Originally Posted by
lillamy 
Wow, Miss Fixit. Just wow. It's like you're describing AXH and his relationship to our kids. Very frightening. But for me, very encouraging to see that you and your sister both grew up to beat the odds and become functional, loving human beings. It's a hard road you've traveled. Thank you for sharing it, it really helped me.
Thanks. I cannot encourage therapy enough. Therapy and having the structure of school and church when I was growing up is what guided me. My household was a mess but other people's were not as messy. I observed "normal" through my friends and their parents. That helped too.
I did develop caretaking and controlling (helping) tendencies that I always have to work on. I have been used by friends and boyfriends because of this and I have to remember to stay vigilant in thinking about myself before others, which is TOTALLY counter-intuative for me. I see that here a lot and try to call it out because I know what happens when we always or even most of the time put our partners first. Fortunately, al anon and the hurt from my exA beat most of the desire to control out of me. That was something good that came from that relationship.
Also, I see know that I ended up with a verbally abusive exbf for a decade and then a cheating exA for 4 years because I accepted poor behavior from others. Thought it was normal or at least okay. Those situations are the ones that I worry about for kids that stay in abusive homes. How they develop and what they consider normal or okay as adults.