Reading your post made me sad, eskielover, because superficially, that is the description of how my family was. Mom at home, made all the meals on time, made a lunch for school each day, there waiting after school, made us go to church and taught us the religious dogma she knew, etc. I had all those things that you said, but yet it was the most unnurturing family ever. Never a word of love or a show of affection or kindness. Lots of yelling and dysfunction and hitting and beating and just plain cruelty. (And a dogmatic religion was zero consolation or help.) I just don't see that nurturing and those superficial qualities go together at all. I have worked outside of the home off and on as my children grew up, I haven't made their lunch each day, and my husband and I shared cooking duties and diaper changes. But I was very nurturing, far more than my parents. (That was a big goal of mine with my children since I never experienced it myself and know that inside, I missed it.) My children have no doubt that I love them because I tell them that all the time! They have had a mom who hugged them, complimented them, supported them, and was generous of heart. It's been a topic of mine in therapy--looking for clues in my past that my parents may have loved me. I cling to the flimsiest of evidence. I'm not obsessed with the hunt, but it surfaces from time to time. It's pathetic really--this stupid search for "proof". My T is great about it, and answers my strange questions--I ask him how a person would know if another person loved them. What would be the expression on a person's face, a gesture, actions, etc. I have asked him if his parents loved him, and if so (they did, he said), how he knew that. It's like I'm asking him questions about the strange customs of a foreign land. Now that I am older, and my relationships with my parents are improving, with T's help, I am finding little signs that they may love me TODAY. And maybe that means they loved me back then too. (Another clue to the past.)

Your search is different than mine, ECHOES, but I know how those relentless searches hurt. (Perhaps oddly, I have never searched for the perfect caretaker. For some reason, I guess I was a realist and accepted that my parents were not nurturing and didn't look further.) Your T sounds like a lovely, caring, and compassionate woman. It can be nice to know that a person is not the perfect caretaker but can be "just right", in their own way. It sounds like your T is not perfect, but she is wonderful, and just right for you at this time in your life. And you have come to give her space to be her own way, instead of seeing her as a shadow parent, which I think is a sign of a healthy and mature person.

Note to eskielover: I think there is more divorce today partly because people place greater emphasis on personal happiness for themselves. Perhaps that means people are more selfish today? Is there a sense of entitlement now, that one deserves to be happy in life? I do wish I had divorced earlier in life instead of clinging to the idea that one should stay no matter what, that it was better for the children, etc. (My children have commented many times how much better things are since the divorce.) "One can be a nurturing single mother/father, it's not impossible, but the more outside pressures we feel on ourselves, the harder it becomes." Contrary to what you wrote, I find it even easier to be nurturing now that I am divorced, because there are fewer internal family pressures. With all that gone, I have even more of myself to give.