My father's mother left her husband and her two children, my father was about 13 and his sister about 11. My fathers mother never said goodbye, she just went away.

My father told me his father was a mean drunk, he didn't say much more than that, but I can guess for a woman to leave her children it must have been pretty bad.

I can remember when my father was my age, 50's there was a call one day and my father looked so shocked. It was his mother on the other end of the phone. I remember my father saying, " I thought she was dead" because he had not heard from her in so many years and no one had even seen her.

I can remember when I had a tiff with a girl that stold some of my things and this girls mother exclaimed that she knew all about my father and how his father had done away with his wife. I now wonder if my father had ever heard that gossip and wondered himself.

I think the hardest thing for a woman is to expose her children and I know they stay in abusive marriages because of their children. Somehow they seem to know that the anger and spite will be taken out on the children.

Thank you Elan for posting this thread. It is a difficult issue for those that have been involved with a partner that is/was abusive.

Open Eyes