I'm sorry about your childhood experiences. Sounds really hard to deal with! You said your dad was violent when drunk. Was he violent with you? And that is really bizarre how your mom sided with your friend against you. My mom was critical and tended to focus too much on our appearance, but there were times she stuck up for us kids when she shouldn't have.

My husband has been through rehab like ten times. Seriously. We even started a rehab program for women back in the early nineties. He will go to one, maybe two meetings depending on how bad he feels and then he will quit. He had 11 months sober when he drank a few months ago. The fact that he has been through rehab so many times makes it all harder somehow.

I know what you mean about trusting people. I had a friend in grade school, my best friend, who humiliated me and betrayed me in high school. I don't know how to let people in. I'm quick to tell people about myself, but I don't trust them.

I do think there are some people whose lives are fairly smooth. Of course there are plenty of people who only appear that way, but I think it's a spectrum.

I told my husband to clean the barf off the toilet. He did a lousy job, and he knows how to clean a toilet! I told him to clean it again. I don't care that he works fifty plus hours a week and I sit on my rear most of the time. He's cleaning that toilet till it's right and I'm doing some retail therapy!