How do you handle disclosing childhood abuse or a difficult family situation to potential dates/partners? Has it gotten more difficult since you started therapy?

I realized that, before therapy, I didn't expect my partners to understand my situation, listen to me talk when I was triggered, or simply be kind and understanding towards me. Now, I do. Now, I think it's important that anyone I consider dating possess a level of emotional intelligence, sensitivity, and good listening skills. I think it should be a two-way street. I'm willing to offer that, and think I deserve the same in return. Unfortunately, I think it's hard to find. Maybe people who haven't gone through what a lot of us have don't really "get" how those experiences change us and stay with us? I don't know. But I think having the ability to listen and be a compassionate human being is important.

I had a really bad experience with that this week. For awhile now, I've been communicating with someone from an online dating site who lives one state away (and we were planning on meeting in person this week). At first, it seemed like a really good match: she's educated, intelligent, financially stable, attractive, looking for a partner, and wants kids. We exchanged several great emails, and then began taking on the phone. On the phone, I noticed she did most most of the talking and frequently cut me off. She came across as rather aggressive and a bit of a "bulldozer." But I still thought she might just be nervous and was talking so fast as a result. Then, during our third phone conversation, she started asking me questions about my family. Like many of us on here, that isn't an easy question for me to answer-- but I did. I started explaining that I don't have a mom (she's mentally ill and didn't want me)-- and before I even finished the explanation, she said "it's probably better that you didn't have a mom. If you had been coddled, you probably wouldn't be so driven and successful." I thought that was incredibly rude. She has a mom and has no idea how much pain it caused me not to have a mom and to go throughout my life feeling unloved. But I tried to be polite, so I just said "well, it would have been nice to grow up in a loving family." Then she interrupted me again, and said "well, you had your dad to do everything for you. You're lucky." Then, I explained that she misunderstood the situation because my dad was not around most of my childhood. He was an extreme workaholic and maybe spent one hour a week with me. I was actually raised by a nanny. Before I even finished my sentence, she began criticizing me and said I should be mature enough to recognize that my dad needed to work and didn't have time for me. I tried to explain that my dad was well off and didn't NEED to work that much; avoiding the bad situation at home was his coping mechanism. But this woman completely ignored what I was sharing and continued to tell me how spoiled and lucky I was, at which point I couldn't take it anymore and just said "well, I had a very abusive childhood and don't feel that I need to defend myself anymore." That wasn't something I wanted to disclose or talk about, but I felt bullied into it because she kept trying to make me sound like a spoiled brat for not appreciating my "lucky" childhood. But even after I disclosed that, she told me I needed to get over it and move forward and stop talking about it. Of course, those are the lines I've heard all my life and they are precisely why I shoved it away and didn't talk about it or deal with it until I began therapy with my current T. Finally, once I got a chance to talk again, I told her that I'm actually in therapy, and that I find it helpful to talk about my situation (because I never have before) and to have someone simply listen without interrupting me and validate my experience. She then told me that my therapist is paid to listen to me, but she is not! I've never experienced a conversation with a potential date where she was so rude! I wasn't telling her about my family to unload on her; I was answering her very direct and persistent questions. It's SOOO hard to be vulnerable with potential partners when you have an abuse history, and it's awful to feel like you're being attacked all over again when you try to calmly answer questions about your family.

Needless to say, she is not the one for me. I'm just frustrated that it feels like I have to add yet another "thing" to the list of what I'm looking for in a partner. Why is it so hard to find people who are decent listeners and who can be validating when you do disclose your family history? I'm not looking for someone to "do therapy" with me or to "unload" on, at all. I just want to be able to answer their questions about my family without being attacked and told to "get over it" or "move on." I want someone who can understand that, no, I will never have a relationship with my mother (she does not want one with me), and no, my mother and I do not love one another-- and that's just how it is. All I want is for someone to be like "oh, okay" rather than trying to convince me I'm wrong about my own life. Anyone who has met my biological mother (1 friend and my ex-partner) "get it" after meeting her-- but I shouldn't have to force myself to introduce my potential partner to my bio mom, and put myself through the abuse, just to say "get it now? Now will you stop telling me I'm wrong?"

How do others deal with this stuff when dating new people? Honestly, I'd rather not even talk about this stuff early on, but people always ask about my family and I feel like I should be honest-- plus, I want to be able to rule someone out if they have this kind of a reaction! How do others handle this?