I am researching human behavior since 1978 when I received intensive training as behavioral specialist at Health Services Command. Since then I read many books on the subject of dysfunctional behavior, much of what I read is so true and heartbreaking.
Not a day goes by when a dysfunctional person makes the news. In one of Dan Neuharth's Ph.D. book he mentions that a controlling parent has a fear that developed in early childhood. My mother-in-law used to tell everybody she came in contact that she was born a twin but her brother died, she also used to keep telling people that she had a miscarriage between each of her live births. I questioned why it was so important to her to tell the world over and over of her heartbreak. I can understand the need to air her grieve but how did that turn her into this controlling parent who restricted her son's boundaries, unless my husband's grandmother instilled that fear into my mother-in-law by constantly having reminded her that her brother died.
Deductive reasoning tells me, my mother-in-law grew up feeling guilty about not having her twin brother to grow up with. She developed this controlling behavior to cover for her insecurity. Her controlling behavior must have been already developed when she found herself pregnant with her son who was born in late 1940. I learned that my husband's father came to Los Angeles to study Chemistry but in 1940 he walked away from his college education. For some reason unknown to me my father-in-law took responsibility and got a job to support his future family. My husband used to tell me that his father did rarely partake in child care nor discipline and when at one time his father settled an argument in his favor between him and his mother he was very proud of his father.
My husband's intellect developed in early childhood, so at an early age he started to question his mother's behavior. Once a teenager his mother's behavior caused him to run away. He staid with aunts and uncles for a view days when his father came to take him home again. The last attempt to run away ended at the Canadian border where his father had to come and take him home again. Deductive reasoning tells me it was during these times when his father told my husband about his unrequited dream of a Ph.D. He must have regretted that he had to walk away from his college education to support his new family. My husband decided to go for his Ph.D. and nothing would stop him to achieve his goal. He wanted to make his father proud. My father-in-law died in Jan.1968, he would not see his son get the degree he had to forego. Joe did not survive his second heart attack. This was seven months after my husband abandoned us our son and me, his wife.
