, she suggested that I learn techniques toward problem resolution. What did I do? I used every swear word I’d ever learned. I had no idea how to resolve conflict, compromise, negotiate, etc. Jesus. I had to have someone teach me how to argue. I divorced and perhaps shouldn’t have.
I view my parents’ married lives as wasted although they stayed together for the sake of me and my brother. Would I have been happier as the child of a divorced mom and a weekend dad? Looking back on my childhood I’ve always felt that it was a happy one but my memories weren’t those of being a happy child of loving parents but one of a happy child within a neighborhood with good friends. Only when I was older did I realize that my parents’ relationship was all a facade. Was this better for me?
Before this gets moved to IMHO, let me say I have the exact same experience. My parents never argued in front of us, and probably didn’t argue much at all because my father was controlling and my mother passive. When I got into relationships I never rocked the boat because I had never seen anyone fight and make up, and assumed any disagreement on my part would mean the end of the relationship.
I wondered too, with the help of a counselor, how it would have been if my mom had left him. Do I wish that had happened? I don’t know, and I’m not sure it’s worth thinking about. I am pretty much at the point you are in terms of figuring out how things were then, how it affects me now, and moving on to heal. I’m still stuck in the resentment toward my father stage though
In short, I don’t think it is emotional abuse. My parents did the best they could and didn’t mean to hurt me. It would be supremely difficult for parents to live their lives thinking all the time about what they are teaching their kids about relationships, etc.
Was this abuse?
I kinda doubt it. They didn’t know how to resolve their differences in, what we now consider to be a healthy way. We all resolve conflict in different ways. Some yell, some discuss rationally, some turn into abusers, etc. My mother was one to blow a gasket when things didn’t go her way. Dad was the calm, rational one who was prone to popping a fuse only now and again. I’m more like my dad than my mom.
Was it better for you?
I’d say probably so. Having both parents in the household to raise the child, we NOW learn, is better for the emotional stability of the child. As long as they both love you and spend quality/quantity time with you, that’s a help. That you didn’t have the standard “Mom and Dad”, but rather a Mom and a Dad who just so happened to share the same house. I think that if they HAD split, they both would have felt free to trash the ex-spouse to the child, thereby weakening the entire foundation.
Unfortunately, we can’t turn back the hands of time. So we try to be the best adults we can be, raise our children in an environment of love and respect, and make our niche of the world a better place.
“Golden Rule”, and all that.
Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m writing this based on what I feel and think.
Bad parenting is not the same as abuse. Your parents did the best they could for you and your brother.
For that matter, the structure of a workaholic father and possessive mother was not viewed as abnormal or even unhealthy that long ago. Your parents did what they believed was expected of them.
