Thanks again for all the messages. Again, I’m so grateful & wish there was the time to speak to you all properly. Each thread of the conversation, each experience shared & all the questions everyone has asked, I wish I could follow them all through like they deserve. I’m genuinely interested to learn as much as possible.
@leehalf believe it or not I’ve been reflecting on previous relationships myself this last few days looking for a pattern! I can say that not all of my relationships have followed the pattern of my current (ex?) sufferer. But I would say I could recognise certain qualities in maybe 2 of my previous partners too. Both of these partners I would describe, as delicately as I can, as “unstable”, depressive, prone to illogical outbursts, etc. Tho my current sufferer is by far the most extreme, most consistently volatile & the most cruel with it. Those other partners could maintain being nicer to me for far longer periods.
My mother died 4 years ago & I had been one of her primary carers alongside my father up until her death for the 4 years before she died. She had early on set dementia so she did become very much like my child in those years before I lost her. I did literally everything for her & I wish I could have done more.
Prior to her illness I was always close with my mother, tho I always had far more in common with my father (not unusual for a lot of boys I suppose). Despite us being close & how much even closer I became to her when she was unwell, I would never have described myself as a “mummy’s boy” tho. She was a fantastic loving mother but I was never smothered by her love in an unhealthy way, she wanted me to be my own person.
My parents had a very turbulent relationship when I was young, arguing a lot, we grew up in fairly constant tension. If there wasn’t a row happening, the atmosphere was building towards one. It wasn’t really until my mother became ill (when I was 27/28) that I’d really seen any signs of genuine love, affection or appreciation between my parents. Was first time I could see that they liked each other really.
The arguments & rows were a combination of problems on both their sides. My father can be a bit Jekyll & Hyde & he can be a very nasty, cruel & bullying type (me & him are extremely close 95% of the time & he’s a very well liked man - but when he turns I can honestly say he is the only person in this world who’s ever made me feel hate. He has been pretty awful to me on occasions yet it always ends up being brushed under the carpet like it never happened & I spend an awful lot of my time to this day looking after him rather than myself - pattern forming?!).
My mother probably felt rather bullied by my father a lot of the time & in many ways I wish for her sake she had left him. I believe there were probably a few moments of violence towards her but I have never known exact details. But, in terms of the verbal rows I was regular witness to, she could also cause enough of these herself & could be rather illogical at times in what she was saying & arguing. She could be infuriating at times & although she deserved an awful lot of sympathy, she didn’t always help matters I guess you could say (tho please don’t think for a second I’m justifying any of my father’s behaviour towards her - I do not follow him with his anger or aggression at all). They could both be guilty of being selfish in terms of caring more about their rows than what their rows were doing to me & my 2 sisters.
So, patterns? My Mum could be illogical & irrational at times...my father can be an absolute a***hole who will never acknowledge or apologise for his behaviour after an event...in fact he will lie to anyone, including me, about what happened in order to shift the blame onto me or whoever he’s fallen out with...yet I will still stick to him like a loyal dog despite what that does to my self esteem...now if only we could spot a pattern here?!! Hahaha!
Christ I’m more messed up than I realised! Haha!
I have always been determined not to have the relationship that my parents had. Determined to never bring kids up in that same environment I did. Yet clearly I have followed a pattern cos I have been drawn to someone who is extremely turbulent to say the least. I think my relationship with my father causes me a lot of issues in all this (only last year he cut me off for 5 months for literally no reason - I even had witnesses! Tho that 95% of the time we remain like best friends to this day!). I also don’t know whether I’m seeking out female partners who need rescuing because I want to rescue my mother? Or (far scarier to me) whether subconsciously I see them as weaker & I can control like my father did? But I don’t think it can be that. I know how my father behaved & I could never ever repeat that stuff. Of course I can get frustrated but I could never lose it like he could. I’m 36 & I have never once got close to behaving the way he did towards my Mum.
So, I joined this site to help me learn & understand my sufferer & to learn better ways of coping with things...turns out I’ve inadvertently put myself under the microscope!! That can only be a good thing tho...
