Sondheim detested his mother, who was said to be psychologically abusive and projected her anger from her failed marriage on her son: "When my father left her, she substituted me for him. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time." She once wrote him a letter saying that the "only regret ever had was giving him birth". When his mother died in the spring of 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral. He had already been from her for nearly 20 years.