This mirrors my experience in many ways. People with legitimate ill intention were a lot more common in my youth and when I was in a lower socio-economic position.

Now I live in a world very similar to the one described by the GP. It took me quite a while to adjust, and I still have my moments.

Sad reality, adequately explained by game theory: https://ncase.me/trust/

Whoa. Excellent website. Thank you so much.

Excellent find!!

I guess maybe it’s worth remembering that even if someone is an enemy it is in conflict with you, nobody thinks they are “the bad guy”.

If you want to understand why someone does what they do, you can’t chalk it up just to “they’re evil” or “they’re crazy”. There’s some reason why they’re doing what they do and to them, they feel like they’re on the right side.

Indeed. I don’t know the origin, but I’ve heard it phrased as “no one is the villain in the movie that is their life”, or “no person is the villain in that person’s autobiography”

Most people grew up with parents who love them. They might not know how to show it, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but love for offspring is about as close as it gets to universal human experience.

Parents may not express that love all the time, and may even harm their children in spite of it. And they will probably hate themselves after the fact for it.

I was oversimplifying, of course. You can certainly end up with enemies. But your boss didn't start out hiring you because he wanted an enemy. He hired you to do a job.

I know for a fact my mom loved me and only wanted my best when beating the crap out of me.

Intentions don't even matter in such cases. The end result does

I normally do not comment here, but I feel like I have to say this. My mom also was beating the crap out of me for most of my childhood and when my sister killed herself, I blamed my mom for it. But after living with all this hate and anger in my life for years, I started to realize that I can only truly be in peace if I learn to let go of these feelings. It definitely wasn't easy and I still find it very hard to trust her from time to time, but recently I hugged her for the first time in many years and to my surprise that actually felt good.

I helped me a lot to imagine how she grew up and how she must have felt to be pushed to such extreme measures. I don't say it's easy and I don't say you have to forgive your mother or anything like that. I just wanted to share that trying to forgive my mother actually made me feel better in the long run.

I hope you will be able to sort this out some day. I wish you all the best.

I tried for decades to let go of the (completely justified) hatred I have for my parents and tried so hard to have a semi-normal relationship with them,or at least one of them.

Nope, didn't work, they are just horrible people nobody sane gets anything positive from being around. My husband pointed out that they were a huge negative in my life with no positives and why was I doing that to myself?

I let go and stopped contact with them and it's been one of the best things I've ever done for my overall well-being.

Thanks for the kind words! I am in a much better place now and apart from some long term effects such as general trust issues with people, I am mostly fine now.

Thank you!

You and I are clearly living in two completely different worlds.

I estimate at least 20% of parents don't love their children, based on my personal experience and observations.

Even if terrible parents who do terrible things actually love their children, it is not like it actually matters. If someone, for example, molests you because they love you, molests you because they hate you, or molests you because they don't have any particular emotion towards you. You still are molested.

Most? Based on what?