Hi s4ndm4n2006, thanks a lot for all your help. It is very much appreciated. Yes, I agree with you; it is a strange and worrying statement. I hadn't considered the flip side, that's a very helpful perspective. It's true I wouldn't be comfortable to point that out. But I'm quite prepared to confront them and have done so on many occasions. However my experience is that it is not possible to have a calm and rational disagreement with my parents. Instead things rapidly turn into a one sided argument. Also they appear to be incapable of accepting that they could have any faults. So now I feel it is better to instead deprive them of their power by not reacting, even slightly, to their provocations.