I lurk a lot on here and recently read a post by Anniegetyourgun on another thread. I hope you don't mind me copy-and-pasting some of the stuff you wrote here?
I think know my P is verbally abusive. Our relationship is awful beyond belief. I have read so many things on here in disbelief as they are exactly , sometimes verbatim things he says!
I know he doesn't care for my feelings an iota, I used to be exasperated in tears trying to get him to realise the what he had just said/did was wrong (ie - when he refused point blank to get up for the scan when I was preg with DC2 because he had a hangover!and shouted abuse at his mum for challenging him). It just doesn't register - he denies, minimizes, says he does it because of the way others speak to him .
He says downright nasty things almost daily and then excuses them as "jokes" , telling me I have no sense of humour . Example - today we had a disagreement over something small(baby's dinner) and he was going on (as usual) about how I'm a bully. I said that if he doesn't like me why stay? P then said snarled "You are just a bad habit I want to break" and then when challenged said it's not his fault I can't take a joke!!!!
He has laughed in my face before as I cried , He says things like "You're not very good at that are you?" whilst smirking like a wolf - ALL BECAUSE I FORGOT TO PUT GRAVY IN DC's DINNER.(recent example)
He is incredibly selfish and expects everyone to work around HIS schedule all the time. Last week I took a whole day off work willingly and without complaint on my part so P could go to a dentist appointment (he does childcare whilst I'm at work) - he left at 9am and came back at 9pm to tell me he couldn't be bothered going into dentist so just sat in his mum's whilst she was working, and informed me that I'd have to take another day off on Friday because he'd rescheduled it for then
P constantly has 'business' ideas , which he will take days unpaid off work (he is taxi driver) and sit around the house 'brainstorming' - but doesn't seem to realise/care that bills still have to be paid in the meantime, maybe he just knows I will pick up the slack. Even his own mum rolls her eyes when he describes his latest idea.
Here are the parts of Annie's post which really hit me hard -
"Or the sex thing. Any time he was up for it but I wasn't, I'd be terribly polite and apologetic but he'd still sulk for days. He would call my period "the convenient time", because he said it gave me an excuse not to be available . One time when I said not tonight please, I'm awfully tired, he told me that that was it, he was never initiating it again and if I ever wanted it I'd have to take the lead." The last sentence bout never initiating it again is exactly to the word , what P says! The fact is I was so incredibly attracted to him when things were good between us , and he is actually more physically attractive to me now (in a strictly physical sense) but although I haven't lost my libido (I still think about sex a lot! lol) I'm completely cold towards him. It's so weird because ordinarily I'd be drooling over him, but his behaviour has killed my lust for him stone-dead.
"Oh, there was that time I said we seriously had to talk about mortgaging the house. He said look, I've bought you some birdseed, and waved it in my face. I just stared at him helplessly, then went and locked myself in my room and howled for hours"
P does this too - completely ignores what I say sometimes (seemingly especially if it's something important to me) and seems to get some kind of pleasure from ignoring me and making me exasperated . Recently though I just don't care anymore - I just reply with a sarcastic remark , like I'm determined he won't get through to hurt me.
"One of several very liberating moments was the day I realised that it didn't matter any more what he believed, or claimed to believe. Nor did it matter whether he was doing any of this on purpose, though it would be interesting to know. I don't have to live with him any more. It may take a few more years to reclaim my sanity, but I expect to get there eventually. I twisted my brain every which way, trying to make sense of what he said, when all the time what he said in fact made no sense. Trying to understand why he felt that way about something, when either he didn't really feel it or a sane person would not. Now I have to untwist my brain and re-engage with Planet Earth."
This is where I'm at now. I know I want to leave - I've tried everything - suggesting counselling (he refused, saying he wasn't "inferior enough to need someone to tell him what to do") , DESC scripts (never got to the end without him storming out), I have wrote list after list trying to keep some view in mind mind of what is acceptable behaviour and tying myself in knots analysing everything I say to see if I was maybe in the wrong or being unreasonable or if his perception of me is correct. I feel I'm being 'swallowed up' by him and losing my own sense of who Iam , but I'm battling to keep myself. I know I need to leave, and as you can tell from this thread I've become more angry than upset but don't know if it's a good thing or bad that I'm so accustomed to it? I'm scared of being alone with kids (well he has also - textbook - threatened to take 'his flesh and blood' with him if I ask him to leave), or just being alone in general, but my fear of this has been surpassed by anger.
Sorry for the extreme length of post. I'm just getting it all off my chest, writing it down is helping me clarify it all and take the final step into realising that he will never change, his parents have let him take advantage and behave appaulingly his whole life (although he can be nice and charming and does do a fair bit of housework - but that's nowhere near enough to justify staying). I can't ask him to leave for a month or so anyway until youngest is in school all day so I have childcare for work, and I will no doubt face the wrath of his parents and him for 'splitting up the family over something so silly'. So if you people on here don't mind, I'm going to try and write a diary daily so I can look back when my resolve is weakening (when he's ok , even passibly nice for a day or two and I think 'Is it really that bad?') and I can have concrete evidence his behaviour is wrong.
Phew!