To wonder this about parents...

[acapellagirl]

A lot of people both on and off MN have had dysfunctional parents , immature parents and have had to grow up and somehow make the best of life in difficult circs.

If they were emotionally stunted immmature etc I often wondered how they met in the first place. My own emotionally stunted immature parents were actually set up on a blind date.
I was immature emotionally on meeting my now ex ( at least I had sense to end it after 10 yrs) and we only started going out because I couldn't get the lad I really wanted in the group and partially I think he saw me as soft touch and was set up in a malicious way by the girls in the group.
How do these dysfunctional people ever meet??

My mother is weak, could never say no to me or my brother, and admitted to me on my wedding day that she hated parenting, and is much happier now we're all grown up and living lives of our own.

My sperm donar was army born and joined himself. He was strict, thought physical punishment was the way to go and thought nothing of slapping us for minor things, like eating with our mouths open.

They met in a pub. My aunt (mums sister) thought they'd be good together and forced my mum to speak to him all night.

They got divorced last august.

Interesting PeppaPig I was the only child of a very domineering mother who had no trouble saying no to me but my dad was like a passive weak shy little boy around her!!
One COULD see something positive from your post in that at least she wanted you to be 'adults ' whereas my mum treated me like a child with very bad consequences (serious depression) until my mid 20s that said I'm not saying that your upbringing wasn't difficult in other ways though. At least they have the confidence to get divorced- my parents didn't have the confidence to get divorced too worried about what their parents would say I mean wtf??!

Similar people find each other and pair up. I cannot imagine a psychologically robust, mature, even keeled individual pairing up with a weak, indecisive, immature one, unless there is some kind of ulterior motive going on such as financial gain, or a naive hope that the immature one will soon grow up. Apart from that, like attracts like.

My parents met in the early 60s and the way my dad talked about it, you either moved pretty quickly from asking a girl to dance, to walking her home, to meeting her parents, to getting engaged. But generally I think there are a lot of people who're messed up and desperate for love, and lots of people who're messed up and desperate for someone to control, and the controlling ones somehow are able to smell out the desperate ones.

My first relationship was with another socially isolated person - we were pen pals first, and then had this really intense LDR. We were like two drowning people clinging to each other. We split up after we both got a bit of recovery from our messed up childhoods and remained friends but I had to go NC eventually because he was kind of not moving on. I hope he's good now, it's years ago, he's married, I'm married. I sometimes think about emailing and comparing recovery journeys but I'm not that sure that he's forgiven me for the NC.

After that first relationship I was still desperate for love, and I would see other people like me getting into really deep, really disastrous relationships really quickly and I actually felt jealous! I only ever developed crushes on nice people who didn't want to rush into a relationship and who soon sussed how messed up I still was and moved me to the friend zone. I mean a couple of those people were really good friends. I was really lucky.

Thanks guilt bystander that's a good insight. But if they were genuinely mature, surely they'd not want 'financial gain' in that way??!

too much - my ex was the messed up controlling one and I was I suppose the messed up desperate for love one. At least I had the sense to finish it after 7 yrs and my ex took it very badly!!

I think there were a lot of people who went from courting to marriage very quickly, basically because they wanted to sleep together and wouldn't do it until they were married. I shudder to think what would have happened to my life if I had married the first boyfriend who I had been with for more than six months....

My friend's parents are a bit like this. They met later in life, (for the time), and were next door neighbours.

My mother married my father because her sister had married the previous year and it was what all her friends were doing and she felt left out. she has always done what she felt was the socially correct thing to do, she never questions authority, and still spends inordinate amounts of time wondering what the neighbours will think.

She shouldn't have married anyone but it's what people did back then, because it was the "right thing to do". Awful.