Mouse, you didn't wake up one morning and say, "Gee, think I'll let the kids screw me today; that sounds like a good idea." They were bigger/older/you literally needed the contact (my stepmother was physically abusive but I needed the contact, the "relationship" good, bad, or indifferent). If the there's nothing healthy we can use in the environment we have to use the unhealthy! That's why people die from drinking salt water on the ocean, they're dying of thirst and can't stand it. It's not something wrong with them, they're not "bad"! It's how we're made. We have to have relationships/touch, especially when we're young or we'll die. http://www.upress.umn.edu/HarmfultoMinors.html