Ha ha, don't feel strong, feel mostly that I fucked up, or that I must be an awful person somehow, but I know (when rational) that it was them that chose their actions, I can only choose my response.
Looking at what my childhood caused, I think if i'd have been raised by wolves it couldn't have turned out much worse, surely!
I've chosen not to accept treatment like this, from any of them.
I won't have abuse, manipulation, emotional blackmail in my life, and certainly not in the life of the gorgeous little chap currently snuffling beside me.
She hurt him too, you know? Pulled a stunt on his birthday. I have no regrets about isolating us both from her.
Sadly, he remembers his last birthday, when she made him wear his too tight birthday clothes that she bought him, and wouldn't let him take them off, even though he asked 3 times as they were hurting him.
I remind myself of that, each time I lose some resolve.
It's surreal isn't it? You look at these people and wonder wtaf.
Onwards and upwards eh? :)