Dear GrumpyToad:

As you learned, being terrified of confrontation, and as a result, not being assertive hurts you. Got to slowly incorporate assertiveness into your behavior with your husband and with everyone else in your life. How to do it when scared?

See to it that in your relationship with your husband there is no aggression, that no matter how distressed either one of you, you do not act aggressively toward each other: no yelling, no  name calling, no put downs, not directly not indirectly, and instead, make your relationship a safe place for the two of you.

In such safety, once you get used to it and trust in it, behaving assertively will not be scary anymore.

I am glad you added that you told him that you are okay with inviting her to your wedding. Before you added that, I thought it was disrespectful of him to invite her even though you (stated, I thought) that you were uncomfortable with her there.

I would ask him to not talk about her to me, if I was you, so to be safe from being triggered this way.

anita