I’ve always needed support on the who family thing from my girlfriends (since the drama wasn’t just my mom but my dad too), so I’ve always admitted it to them. Not all of them have understood of course, one of them even said things like she was better than me because she had a good parents. Why don’t you talk about it with her? In most cases, it’s helped me.

And thank you. I’m still working out the kinks (IE 7) and some unforeseen Lightbox Javascript problems, but otherwise I’m happy with the new design. :)

My girlfriend not understanding is probably my fault. I don’t necessarily advertise my thoughts on the subject; I generally don’t speak about it at all.

Great redesign, by the way.

It’s interesting that your girlfriend doesn’t understand. My girlfriends have always been able to empathize, maybe because they could tell how sad I was.

I don’t feel vindicated though. I take no pleasure in my mother’s sadness. I feel nothing. You’re right in saying than you shouldn’t feel guilty about the approach. It’s that umpteenth chance that makes it easy to move on.

And the root beer sticker must be somewhat universal. It’s crossed houses, playgrounds, and cities now.

After I left home our relationship became something akin to a person I knew (but didn’t like) in highschool. For the sake of my mother, I tolerate him but otherwise avoid contact where possible. My girlfriend has a great deal of difficulty interpreting this behaviour since she had/has a wildly different sort of relationship with her family.

I must admit to feeling some vindication in knowing that he’ll be working in his menial job to achieve a menial retirement while I’m already vastly more successful than he ever was. He’s jealous, and says as much when he wonders how I “lucked into it”.

Needless to say, I feel no guilt about the approach I’ve taken. Neither should you. The time and place for second, third, umpteenth-chances have long since passed.

And for the record — I always wanted (but never managed to get) a root beer scratch ‘n sniff!