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Fred Basset's avatar

It is said that you never fully become a man until your father dies. I don't know about that. I do know that I progressed as a person when I realized that my parents were humans, deeply flawed humans, who did the best they could within what their conditions and upbringing made them.

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George Neidorf's avatar

I was raised by my mother and step-mother, neither one was a good role model. One day I overheard my mother tell a friend to "never sacrifice yourself for your children." After I heard that I ignored whatever she had to say to me. My step-mother was a control freak and a groomer, a dangerous person to be around. I bounced back and forth between the two. It took many years to see the patterns that I had developed and how they affected my relationships with women. My wife adores her parents and reveres them and treats me the same way. That allows me to love her and treasure her. She is Thai and that's the Asian way, Many Western women have a different attitude, they are mostly about themselves and they reap what they sow.

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Bill Alstrom (MA/Maine/MA)'s avatar

Wise words indeed. I would add meeting your potential long term partners parents and spending time with them can be very instructive - if we pay attention. Your mate, no matter how much one protests, becomes what his or her parents were. Not totally. We can change some behaviors for sure.

I think my very fine wife took the best of her father and her mother to become herself.

So, spend some relaxing time with parents before you commit. Much of what you experience will be what your mate really is and/or will become. Apples don't fall far from trees.

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Kelly Winsa's avatar

I am not sure I agree with the psychoanalysis in general. Infants are about as innocent as it gets, and there can be trauma, if the mother is not a good enough mother. That person is wholly trained in how to allow maturation, like D. W. Winnicott perceived. Indigenous Science concurs that patience is the learning way of any scientific study. That idea, of the infant having responsibility is harsh. We need to look further. Monotheism is leaving out the woman (see: Tomson Highway Massey Lectures: #1) I was thinking of commenting before, that the word 'virgin' had original meaning of fierce, will. Women have will, which monotheism tends to shame, rather than accept.

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Don't Stop Me Now - TLawrence's avatar

I was adopted at 6 months old. Until then I was raised by nuns in a home for unwed mothers. They must have been very nurturing, and my adoptive mother was a wonderful, kind and yet tough woman. I was blessed with parents who loved my siblings and I as their own and taught us how to survive in this crazy world with ethics and strength. My husband adored his mother, who became widowed when he was 4. He was kind, funny, and always looked at the bright side of life. Unfortunately, he passed when he was 38, so our children did not get to know him as an adult. I think you are right about getting to know a person before becoming intimate. It would have saved my daughters marriages if they would have understood the anger in their husbands toward their families. Good advice.

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