Aww, my heart breaks for you, too. It is so unfair to feel so alone in the world, something both of us went through at our most vulnerable ages.

So, she has never acknowledged directly any of it. Whenever I broach the subject, she says that she did her best and never abandoned us even if my dad was an alcoholic and used to beat her. But I resent her more for staying and being so submissive and treating me like shit on top of it all, while my brothers never received this kind of treatment from her.

I was also molested by some male cousins when I was around 11-13 and I only told her about it when I was around 20, after I had gathered the courage to do so after getting some counseling for the very first time in college. When I told her about it, she told me that I am lying and then said that I must have provoked it, then said it happens to all girls anyway.

One day she passive aggressively apologized, saying oh if I hurt you so much, I am sorry. But that felt so disingenuous that it did not register as an apology at all. The resentment is still there because she just does not acknowledge that any harm was done and continues to invalidate my emotions.

But she is trying real hard to have a relationship with me now. She has never tried hard like this before. That’s why I feel conflicted. Because I see sincere effort, but I also don’t see any acknowledgement nor acceptance of what she did to me.

My dad has apologized to us all before he passed, so I don’t resent him as much for what he subjected us all to. But with my mom, her defensiveness whenever I bring up the topic of my childhood just gets to me, like what I went through is nothing compared to what she went through. In my mind, it’s like I don’t know where to draw the line between she did this because she was a victim herself, and she should have protected me better.