I think the important thing to understand is that toxic individuals have a need to have the power and control and they don’t understand what it means to collaborate. People around them are expected to fall in to place under their rule and are not really seen as separate individuals with their own talents and ideas.

Your wife constantly left you feeling powerless and always feeling that whatever was not working was your fault. The same is true for your children. Children need to have freedom to grow and develop their own personal identity. This can’t happen if a parent has mood changes and develops an addiction where they live according to their addiction which becomes their priority.

The one way to start seeing this dynamic is when that person is out of your environment and you slowly start to experience more freedom and more calm. The narcissist is the one who needs the ego fix and cheats and goes from one person to the next. The toxic person is the one who wants the power and doesn’t care about respect and boundaries. They like to create drama because it draws attention and they feel empowered when that happens.

Your wife had you convinced that you were not good enough and because you are so good natured and smitten with her physically, you believe her BS and give in. There never was a winning her over, that never works for a person who needs the kind of power fix your wife needs.

It took me a while to understand this dynamic myself. I lived through a couple of toxic situations where I was manipulated and traumatized myself. My older sister is a toxic controlling drama Queen that chose to do things I would never think to do. Like you I had to learn how individuals like this are manipulative and don’t have the same respect for others like I do.

I think you are making progress and you have been recovering yourself in a way that will make you stronger and healthier. This doesn’t happen over night.