Help please! I need to leave. How do I leave??

[KatyTheCleaningLady]

I have posted about this before. I'd resolved to leave my husband as I feel my mental health worsening from the strain of being around him.

I was just trying to think of a way to leave. Money-wise. He won't leave. He has nowhere to go and is just passive.

I have told him very, very clearly that I want to separate. I have spelled it out to him and I am unable to really describe how he's reacting. It's horrible. I almost wish he'd rage and scream and throw things. Instead, he's being very... he's fawning and cringing and begging me to stay. He's offering to "live as brother and sister" and saying I can go out with other men. He's constantly hovering and fixing me cups of tea.

And then he sexually assaults me in my sleep.

I can't stand this. I am going to lose my mind. I can't even go into detail on some of the shit that is going on - there's personal stuff I can't disclose - but it's really crazy and I'm not sure if anything is real or if I'm just moving around in a delusional nightmare. I'm not sleeping or eating. I'm drinking a lot. I go out - it looks like I'm having fun. I have been going to gigs and getting drunk. And he waits for me at home and talks to me in this weird sickly sweet way. And then I wake up in the middle of the night and he's touching me. And I feel so disgusted with myself because I'm responding physically.

I hate him. I used to think he was this nice man that I didn't deserve and everything was all my fault.

I'm not coping well. I'm misplacing things and not taking very good care of my children.

I need to leave but where do I go? I'm even willing to leave the children temporarily. It's the financial burden of needing a place where they can live that is keeping me here. But I could get myself a room/bedsit situation. And then sort out everything else later?

Or would that make me a really shitty mother? Surely a good mother would stay and go down with the ship rather than walk away from the kids even for a month or two.

I do work. And I have the potential to make more money. I just need to have my own space and get on my own feet. He's taken care of everything. All the bills. I don't even know how to book a car in for an MOT or pay council tax (I'm from another country.) How did I end up here? What the fuck is the matter with me?

Does anyone have any practical advice for me?

On the subject of practicalities, I think you're worrying unnecessarily. For instance, Council Tax bill is sent to your house, and paying instructions are on there (you can pay over the phone or by direct debit around here I think, though I'm exempt). For an MOT, you ring up your local garage and ask for an MOT appointment. These things are not particularly difficult, and really shouldn't present a barrier to you leaving.

Fuck sake, I meant to say of course you are NOT abandoning your children

I'm so sorry. Preview posts from now on.

I know I'm worrying unnecessarily. I know I can deal with all these things.

I do think he'll be OK as a parent on his own. I suppose being uncontactable would be unrealistic, but I can make it clear that he has to sort things that happen during his week/time.

I'm going to be away this weekend. Can't stand to be around him. I'm going to have to talk to him tonight about him needing to leave or me leaving or something. But the thought makes me sick.

Women's Aid said that I am not in a domestic violence situation and there's nothing they can do for me. She said "He sounds annoying but that's not abuse."

And I agree with her.

You told them he sexually assaults you in your sleep? Ime although it's not direct personal experience WA take sexual abuse seriously