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I do think that there is a certain amount of “nurture” involved in the choices we make as adults. I don’t how the cycle started in our family.
I knew my Great-Grandpa very well. He was a kind and loving man. He treated my great-grandma almost like a doll. Not in a condescending way, his love and respect for her was plain for all to see. Grandma definitely ruled the roost. Grandpa had a double standard though. He was strict with the boys and very permissive with the girls. He saw a lot more than he let on too. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what was going on.
He was a clever man, he thwarted my attempts at being naughty many times without me even knowing he was doing it. I remember one time my cousin and I were going to have a cocktail party. We snuck Grandma’s good crystal out to our fort along with snacks and candles. We couldn’t get our hands on wine so we took some beer. Our plan was set for midnight. We snuck out of the house, poured our beer and sat down to have our party. We didn’t even get a sip when Grandpa yelled out the door “it’s time to come in now girls.” ??? Of course it was, we were in bed for two hours before we had our party! We left everything and came in the house and went to bed. I got up early to get Grandma’s good glasses and put them back in the cabinet but they were gone! After we fell asleep Grandpa went out and cleaned up our mess and washed the glasses and put them back in the cabinet before Grandma knew we took them! I didn’t know what happened until years later when Grandma told me. He stopped our behavior. He didn’t need to punish us, or have us know he was right, or even tell our parents what we’d done. It was enough for him to stop us.
For some reason my Grandmother, their daughter, married the biggest *** she could find. TWICE! When her first husband died very young she managed to find an even bigger jerk. She was the maid, cook, and chief bottle washer. I cannot think of a single thing that my grandfather ever did around the house. I do not remember him ever saying a kind word to my grandmother. Orders were barked to her and she rushed to comply. He treated my mother and Aunt like dirt from day 1. How do you go from having a father that treats you like a princess to one that treats you like dirt?
My Aunt married a man that treated her the same way her step father treated her mother. And now her daughters have married very abusive men. I was very frustrated with the youngest one. We are very close and had many discussions about all of this. I used to tell her “you’re going to marry someone that will treat you well right? You see what life is like for your mother and your sister, but you’re smarter than that.” She married the worst one of them all. Her husband put her in the hospital several times. She only left because she was afraid of how he was treating their infant daughter.
She is now a teenager and I am not happy with the boys she goes out with. I cannot for the life of me figure out what is attractive about being called “fat, dumb, and stupid”. WHY? Like her mother and Aunt she is a beautiful, intelligent young woman and yet she finds these losers so attractive.
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I've been married for 24 years and have four wonderful children.
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