Dear Marwa

I am sending you this email because I want you to discuss the parent-child relationship. I am sure that I am not the only one who is suffering because of a parent-related problem. I have a chronic problem with my mother. She is too dominating. She wants her orders obeyed without any form of discussion. I am the youngest among my three brothers and I am thirty years old. That means that I am an adult and that I could be fully responsible for my life. If I were married I would have been in charge of a home and kids of my own. She has no faith in me. My mother does not believe that I could take care of the slightest things that relate to me. In her eyes we are kids and she has to take full care of us. She cannot see that we are grownups.

I will give you a few examples of the forms of torture that I have to live with: I cannot choose my own clothes for until today she dresses me up according to her own taste. She dictates when I am allowed to go out and when I am not. She chooses my friends for me and she monitors my phone calls. I would tell her that I am going out with a certain friend to a certain place and I cannot tell you how many times she had showed up unannounced just to make sure that I was where I said I would be. She blindly follows traditions even if it was at the risk of making us miserable. When we try to object we are accused of being ungrateful and non obedient, then she starts crying and wonders what she did wrong to deserve children like us. She tells us that we would go to hell and that we would never be successful because she is angry at us.

I am really confused. Do you think God will really punish me for not obeying her? Do you think I am wrong for how I feel about her? My brothers cannot get married because every time they get engaged the girl ends it because of my mother; she interferes in the girl's life the same way she interferes in mine. Now I have no vision, no standards, no principles, and no one to really guide me. I lie to her, I cheat, and I even smoke behind her back. I have a boyfriend and I cannot tell her. I am always sad and everything makes me feel guilty. I wish I could talk to her as a friend but I feel that I hate her most of the time. Will God punish me for that too?
Yours,
H

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