When did that 'actually I realise I deserve better' penny drop

[dontbesillyhenry]

For you? As I think it has for me.
Moving forward I don't know what to do but at least I've realised it and know what to aim for

When I held my newborn baby for the first time and realized I was just as good and fundamentally loveable /worthy as that baby - only I'd been told my whole life I was unacceptable/defective.

The house of cards took three years to fall completely, and I didn't know immediately what the end game would be, but that was the day that started it all.

There was a halfway point that caused me to begin to make quiet choices in the direction of leaving - watching the father of that 18 mo shove his own baby, in order to punish me. Heartbreaking.

I can clearly remember taking the child up, and knowing in my bones that I could never turn back, the only way out was through.

When he told me that when he came back from working abroad he was going to beat me up and abuse me and it wasn't his fault but he couldn't be held responsible for his actions (ie how badly he was going to hurt me). I told him never to contact me again. He tried a couple of times... I have heard on the grapevine that he was most put out that I actually kept to my word of ignoring him. Couldn't understand it at all

Three months ago after telling me he no longer thought he wanted children - I was just getting my head around having a miscarriage and starting to want to try again. That's when I realised he'd been emotionally abusive all along and I'd been unable to admit it to myself. I'd had many warning signs along the way but had ignored them all. He refused to come to the scan with me when I thought the baby had died, had been unwilling to let my mother visit while I was recovering from the miscarriage, refused to come to the follow up scan when I suspected the medical management had failed and had to be persuaded to come to the hospital when I had to have surgery. When he said he no longer wanted children I realised I didn't deserve to be treated like that and to have to fight for everything and that I couldn't sensibly buy a house with him (we were weeks away from exchanging and completing). That was just the last 6 months - I realised I'd put up with his shit, anger, tantrums and abusive outbursts for the last 4 years.

When I came back from work and he was asleep, passed on drunk on the couch, and had wet himself ... it was 5 pm and he was meant to be taking care of our 2 year old son.
We both deserved better and I knew that was never going to happen to us again

After 15 years. Three of us, me DS1 & DS2, had a bad vomiting bug. DS1 had, for the third time that day, thrown up in his bed and then over me while I carried him to the bathroom. DS2, then 8mo, followed his brothers lead by throwing up all over himself, cot, his room. I washed the kids, settled them, changed the bedclothes and bleached everything in sight. After loading the washing machine got the 50th time that day I asked DH to clean the downstairs toilet. He lost the plot and screamed "what the fuck is wrong with your hands".
It was far from the worst thing he'd ever said or done but something in me clicked. This was last year, I left him and got a barring order. He is livid that I actually told people our "private business"