Search Results: overprotective parents

My mother wouldn't physically strike me or my sister growing up. She *would* regularly plant us on the couch and yell at us for hours on end. It was like growing up in a minefield, tiptoeing so as not to set her off.

"I swear to God if I cut my fucking wrists it'll be your fault!" To my father, in the aftermath of a layoff.

"I wish I never had children!" Announced when my sister said she'd be moving out of state with her fiance. The expectation was that we'd get married, produce "granbabies" and never want to live more than an hour away from her. Just the thing to say to make you want to stay, right?

Then there was all the religious shit... the latest being that the California drought is punishment for their tolerance of homosexuals.

She was always overprotective, controlling, paranoid. Growing up, we couldn't freely ride our bikes through the neighborhood, just in circles on the driveway. "I know you didn't like that, but guess what? You're alive." Gee. Thanks. Even in college when I couldn't afford to live in the dorms on campus, I felt I had to get home by a certain time. It's like Stockholm syndrome.

She had no real friends, and for years resented my father's family for various slights real and imagined. She trusted no one, and I in turn have never really learned to trust either. It's not as bad these days, but... growing up under her, seeing what she put my father through and having no other examples to look at, made me seriously question the merits of marrying at all. I never dated in high school, in college, or for four years afterwards. By the time I figured out that not all women are like that and partnership is something I very badly want, I was left not knowing how to start or where to look.

Needless to say, the prospect of introducing a woman I really care about to her scares the living shit out of me.

I moved out years ago, but it still feels like I'm wearing a leash and my love life and career are going nowhere. Am I a bad son for wanting to leave?