Hello all,

To give some backstory to this post:

I'm a 16 year old girl with parents whom have recently gotten divorced (8 months ago). My mother was incredibly toxic towards both me and my father but I have just recently realized this because she would convince me that my father was the abusive partner in their relationship and that I shouldn't trust him or love him because of all the terrible things he did to her. After their divorce it was hard for me to spend time with my father because I thought he was a monster but after hearing his side of the story I realized that HE was the victim of HER abuse. After the divorce, my dad and I began developing a loving father/daughter relationship that isn't influenced by my mothers lies (it isn't a perfect relationship, I still have a hard time trusting him but I'm learning to understand that my mom brainwashed me into believing he was a bad man)

The issue:

Last week my dad and I got into an argument over gas money and out of anger he yelled at me saying that I was "just like my mother" and that all women including myself were "gold digging b*tches" (not exactly this but you get the idea)

When he said that he thought I was just like my mother I was completely crushed. I haven't spoken to him since out of shame and guilt. I hate that he sees me like her and i desperately want to change. I didn't even notice how similar I was to my mom until he pointed it out and now I'm very paranoid that all men will see me like her.

Since our fight I've been researching how children raised by toxic mothers slowly adopt their mothers' personality and traits. Somewhere in the process I stumbled across this subreddit and I thought the best place to ask advice is from people who also might have experienced the abuse of toxic women

So in short, I'm asking how can I change:

  1. What advice would you give to a young woman who is terrified of being like her toxic mother
  2. What toxic traits did you observe in your previous partners early on that turned out to be a big problem later on in the relationship (I'm asking so I don't make the same mistakes)
  3. Do you think I (and women in general) am not able to change my ways? I've seen many posts on subreddits similar to this one saying that all women are terrible/all women do is use men for their own benefit and I desperately don't want to be viewed like that
  4. I grew up with parents who never supported each other so I'm wondering in what ways would you have liked to be supported by your previous partner? (asking so I can know what it's like to be a supportive wife/daughter/friend in the future)
  5. What things have women done/said to you not knowing that it hurt you emotionally (asking so I don't do this in the future as well)

Thank you!