Re: life IS good

From the prospective of old age, may I add a bit to this chat.  Neither of 
our families were abusive in the same ways you recount, but both were 
emotionally abusive and controlling in many ways.  I left home emotionally 
when I went to college, but the physical break was a bt harder, and the 
family never forgave me for marrying and leaving - I was the homely orphan 
child who was intended to take care of all the old people.  
  As I look around at my elderly friends, the ones who do not have close 
family connections are the ones who are living interesting lives.  The ones 
in close-knit families have no time for anything or anyone else.  Of course, 
that seems to make some of them happy, but I know several women who are 
unable to participate in activities they would enjoy because of baby-sitting 
or other family responsibilities. Often these are the same ones who took care 
of their elderly parents when they were younger - sometimes call themselves 
the "sandwich" generation.  I love my sons dearly but I am quite happy for 
them to live in faraway places and solve their own day-to-day problems 
without my help.  I have tried to give them a background of faith and 
education to cope with those problems.  There are days when I think it might 
be nice if one of them were around to help with some chore we find hard to 
handle - like moving big plants indoors in the fall - but then I tell myself 
I'd rather pay a handyman than have the family underfoot all the time.  This 
may sound selfish and hard-hearted to some of you, but I want the indepedent 
ones to know that families just as often cause grief as happiness, and being 
old doesn't make one need that kind of grief.  Auralie

In a message dated 12/20/2002 10:03:19 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
mhobertm@excite.com writes:

> JR:  I think we must have been living the same lives in parallel universes 
> or something...I have 5 brothers (1 dead) and 1 sister and none of them are 
> people I freely choose to associate with...My father was a violently 
> abusive alcoholic and all 6 of my siblings chose to follow him down the 
> road of alcoholism and drug addiction and all the consequent negative 
> energy that brought into their lives.  I see my family for one reason only: 
>  out of love and respect for my mother and only for as long as I can sanely 
> tolerate it...the choices they have all made for their lives are not 
> choices I could live with and be spiritually and emotionally healthy...Even 
> with my mother, I must choose to remember always that she makes choices 
> that serve her needs and though they are really bad choices many times, 
> they are hers to make.  I left home forever the day after I graduated high 
> school and never went back except when it was unavoidable...even then, 
> there came a point where I eventually t!
> old my family of origin that their problems were theirs and I didn't want 
> to get involved.  To people whose lives have been blessed to never have 
> known these kinds of maladaptive, abusive family relationships, this might 
> seem cold and extremely harsh.  For me, it was the ONLY thing that saved me 
> from a life of misery like the kind I grew up in.  I went to college on 
> full tuition scholarships, worked 3-4 part time jobs every semester to pay 
> the rent and so I could eat and I have crafted for myself the life I always 
> dreamed of having.  It is not a perfect life, but it is a completely sane 
> and safe one.  Of this one thing I will always be most proud...for my 
> children, the cycle of abuse that transmits itself intergenerationally has 
> been stopped...and I can leave this world someday being joyful in that one 
> thing alone...
> 
> Ceres wrote:>>   I> >>believe as you age you may miss not having a family.>>
> Families come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are warm and supportive, some>
> are mildly abusive, some are cruel and destructive, some are just not >
> close,>and some people simply do not have living relatives.  Not sure I 
> understand>why someone should miss family in the less pleasant categories, 
> or why the>aging process should be made to appear more scary to someone who 
> has no>family.>>Linda in 

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