Hurt Soul's Journal... Please Help TAM!!

Now my story may not seem all that difficult compared to a lot of stories on here but for me it has been really devastating. This also may be long winded but I want everyone to understand where I am coming from. I have never been what some would consider an affectionate person. I was raised by old european style parents where everything is about work. Never really got much affection from anyone in my family and really never got any compliments or "I'm proud of you". Can't ever really remember my parents ever being affectionate towards one another either. My parents relationship became physically abusive when I was 12-14. To the point where I was having to defend my mother against my father. Also both of them are alcholics. My mom filed for a divorce when I was 14. From that time until I was about 22 I had absolutley no relationship with my father. All I heard everyday was how big of a piece of S*** my father was. Now after the divorce my father got absolutely nothing. And when I say nothing I mean nothing. He lived out of a motel for a long time. Now when I started to develope some resemblance of a relationship with my father again, I started to understand there was definitely two side of the story. Not that it was ok for hime to be physical but what his frustrations were. This really made me resent my mother. I guess you could say I really put a wall up and told myself I would never be in that type of situation. I have been able to build a fairly succesful career but my relationships with the opposite sex have not materialized. Since I was young the only thing I can remeber is that I wanted to be able to build a life where I am able to be a supportive person in a family (i.e. not a workaholic but be financially stable enough not to have to live paycheck to paycheck).

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