I know from my own past with parents that they can be cruel, nasty, selfish and much more deliberately, they know it will cause pain, that is why they do it. I also know from my own past experiences that if you try to explain exactly what they did to others they do not get it, they get this idea that it cannot be as bad as you say it is as a parent would never do such things.

My father was forever telling me that I was a waste of space and he was ashamed of me. He told me I was unloveable and nobody would ever care about me, he was still telling me this when I was middle aged. I met a wonderful man and wanted to marry him, the man would not listen to how nasty and cruel my father was and insisted on meeting him to “ask for my hand in marriage”. I very reluctantly took him to meet my father. i was then about forty years of age, so did not need permission or approval. They met and my father went on and on to him about what a waste of space I am and that he was mad to love me and want to marry me.

I had always been very studious and well behaved as a child. I never swore, never did anything wrong, was never in trouble with the police, never smoked, nor drunk or too drugs. I set up a business and worked very hard and became a self made millionairess by the age of thirty five. My father - on the other hand - was constantly drunk, he often got in trouble with the police for shop lifting and he was always too unambitious to get himself a decent job. But my father was old fashioned and believed that a woman should be a housewife and not be interested in achievements. That she should always be at the beck and call of her parents and always there instantly when they want something, and all a one way street. When he parted from my mother - when I was about fifteen, he told me then that he would never love me because he thought it was wrong of me to leave and go off with her instead of staying to clean the house and cook for him. Nobody in their right mind would have left a fifteen year old with a man who was constantly drunk and in trouble with the police. A few months later he told me that he was going to move away and marry another woman when his divorce from my mother came through, that he never wanted me to know his address or phone number, see him or speak to him again.

When your parents are cruel to you it hurts far more than it would if anyone else did or said the same thing, yet most people make excuses for them because parents cannot be that bad! They live in a dream world.

My father did many cruel things to me and eventually I had the last say by not attending his funeral.

Yes I would have disowned my mother if she had sold my horse and stolen my money that way. And it really does not matter if other people agree with you or not, you do not need to justify your actions and choices, it was you that suffered it not them.