Well, Ava's childhood was pretty awful. Her father wasn't a very emotionally supportive guy to his children or wife and he died from pneumonia when she was only 15 years old. Both of her parents were dirt poor immigrants, who moved Ava and her siblings around a lot until her father's death. Then, Ava when to Los Angeles with her older sister and was discovered by accident when a talent scout saw her photo hanging in her sister's boyfriend's photography studio storefront.

So, yeah. Ava married 3 versions of her father, you could say. I think that's the way we're doomed to repeat our childhood. The romantic partners i've chosen have all been emotionally unavailable men who verbally abusive and control me -- like my dad did. I'm not married and don't plan on ever getting married. I'm ok with being a single ol spinster because its safer for me, that way. I could easily marry an abusive guy otherwise. So, I stopped dating.

I really hope that marriage therapy works for you and your husband. Even when we abused recognize the signs and intellectually know the signs, we are conditioned to ignore the signs because that's how we spent our youth. Its not a helpful pattern as adults, but trying to break a pattern of abuse is pretty tough. I can't and I've done about a combined 20 years of therapy for it. I still can't break my attraction to broken men, even when they are obvious about their problems they're like magnets to me. I know I deserve healthy functional men to date or marry but either they are not attracted to me, or I am not attracted to them.

If your husband is having an affair I hope that he will use the counseling sessions to come clean with you, and will want to salvage the marriage (if that is what you want). I don't think you should be scared of divorce though. Divorce is a way out of a bad marriage that is dysfunctional, toxic, and not fixable. If your husband is weak and easily influenced by his family then you can get your marriage therapist to help you break through your husband's emotional barriers. I hope it has a positive outcome for you, marriage counseling.