Coming here for a brain dump, and I will give this post a content warning for unpleasant content, and it is probably more for those of us 'on the other side'....
It is just on 2 years since I last saw my husband alive and that is unsurprisingly triggering lots of thoughts. I'll preface this with the statement I am doing OK, and rationally and emotionally I know that life is better now, and I am much healthier in myself. I stopped seeing my therapist regularly a few months ago.
But I am getting to thinking about my husband's state of mind, he was (based on my own armchair psychiatry) definitely exhibiting signs of extreme anxiety, paranoia and possibly psychosis. Our last conversation was totally bonkers to my mind, and dangerous as it was had while he was physically surrounded by replica guns, airguns, knives and a working cross bow. While I didn't quite think he would use them on me I wasn't sure, and he was talking about using them on terrorists that might have been threatening me, and that was the thing that lead me to call the police as I was no longer sure that I was safe. Throughout our relationship he expressed deep anxiety when I was not with him - for example telling me I should not be going to see my elderly parents on a rainy day because the 1 hour drive was not safe. Controlling behaviour definitely, but also bound in a world of anxiety he lived in.
He would never seek or accept help for this, because he wanted a shot gun license and felt that any contact with a doctor would mean he would not get one. So he self medicated with Alcohol and had done from long before I knew him.
However with all this knowledge and understanding I still find it really hard to not feel guilty that I took the actions to kick him out, and then reinforced them by getting the needed court orders. This step sent him on his final spiral and 8 months later he took his own life.
I read so many threads here about situations where it is obvious to an outsider that a poster should LTB, but the power of hope, and love means that you don't. I did at a point that it became unbearable, and now I feel that I have been robbed of the opportunity even to grieve his death honestly, or to tell him that I still loved him, but could not sustain my life with him.
I am confident even through his control, alcohol and anxiety he genuinely loved me, while I continued to enable him he had moments of clarity, but then the shadow overtook him again, and finally I had to get out as those moments became less and less. Human nature says you want to protect those you love, thinking of people who jump into rivers to save their dogs and then drown, and realising I finally lost my compassion and took the step to save myself first and that feels selfish and the nag of guilt is still there.
Writing this down tells me I probably do need another session with my therapist, but to those who have been there, does this reasonate, is there anything you have done that helps bring the rational thoughts to the front, and reduce the guilt.