Dear Adaughter, There are many qualities that your mother shares with mine. I don't remember hearing "I love you" from her until I was 23 and getting married. She was not affectionate in our home yet when we would travel to her sister's home I would stand back and watch her hug and show other physical affection to my cousins who were just a few years older than I. Still, while in their home, she did not show that to me. She was either extremely critical of me or proud when I achieved the near perfection in school that she could brag about. There wasn't an in between with her. I was estranged from my mother from the ages of 20 until I married at 23. She disowned me because I moved in with my boyfriend. She wrote me horrible letters and refused to allow anyone in the family to see me or talk to me. If they would have they would have paid dearly. When I became engaged I went to her and told her. She wanted to plan a big church wedding and act as though nothing had happened. I said no and that we were going to have a very small wedding in our home. She again became furious with me. I told her not to come if she felt that way. She and my dad did come and acted as though everything had always been fine. During the years that we were estranged I began to suffer panic attacks. I went from being a self confident, fit and attractive young woman to being an over weight, nervous wreck that couldn't even go to the grocery store with having a panic attack. She broke me. Through the years of my marriage she never spoke of what happened between us. It happened again for about a year when I disagreed with her about something. How we reconciled then I cannot remember. She was a hard woman to get along with. She had estranged many of the family relationships throughout my childhood. Those with my father's family and with members of her own family. She was a miserable woman. I have two children that she and my dad were crazy about. I told myself that I would not allow her to cause me to behave in a way that I would later regret. I made sure that she and my dad had as much time to spend with my kids as possible. I bit my tongue, smiled and agreed with her, let things go. Whatever it took. My mom passed away 10 years ago. ( I am 49 ) I am plagued at times by her problems and very sad that she could not manage her way through this life without causing such hurt to those that loved her the most and to herself. I don't understand it. I know she had a mother that treated her badly. Evidently she could not break the chain. I have never regretted taking the high rode. She was my mother and I loved her. If you can work things out in your head and heart to love your mom as she is and set limits for how close you will allow her to be in your life then maybe you can manage a relationship with her at a distance. Many times becoming estranged from your mom only makes you feel worse. It doesn't ever go away. You will think of her with painful remorse and longing at every birthday party, every Christmas and many days when you wish that you could just talk. The relationship will never be what it should and that is very sad. I suggest, from personal experience that you think about what will be easier for you to live with. She will die someday, maybe tomorrow and you will have the rest of your live with the choice that you made. I wish you well. I'm sorry that you have to live with a relationship like this when it should be your sweetest of moments. I truly do understand.

Hello, i'm new to this, but felt i really needed to reach out because i feel i'm at my darkest hour and i really need someone to tell me i'm not alone. I have two children, ages 19 (daughter) and 16(son), their father and i divorced 6 years ago, and under special circumstances, he was the primary guardian and i the secondary one. In 2007 i made the worst decision of my life, i had gotten remarried to someone in Jordan, i was only supposed to be there for three months. 1 year and a half later, i finally managed to escape and come back home. My ordeal in Jordan was severely traumatic, i was severely abused, tortured, and left for dead. I remember calling my ex-husband here in canada to help me because i knew i would die there if someone didn't get me out, what i got was 'you made your bed, you can lie in it, as for the children, if you ever want to see them again, you'll have to go through family court'. When i heard the dial tone i felt all was lost. Somehow, i made it back, the only thing keeping me alive everyday i was tortured was the thought of seeing my children again ( my children and i were extremely close before i left, and i never foresaw that my passport and all my ID would be taken,,). Once i came back i was in for a huge shock. In the time that i was gone, it didn't take long for my ex-husband to tell the children that i had chosen to stay and didn't want anything to do with them. They were so young, and he broke their hearts, i never knew any of this until i had come back. I came back in 2009 and i have tried everything, i was patient and i loved them without bounds, and over and over again i tried to prove myself to them, but the damage has been done. With all of this, i moved back with my parents and my children are with their father on a military base. They are only 4 hours away, but i am not to call, write, or even visit. My daughter has told me she wants nothing to do with me, as for my son, his father has told him he wants nothing to do with me, but that if he wants to he can. What child would ever go against their parent if they're the one with the money and house, etc.? I'm in school and am graduating in about 2 weeks. Once i get a salary, i'll be saving money to get my own place, etc. Not a night goes by where i don't cry or miss my children so much that the pain is killing me everyday, i really feel i have no purpose in life anymore, my children were my world, and they don't want to have anything to do with me, it's been like this since i left, but even worse since 2009. My daughter has openly admitted that she could not care if i lived or died and wants no communication from me, as for my son, he will not communicate at all, they have my phone number and email,,but nothing,,,i feel this pain will completely crush me and i have no idea what to do,,,the oeverwhelming hatred i feel for my ex is also wearing me out,,,i just want to know if things do get better as time goes by, and if it doesn't, how do i go on living when i hear their voices in my head from when they were young children all the time?

