There were a lot of horrible occasions with my worst ex, the moment of clarity was before the worst (physical and sexual abuse), I didn’t realise for a long time how he had been breaking me down piece by piece until the day I asked him, calmly, why he was no longer interested in sex with me.
His initial response “Go and find a fucking smack head if all you want is sex!”. For the first time in our relationship I saw just how little he thought of me, I responded calmly “Is that the best you think I can do?”.
He didn’t react well to that, told me I was too fat and he wasn’t attracted to me but he still loved me 🙄 when that didn’t work, he told me it was my fault he was fat (nothing to do with him binge drinking every weekend of course), that I didn’t do anything to arouse him... didn’t do anything to keep our flat clean (I did all the housework). If I hadn’t been in the process of the scales falling rapidly from my eyes I’d have laughed.
Problem was we were tied to a mortgage, he’d siphoned off all my wages and savings (I didn’t even know he’d gained access to my accounts) to stop me moving out, refused to move out himself. Then came the violence.
So I secretly found a place to go (took six weeks roughly) packed up, maxed out my credit card on moving out when he was at work. Left myself in financial destitution that I’m still clawing my way back from to this day and the icing on the cake: when he came back to find me and all my belongings (and my precious cats) gone, he called me and left an embarrassingly long message crying asking over and over “what did I do wrong?”.
I never answered, but some days I wish I could tell him what a self absorbed twat he is and spell out exactly what he did wrong. Last I heard he still plays the victim card 
Now I have a lovely caring DH and 2.5yo twins and despite having been through the wringer emotionally in the last couple of years, couldn’t be happier with what I now have in my life.