Separating?

[88mumof3]

My OH and I are separating. I'm so confused and scared. We have 2lo 4 and 2 and I'm 6 months pregnant. Things haven't been great for a while and we're arguing and I'm finding it difficult to show affection or be intimate which he craves. I'm finding this so difficult more so because of nasty things he's said to me, he's shown so much hate toward me recently and said a lot of horrible things, in my opinion his honest feelings and I can't forget. We can't talk properly as he's no good at communicating and flys of the handle into a rage everytime which ends in more arguing sadly. He pawns the kids saying thinks like mummy doesn't love daddy and just generally acts inapropriate in front of them which I detest. The kids absolutely adore him and he them. I feel like I love him but not the way I should, I would still love for us to be friends. I don't think the idea of him being with someone else hurts - maybe that would change on experience, but the idea of him having kids with someone else kills. Im so confused and not sure Im making the right decision but also not sure if I feel so attached purely because we have grown up together, we have been together since we were kids (15 ) literally half our lives. Any words of wisdom?

You are absolutely making the right decision to separate from him. You met him too when you were just 15 and therefore had no real life experience behind you; you've outgrown him and he is abusive towards you and his kids. The sunken costs fallacy is also playing a part here but that simply enables people to keep on making poor relationship decisions.

You need to contact Womens Aid on 0808 2000 247 and talk to them. I would also contact your GP, midwife and other pregnancy support services to extricate yourself from this abusive relationship asap. You will need this sort of outside support in order to do this. Where are your parents here OP, are they of any use here?. Do you have friends that can also be supportive?

Abuse is not about communication or a perceived lack of, its about power and control and this man wants absolute over you and his kids.
I doubt very much as well these children adore him but fear him instead. This individual is emotionally abusing his children too by treating them as he is doing with regards to you. He is emotionally messing with their heads. There is no way that you can and should remain friends with someone like this, its not possible nor indeed wise. He will not make it easy for you at all to leave and will likely remain obstructive in the long term as well but you do need to leave all the same. He will simply continue to drag you and your kids down with him otherwise

You are probably as well confusing love with codependency; I would do some reading about this too in the longer term.

Men like this take an awful long time, years even, to recover from and that process will only properly start once you are away from him. I would also suggest you enrol yourself in due course onto the Freedom Programme run by Womens Aid too.