I reached breaking point, I want to leave my DH so badly but can't, not financially viable. It took me years and years of heartache to finally accept defeat. I tried really hard to understand, to adapt, to change so that I would help him be a better husband and father. How stupid was that? Why did I have to try and fix a problem that wasn't mine? I even did counselling! On me! When he was the f*ing problem all along. He never did any of that, no effort, not even a thought about the consequences of his actions on the people around him. I stayed for my kids. I put them first. I used to take them away from him when they were little so that they wouldn't have to hear or see his anger, mostly directed at me. We had a team name for the 3 of us that my son, who was only 4 or 5 at the time, came up with and we would join our hands and shout our team's name out. They are older now and when it gets a bit bad we still do it. It was a game then but it feels bitter-sweet for them now. They know why we do it. So, I want to go. I don't deserve the life I have to endure and I can see his anger now shifting on to my teenage daughter. I need to limit the damage that he has caused. How can I do it? I hate my life and what he's done to me. I became a liar, a weak, listless person. I hide my pain and the slow death that somehow happens every day that I can't be free to be myself. He loves our son, he bends backwards for him but not me and our daughter. My daughter can feel it and it must hurt so much. How can I leave and take them with me?
PS there is no physical violence so no imminent danger. He has never done that and I am confident that he never would. Once he threatened to punch me but didn't, and I was that desperate that I was secretly hoping he would. It would have given me a reason to get the authorities involved, get help and go for good.