Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful—something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that’s not what love is all about.Loving behavior doesn’t grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn’t hurt, it feels good. Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace.
Susan Forward, Toxic Parents, p381 (via mxnotmrdarcy)
See, this is why it pisses me off to no end when people claim that they stay in an abusive relationship “for the kids.” No that’s co-dependent BS, if you really care about the well-being of your kids? You need to find a way to end it. My best friend told me that she prayed that her parents would divorce ASAP so that the fighting would finally stop. I’ve heard that same story more times than I can count…