Thank you, I didn't lash out in anger. I can say that because I don't even get angry with her. I don't personalize what she says to me because I don't think it's about me. I think, under the influence, her own frustrations and hurts well up and she's just mad . . . and I happen to be there, so I become a target. But I can't just stand there and let myself be used for target practice. So I break off the interaction.

I have been, and would be, there for her through thick and thin. I don't even expect her to come through for me, as much as I have for her. I tell myself that she was the baby of the family . . . that I'm older . . . that she's had some bad luck . . . that my childhood was better than hers. But she is very intelligent, and she needs to grow up. I can't keep forever making excuses for her.