Hi everyone!
I've been doing some introspection as I have found myself experiencing repeated toxicity with people. I have posted on here before describing my dating fiasco, but essentially I had left an emotionally abusive marriage of 15 years in 2017. I have dated on and off and whilst one lasted a few months, I haven't really had much luck. That is not my main worry though. I currently live with my father, as I am waiting to complete my university education and so I cannot afford to live elsewhere. My father was emotionally abusive towards my late mother and he has continued his toxic attitude towards me. It is like living with an overbearing mother in law.
Examples would be undermining my parenting, calling me names, throwing my things away without asking, refusing to eat what I cook or make, claiming I am inept (even though they are my mother's recipes and I had cooked them plenty of times when she was with us, which he ate and enjoyed back then!).
I am normally the first one to be called down and blamed for whatever issue is bothering him. I don't live there alone; my younger sister lives with us too and she has to be fair, always stood with me in shock as to how he talks to me. He is much kinder to her, I presume because she is the baby in the family.
My main issue is that I believe I am attracting this toxicity into my life as I had suffered with it during my marriage. I feel like I am the common denominator and really want to ensure that I do not attract this again. I think the reason I am attracting this is because I have difficulty with boundaries in the sense that I am enabling this behaviour. I never really stood up to my exH because most of the time it was easier to be quiet or because he was good at gaslighting me so I would end up really confused as to what role I played in the fight or argument.
I am now finding the same thing is surfacing with my dad. I struggle to stand up to him because he's my father, he's alone and I live there with no place else to go. I do know that he is and has always been a very difficult person to live with but I have to bide my time and make sure that I can continue to live here without anymore confrontations. Only this morning he kicked my door and pushed it open and yelled that I have one month to pack up and leave. I had to really think of the pretext as I had been in my room working on my uni assignment and the only thing I could think of was when I asked my son later, he had said that my dad wanted him to clean all the kitchen handles again as he didn't do it properly the first time.
My father may have been frustrated and I can appreciate he likes things in a particular way and I respect that but I do believe that his reaction was disproportionate and unfair. It did feel familiar as I felt I was transported back to 3 years ago when I was married. That is what pushed me to come on here and ask.
What I hope you could help me with is whether you have any ideas or strategies to help me establish boundaries so that I can stand up for myself against my father and any future partner? I so want to build and work towards a sassier and feistier more confident version of me, that a man wouldn't dare think to talk down or undermine me again- that's the dream :)