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Relationships
10 Things I Loved About My Husband’s Damaged and Difficult Mother
The people it’s hardest to love can be the ones best able to show you how
The first thing you should know about my mother-in-law Helen is that she was a battered child. I don’t know if this is something anyone can completely overcome, but I know she tried like hell. Trust is essential to building relationships, and Helen found it hard to trust anybody.
Helen’s mother, Ethel, was mentally ill and inexplicably filled with rage. She took this rage out on her little girl. When the person you instinctively go to to make things better makes everything worse, it’s hard to recognize a safe place to land.
The one bright spot in Helen’s life was her mother’s mother, Laurene, who provided her with what love and protection she could, taking Helen to stay with her when things got bad. Rex, Helen’s father, did not mistreat her, but he didn’t protect her from Ethel, either.
When the U.S. Army asked Rex to work on classified projects in Hawaii during World War II, he left 12-year-old Helen in the not-so-tender care of her mother. Helen was growing into a beautiful woman like her father’s sisters, and average-looking Ethel resented it. She’d beat Helen and scream that she hated…
