True Em, I've known crappy parents with money, good parents without much, the other way around, and kids that turned out both ways, extreme, and anywhere in between. We have to believe though...

And I STILL struggle with feelings of disappointing my parents. As dumb as it sounds, it's been one of the components in my decisions over the past year. I've always felt like the hopes and dreams and eventual outcome of the family rests on my shoulders.

It is sad that society in general has become so 'de-sensitized' to it all.

Claire, yes, that's something I am very glad DH and I can be open about; we fortunately are cut from the same cloth. Still talk about things with respect to each other's feelings, but as far as that stuff goes, there's nothing we can't tell each other. I'm sorry also that you had an experience like that in your past.

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