My dad was a bully. He definately used the fact that no one would talk back to his advantage too. I read a book called Boundaries by Townsand and McCloud. I HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest it for understanding how to deal with people who take advantage of others. The message of the book is that you teach people how to treat you. When we don't tell people when they exceed our boundaries or when we do not make up our own boundaries, then we teach them that they can treat us this way. It has allot of really good books on marraiges. MY mom swears by this book. Hope it helps. You can get it on amazon, any bookstore, or they even had several copies at my local library.