Fuzzy

I struggled being a mom to my daughter.....as she came just as I was trying to finish up my degree & it ended up being a war situation because before I ever got married I specifically stated that nothing was going to get in the way of my degree or I had no interest in getting married. The first thing my H said at the time I ended up pregnant was that I could JUST take a couple of years off college & go back when she was older......those were fighting words & sadly, she was in the middle of the war.

I never had a motherly instinct & would have been just as happy never having kids (or so I thought). I never related to children & especially NOT babies so that was MY struggle on top of the war.

I wanted a career, not a family......while on the other hand, growing up, my mother was that stay at home housewife but she couldn't drive (not until I was 16) & I had no way of getting to go to the things I wanted to be involved in. Both my parents had absolutely no self-esteem & I was so embarrassed by them I didn't want anyone to know they were my parents.....so I swore I was NEVER going to be anything like them.....so I set about making my own really messed up mistakes trying to make up how to do things as I went with no good role models to work from.

Parenting is IMO one of the most difficult things in the world not to mess up......& it's our children that end up paying for it in the long run. It's funny because I forced my H to do the taking care of her when she was a first born baby because he was the oldest in his family of 4 kids (I was an only child & never had anything to do with babies) but when she got older, I was the one who stood with her & helped her fight battles when things needed to be taken care of....something my H was incapable of doing. After finally leaving my H & all the fighting that she had to deal with growing up between us I am the one that keeps in contact with her & her BF & his 2 children & enjoy making things for & they are a part of every holiday & birthday giving even though it's across the miles since none of us have the money for traveling.....but she hardly ever hears from her dad....it's like he's almost totally disappeared from her life even though I know that he loves her.....it just makes me wonder all that much more if he's been dealing with asperger's all these years because he does have so much trouble interacting with people.

There were so many issues unknown to me about my father & mother that probably would have made it more understandable regarding their non-supportive ways of being & I don't think my daughter knows about all the issues that I was going through that caused my reactions to be what they were.....& then there are just some people who are not supportive because they are JUST JERKS.

I am so glad that you have papa bear who is supportive. The H I was married to knew how to act supportive & do things that looked & seemed right....but there was nothing there other than the actions & when he didn't know what actions to take there was NOTHING....no substance behind the mechanical actions that he knew was the right thing to do at times. I could never put my finger on the problem until after I left & have actually found myself surrounded by supportive people now that I have NO family other than my daughter who lives 1000+ miles away & learning what it really feels like to interface with REAL supportive people......I have learned a lot about being supportive myself & it's been a growing process with many growing pains with realizations of all the failures I've had at being supportive & not just accepting that it's my personality live with it like my H had told me before I left.

sorry for the Thesis on support.....it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately also .....so I sort of did a brain dump here the thoughts I've been dealing with in regards to the lack of support received throughout my life & the why's that seem to be involved with it.