I used to be in a relationship like that. It all comes down to feeling wanted. I kept going back, until I finally left even though I (thought) I loved him. I started to write down everything he did to me. So, every time I wanted to go back, I read those pages and realized why I left in the first place. I hope this helps

My mom hurt me from an early age. Then I left home and had no contact and lots of therapy as an adult for many years. Then at 42 I tried reconciling. At age 52 she got someone to hurt me--violently and physically again, like before. That was it. I understood it was never going to change. Only I was.

It's hard to believe the the woman who brought you into the world consistently means to hurt you and will deliver. But if your mom is like my mom, that's what happened. For most of my 52 years. She had thousands of chances. It never happened. My therapist helped me accept that, accept myself, stop blaming myself, stop being angry at myself for trying to reconcile what was unreconcilable, and move on. I'm pretty happy now.

So sorry this is happening to you. I wasn't happy then at all. I was pretty miserable. A therapist can help. And there's a book I heard about here that helps people like us called Leaving Home: The Art of Separating From Your Difficult Family by David P. Celani, too. It shows how many others of us there are. Lots of others with moms like ours are here, too, and have a lot of good help to offer. Keep coming back.

I the abusive mama now and I wondered the same thing with my eldest son. He is 33 now and too abusive to keep the same girlfriend for more than a few weeks. I have chased him off more than once for his own good. I accept my responsibility for my link in this generational drama, but I also accept I am powerless over the actions of others. He has been an adult for a very long time now. Where an adult's problems come from is irrelevant. The adult remains responsible for their own actions and reactions.

Why does he keep coming back? The exes who I have talked to claim it is because mama is the only woman on the planet who will put up with his abuse. This would be the believable logic which makes me think I can best help him by chasing him off.

Why do I LET him keep coming back? I am not sure whether to call it hope or denial. Even reeking of over-aged, anti-social adolescence, a son is a son, a daughter is a daughter.

With my own parents, I chose not to go back. My choice. My reasons. My consequences. I do not have much experience with adults who choose to cling righteously to the old dysfunctions.

Thank you all for your advice. Congradulations to those of you who left or do push away. I just don't feel strong enough to do it. I feel like she is my mother, how could she really want to be doing this? Like there has to be some disconnect in her brain that if I could just fix, I could be truely wanted and loved by my mother again like I feel I should be. But yet I feel I will never be good enough for her. I am a total medical screw up, and that medical stuff screwed me up psychologically, and with stuff like my IQ, memory, and other brain functions. But she's my mother, how could that make her not want to help, but want to abuse? I try to write down what she does, but then I think how can she still want to do that? I try to accept that it is who she is and it just wont change, but I just don't know how

Some of my greater successes come from taking the focus off the other person's behaviour and focusing on my own. Whatever my opinion of other people, I have no control over their actions. Mine is the behaviour I can control. When I make no effort to talk people out of their feelings, or put them on the defensive, they can often hear their own words better and see themselves more clearly than any of the judgemental rants I can come up with.

Yes, it is hard, but... It is not so easy living with the sucking black hole where family is supposed to be, either.

Hugs, nightskye. Small bytes and long chews.