Do your kids look like your ex? I know this is a wierd and shallow question. My little boy looks a lot like his father, not like my side of the family hardly at all. I just separated, not on good terms. I will have to look at my husband in this little boy every day I guess, it's ok, but I wonder how much of his personality traits he'll have too? My husband was so self centered, nit picky, controlling, disrespectful, judgmental, you name it... I don't want my little boy to be like that. I wonder how much of personality you are born with and how much your upbringing affects it? Can I raise my little boy on my own to be a caring, sensitive yet strong man when he grows up, respectful of women?

You can raise an emotionally healthy family, if you yourself work to become emotionally healthy.

One of my DD's looks like me, the other like X.
I feel in my heart that X is really hard on the DD who looks like me, and very lenient on the one who looks like his family. It's sad.
I try my best not to play favorites.
I tell my girls that love expands. When people have kids love just grows and grows, and there's enough for everyone.

Eventually, you will get to the point where you will see your X's good qualities in your son.

I beg to differ on raising an emotionally healthy family....

My son is living with his abusive father. I am emotionally healthy and stable and with my limited contact with my son, it is pretty impossible to instill healthy values and beliefs with my son. I just pray that my earlier interactions with him until he was 14 is enough to help him through. What I am seeing at his age (19), he has developed into an abuser and I fear for any woman that gets involved with him. His father promotes his sleeping around (latest conquest was a 35 year old woman), as well as drinking as much as he can until he passes out. (The ex tells me that boys will be boys).

My daughters who are away from the ex, behave totally differently, probably because I have had more influence in their lives. They are independent and have morals and values. They question me if they don't agree with me and we have healthy discussions regarding the same. Totally different.

Looks are based on genes, but personality really depends on what they see and how they are treated. My son looks like his father, but until he started living with him, he was not abusive. Now that he's with Daddy Dearest, he is becoming a clone of him. It scares the ever living daylights out of me!

THANK GOD No! on both counts. Lord, I don't think this world could handle THREE of my ex-Wife!
SDLOM