It took me a long time to see that I actually WAS trying to control and bully him. I had my ideas about how he should act and I tried my best to force him to act that way. He had his own ideas that I should accept him as he was--and continue to live with him and put up with his crap. Well, we were both right in some ways, and wrong in others.
My ideas about what a husband should be were not wrong, they just weren't him. He was right about me accepting him as he was, just not the part about living with him and putting up with it.
I'll never forget the day he said that no one was going to tell him what to do. And I said, you're right. You are a grown up and you can do whatever you want. And I can decide to do what I want. The look on his face was priceless. That was the day I let go. It was also the day the knot in my stomach that was there for 20 years went away.....
L