Thanks 2b and Ozzie.

Myzen, I'm not so sure I was dominated as a child, at least not to the extent that I was as a married adult. My first stepfather was very dominating and demeaning, I only lived with him for a couple of years, but I don't remember that from my own father. We actually had a good relationship. My mother had mental health issues of her own. She was an inpatient for a few months when I was in second grade (about 8 years old) after a SA and/or something about holding a shotgun to my dad's face. I really have no solid info of bad things when I was growing up, just bits and pieces of confrontations recalled here and there. In my family it's kind of like "if you ignore it, it never happened." My ex is like that, too. Me, I'm one to lay it all out on the table (obviously, LOL) Yet I've never confronted my family to tell me the truth of how things were when I was little. Maybe I'm afraid to know.