Im with both of you there – I have to just put it down to SW wanted a mother so desperately that she saw what she wanted to see & took on board all the ‘crap’ (for lack of a better term) Regina drummed into her head….Regina must have had to be very subtle to start off with- maybe she just got OTT & clumsy after SW got away (& that would have been awake up call for SW, as your mother trying to have you killed is going to open your’s eyes to her true intentions & feelings about you & would just cement everything Regina had told her about love etc as she was growing up 😉 )
It also occurred to me that she may mean she ruined Regina’s life by not being able to stop her bolting horse & therefore Regina ended up marring her father & being brought into her family (Cora is out of the picture from what we can see so either she is dead or Regina lost her mother due to living with SW & co – at least that is how Regina could have played it anyway) – also a loveless marriage by her own acct (I’m sure she’s smart enough to realize Regina ‘pretended’ to love her father & that her acts of kindness were just that, ‘acts’, due to her views on marriage & love when she meets PC).