I’m 52. Gave my life to my family. My husband is a bully. I want to love myself and have peace.

Good for you for recognizing that you want to have your own identity. I am always saying we can't just go through life being someone's daughter, someone's spouse, someone's parent. We need to have our own role and identity in life also. And we can have this identity and independence even in a relationship. Building on your strengths and developing assertiveness skills will help you become self-sufficient. A counselor can help you explore your strengths and work with you to develop tools to help you move forward to be more self-sufficient. Learning to develop healthy boundaries is also key to working on this. It is important to remember that as you become stronger and healthier as a person, it may change the dynamics of your current relationship. Sometimes those close to us will work with us on this journey, but unfortunately, sometimes they will push back. It is important to be aware of these changes. 

One of the first things I personally like to start with when I work with clients is identifying and prioritizing one's needs and values. This is important in moving forward. Sometimes we get lost in significant others and tend to take on and absorb their needs and desires and values. To develop our own is so important. I use a needs list that the client can rank their needs on to help with this. I also work with recognizing/identifying the things we have control of and the things we don't have control of. It's important to control the things we can and let go of the things we can't. 

I'm a big believer that our thoughts/beliefs drive our emotions, and our emotions drive our behaviors. Learning to identify our core beliefs is very important. Once we have done this, we work on balancing our thoughts, challenging our negative thoughts. We tend to sometimes get in all or nothing thinking, for example, "awfulizing" when things happen to us. Learning to change our thoughts to change our behavior goes a long way to help change our life. 

These are just some of the things for you to think about and reflect on. Working with someone to begin the journey on self-reflection and then self-action would benefit you greatly and get you feeling better about yourself and your life!