@SW-User Since responding I happened to have a long chat over dinner with my brother and sister. Our conclusions about our parents are remarkably similar. We all suffered from our mother's extreme selfishness, constant need for attention and wanting to fulfil herself through her children whom she couldn't see as having rights of their own; her giving birth to us seemed to her to make us part of her. I learned many things I wouldn't repeat here. My brother has concluded that one of her problems was intellectual snobbery, i.e. she and her children were deemed superior to almost all others :- it wouldn't have mattered who any of us fell in love with as they couldn't have been worthy, and she backed up her appalling views by a blatantly hypocritical use of religion; there were always plenty of Catholic priests who subscribed to her views. I think nobody can get completely emancipated from such a extreme and perverted view but it's important to keep trying and looking for symptoms of the disease in myself. At least I've never struck my son and never would! I don't in any way want to embarrass you but it is a help finding someone with at least an open mind and possibly a degree of empathy, like yourself.
