Sorry mpv, you asked me a question days ago but I lost sight of the thread. (Terrible habit of posting and wandering off, and never use "threads I'm on"!)
I never thought of divorce as an option. I did find, though, after years of him pressing the same buttons, they began to wear out, so that him threatening to emigrate without us, for example, at first had me begging him to stay, look at the positives etc; later on I no longer believed he would, and eventually I was offering to buy his ticket.
I had a bit of an online emotional affair at the last knockin's, something I'm not at all proud of. It didn't go anywhere or last long, but it reminded me how the love of my life should have been treating me (and how little effort it would have taken; the party of the second part only had to throw me a little compliment or show he had been thinking of me/listening to me and I was like a puppy with two tails). XH rang up his sister and told her we were getting a divorce so I could be with this other man, explained how we would organise the finances and joint childcare, perhaps she would like to come over and share a house with him when her own divorce was finalised etc. I listened to this and thought what a great idea (except for the living with the other man thing, that was never part of the plan!) Of course XH never meant a word of it, but once I'd seen the light there was no going back.
For a few months longer I continued to agonise, mainly about how it would work with the DCs. He told them I was leaving them all to go and live overseas with "OM" (who by that time had dropped off the scene) and they were understandably devastated and bewildered. Also he was sort-of the main carer for the youngest so I risked losing residence of my wee babe. However, I realised my mental health was seriously going downhill and that I had to get out soon or be carried out by the emergency services! But the way he manipulated and lied to get the DCs onside eventually confirmed that I was right to be "breaking up the family" as he put it. It wasn't doing the DCs any good being in that atmosphere either.
By the time the house was sold they had all pretty much stopped blaming me, but still felt safer with him because it was what they were used to. Gradually, though, I think they realised who it was who had made the family home habitable, and they began to migrate to mine. These days my house is the home base and XH dips in occasionally to take them out. So it all worked out my way in the end... but it didn't half hurt to start with.
I just look at him (when I don't have a choice) these days and see a strange dried-up shell of a creature who I can't imagine ever having had positive feelings for. I loved that man? Suppose I must have done. It's quite hard to imagine these days. We've been divorced for four years.