Washington Post staff writer Carolyn Hax does the Ann Landers bit for the under-30 crowd in a column called Tell Me About It that runs in newspapers nationwide. I’m starting to like her stuff.
She nails it in this column on a “hypercritical control-freak dad and hyper-perfect extracurricular-freak” college student. But there’s one line that bugged me: “… to help you see what kind of damage your dad — who sounds like a very sick man indeed — has done to you and your family, especially your mom;”
This guy sounds pretty close to my ol’ man and his treatment of my mother and my sister. Damaging? Hell yes. But my mother’s conniving, lying, manipulation, undermining, playing the martyr, and who-knows-what-else were 50% of the problem — but not as easy to see. I’m guessing it’s similar for this student’s mother.
My wife doesn’t agree with me on this. She thinks abusive men are 75% responsible for the damage in their relationships, since women drawn to them are culturally conditioned to accept their behavior and historically have a much harder time surviving financially if they try to leave them.