I Feared I Was Rogue Like My Dad, But My Husband Was Gaslighting Me

I wanted to run

Photo by James Everitt on Unsplash

I felt like a wild horse. I wanted to break out, run and be free. I thought it was bad that I wanted to leave my marriage.

I thought it was me. And I believed it was because I was was like my dad.

Why is it that we feel that the bad behaviors of our fathers and mothers is also who we are?

Why do we fear that we will hurt others the same ways they hurt us?

But really it was that my marriage was suffocating me and I wanted to escape from the heartache and pain.

It is the hyper focus on yourself when you have been or are under the powerfully devastating effects of abuse. For me it was growing up surrounded by toxic, dysfunctional parents and family members and then being married to someone who I would soon begin to feel the confusion, chaos and stings of his behavior.

I had a residing thought that I must be like my dad. Why wasn’t I content? Why was I not happy?

My biological dad was admired by a lot of people. He was full of charisma. I always heard how attractive he was. But he abandoned my mother soon after I was conceived. He saw me only a few times. I lived with the pain of trying to understand why this mysterious guy was rejecting me…