I know I need to leave but don't seem to find the courage to tell DH

[BodenMad]

Things have been fraud between me and H for a long time. This autumn, I had really had enough and told him I wanted to get divorced.
To cut a story short, he said he was going to make an effort and I agree to give it another go.
So things have got better due to both of us making a huge effort (him stopping his unacceptable behaviour, me letting go of some of the things that have happened).
The atmosphere in the house isn't one where you can feel anger and ressentment all the time.
But... I don't think I am in love with him anymore. Too many things that hurt me a lot and have destroyed it. There are also all these little things that annoy me and his attitude to any discussion where I might say that I don't agree with the way he does things.

So I have been thinking a lot of telling him 'I'm not in love with you I want to get divorced' but each time I feel so guilty about it.
When I read threads on here about a DH leaving, I can see how my H could be so badly affected by it. I know he would like things to be as they were before (a long time ago, before we had kids...).
In some ways, I have this feelings that I haven't made enough efforts yet to be 'allowed' to leave iyswim.
I am worried that our relationship that now can function at some level will get worse and it will affect the dcs badly.
I am worried of the stress coming with a divorce.
I am worried I should be waiting a bit more (again) to see if we can make it through.

So when do you know you've tried and that trying more will not make it better?

Feelings don't have an on/off button and regardless of your intention to forgive, you can't erase the effect that your DH's behaviour may have had on you. It just doesn't work like that. Healthy relationships have some elasticity to them but if one partner stretches them too much they can't spring back to what they were no matter what you want them to do.

It's a very hard conversation to have but may be necessary if you genuinely see no future in your relationship. It's dishonest and cruel to both of you to pretend otherwise.

Like you, it took me a long time to get to "the conversation". We'd discussed splitting up in theory several times before but always decided to try and work things out first.

Eventually, I got home one evening from work, told him that I was feeling completely hopeless and asked him straight out whether he honestly thought there was any realistic chance that we could fix our relationship. He admitted he didn't either and we started to talk divorce.

It was a huge relief to both of us and our mutual honesty gave each of us back a bit of respect that we'd lost for each other.

We'll be filling in the petition together in the next few weeks and so far appear to be agreed on everything regarding kids, money etc..

How long have you been together / married? How many times have you tried to fix things up before? How likely is it that he can stop his unreasonable behaviour?

If you've been together for a number of years, you've tried and failed to fix things in the past and doubt that he can really change then I think you need to bite the bullet and start the difficult conversation for both your sakes.

Thanks. It is nice to hear from someone in a similar position (not that it is a nice position to be in).

I can totally relate to the the fact that it is dishonest and cruel to carry on if you can't see any future. This is exactely how I feel at the moment when I see the pain on his face (Not that he doesn't try to hide it)

The struggles come back from about 7 years ago when our first dc was born. I feel that I have tried for all that time to keep everything together, to see what I was doing that was so wrong that he was so unhappy and difficult to live with.
Since we talked about splitting up 6 months ago, I have felt that I have nothing left to give iyswim, as if I had already being giving too much. On the other side, H has suddenly realized that he was going to loose it all and has being doing a lot of the giving. It makes me sad as it feels that it's too late but also that, if we had been able to do these efforts at the same time, then we would have been in a much better position.