Great topic Lola.

My father died when I was 15 so that leaves me with just my mom and step-father. It is actually very interesting to see how my relationship with my mom has changed. She was not a great mom, to say the least, when I was growing up. However we now have a very nice friendly relationship which I am very happy about. After many bad years, she went through an enormous change and is almost a different person. She got sober, went on psych meds and has grown up quite a bit. There are still issues and I have to be careful with boundaries with her as we can end up in a very dysfunctional place pretty quickly if I let her get too intrusive/dependent/controlling/etc. For the most part though, I am very happy with the place we have gotten to.
The problem with this is that I see how much she was able to change and it gives me hope that others will do the same and sadly I think she is one of the exceptions.

Also, I was reading on another thread about hugs and it is only within the past couple years that I have felt comfortable when my mom hugs me. She is way too touchy and intrusive and I never was able to relax around her. Now that I am more secure in myself(through therapy) and I am able to set boundaries with her and others (sometimes) I can finally feel that I am free to accept a hug, rather than have it forced on me, and that has made all the difference. Sorry, bit of a tangent there.