This thread has been dead for a while (with the recent exception) so I don't anticipate that anyone will read this. Until tonight, I hadn't considered looking online to find solace in this issue but here it is. I've been estranged from my parents for almost four months now by choice. I'm 36 years old, married, two kids. My parents didn't beat me (unless you called getting "whippings" with a belt until you were 12 a beating) in the typical sense. My dad was a silent alcoholic - no verbal or physical abuse, he just never talked, ever. Besides the fact that we had diametrically opposed views on life - he is a Republic, a racist, a military man, you get the point. My mom was the closest person to me and vice versa. But as I grew older, our relationship became toxic. I had to be her therapist and listen, for years, about how terrible my dad was, how crappy her life was, all the mistakes she made, all the regrets she had. Since I was a teenager, I've heard nonstop how they didn't want me to go to college (or pay for it, that's fine, I did it myself) because they thought I would look down on them and have suffered every year since I was 18 with one of their massive freak-outs. Every year for 15 years. Then when I was 28, I had sent my mom a dozen roses for her birthday. She called me and started screaming at me saying how inconsiderate I was, sending her a gift at the last minute, that she threw them in the trash. It was devastating to me. It seemed like they just wanted to beat the self worth from me the stronger I got. From that point forward (we didn't speak for a couple months) I decided I could no longer be my mom's therapist. It was making me an emotional wreck. I met my now husband at that time and, looking back, they were always resistant to him. Comments how i had my own life and was too busy for them. Especially after we got married. They didn't want to pay for the wedding because my husband had such a large family they didn't think it was fair. Fine. But it was always like this - them picking fights with everyone (if not myself). Then much more stuff. The details. The everyday details. The nagging, the comments, the insults. They didn't invite my husband and I over for Thanksgiving so I went to their house crying wanting to know why they didn't want to spend the holidays with us. She stood there stone cold. Then what finally ended it for me was when she called me at working screaming at me saying so many terrible things about me (basically complaining about watching my girls a couple times a week for daycare) that I told her she would never have to watch them again and hung up. That was four months ago. When you read it, you think, this seems stupid. It all was. But it was incidious. It was like a slow death. How they hurt me every day. When she started saying things about my first child (entering her terrible two's and exiting that sweet baby stage), red flags went up. I knew that she would be next on her attack list. I had suffered through it, my husband, his mother, our cousins, her sisters. They had managed to drive everyone away. I was the last one as the only child. In many respects, I don't care about myself, I care about my children. That's why I ended it. I told them that I wasn't going to continue playing these games. They demanded an apology. I demanded family counseling. They refused. So I'm done. In hurtful relationships, we all have our role. It's short sided to think you've done nothing wrong. You obviously did if someone left you. They've scarred me. I feel broken and I need to find a way to become whole for the sake of my girls. They don't deserve this angry rotten mess I am now. I've probably just successfully turned into my mother. I'd rather kill myself than put my children through what I've gone through.

@dadoes good point and examples of plastic gears, seems likely an engineering decision to create a replaceable weak link to protect the mechanism similar to a shear pin. In the case of my machine’s common Maytag transmission, the aftermarket has a solution shown in the pic below. This seems to be the “shear pin” which fails. Not an easy job to remove and disassemble the transmission, and in my case replacing all 3 bearings and two tub seals was a good move given the age and hard use. Paying a pro to do the job would be cost prohibitive, but for a DIY’er it’s doable and cheap.