I respect your mother for protecting you all those years! Mine is the complete opposite; she would unload all her personal and marital problems on me (the eldest kid) and I had to be her listener and abuse victim (physical and mental) since I barely knew how to speak. I didn't even know what was normal because she would say we were living very abnormally but wouldn't do anything to change the situation. This is why I no longer speak to her, won't even go to her funeral (but I hope I manage to get the drive to kill myself first), and have PTSD at the mere thought of ever seeing her again. The older I get, the more I realize how fucked up my childhood was.