husband refusing to let us separate

[sleeptrial]

He won't consider it, says he finds it unbearable and could never agree to it. I said I want to spend Sat with the kids by myself (he can have them sunday) as I just can't stand being with him, I find it really distressing. He says I have to spend saturday with him as its important for us to be a family.
He says he loves me and would do anything for me. This is demonstrably not true. He puts himself before me and everyone in his life, even the kids.
I have repeatedly told him our marriage is over and that I actively despise him. I have told him that I find it psychologically and emotionally tortuous to be with him,. I have told him that he is treating me like his belonging, and that he regards me as having no agency of my own or even seeing me as a person in my own right. I have told him that it is abusively controlling to try to keep me living with him and spending time with him when this is deeply distressing to me..
He is emotionally abusive and always has a reason to disregard everything I say (I am not devastated apparently, I am just angry. I am only unhappy as I am a pessimist. I only want to spend Saturday with the kids as I am spiteful. My reasons for anything are just hyperbole).

I have no job so I need him to agree to a separation until I can train and get a job of my own (two years at least).
I cry everyday and would be genuinely relieved if he died. I don't think I am asking anything really. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

A neighbour and her dh helped me move. Then I was on my own with 4dc.
Wishing you well op.

Sleeptrial, your circumstances are very similar to mine. I tried to separate from my H several times but each time he ignored me. In the end I borrowed money to take out a lease on a property and intended to move there with the children. He appeared remorseful and said he would move to the rental property to minimise disruption to the kids. When he had gone I felt like a weight had been lifted - I felt so free and happy again for the first time in years. The only problem is he kept “popping back” to pick things up, see the children, basically for various spurious reasons but mainly to check up on me and ruin any peace of mind I had. He would also be furious at me for showing that I didn’t appreciate him being there. Several months later, the lease has run out and he has moved back. He never gives me time alone with the children, he is always around. If I go out he phones constantly monitoring who I am with and when I will be back. If I refuse to tell him he flies into rages and has pushed me over twice. The rest of the time there is constant emotional manipulation: how the children and I are his life, how he can’t live without us, etc. Yet for years he has lied to me, treated me like an object and his only interest in me and the kids is how we can improve his life - he NEVER puts us dfirst. He isn’t a straight player - he talks the talk and can be very charming but he rarely fulfils his promises, puts his needs first and shouts and swears at the children when they don’t come up to scratch. I gave up a great job 12 years ago and am now working full time in a job that pays only a third of my previous salary - I couldn’t even afford rent where we are. I too would be moving the kids from a comfortable family home and great schools where they are happy and settled to a squalid flat without their beloved pets. Like you I am constantly thinking about an escape route but the options are just so few and so shit. In the meantime, H is playing happy families pretending nothing has happened - I am totally trapped in his make-believe world. I will be watching this thread and rooting for you .

How long have you been trying to leave for? Does he have any understanding that you have feelings? Otherwise he would most likely be sociopathic. Does he acknowledge that the children are separate people and also have a right to their own feelings or does he view them as an extension of himself?

He only understands my feelings in terms of how they make him feel. He is only able to centre himself. So anything I say, does not communicate anything to him about me, my situation or my feelings.
It only affects him in terms of how it makes him feel, usually it makes him feel 'got at', and then he needs to find a way to defend himself by shifting blame to me. So if I am say how unhappy I am, he responds by saying I have always been a miserable pessimist and it is my own fault I am unhappy. I've previously asked him, on numerous occasions, what he thinks I am good at, or what he respects in me.
He thinks and responds that I am good at making cakes (he likes cakes) or I make things lovely (in terms of lovely for him). In other words, he can't see me in any terms other than what I give to him. He doesn't remember important things that go on in my life and on some occasions, (my mum being diagnosed with dementia or the sudden death of a close colleague) he has only been able to react, angrily, to the impact on him because his dinner was late. I have come to realise he loves his children the way he loves me. He loves how he feels about them and how he feels when he is with them. He doesn't see them as people in their own right outside of this and he won't consider what is best for them, just the fact he wants to be with them as he likes that. He would never put them before himself, because he can't see them as people in their own right.

Where are you from and what country are you living in?

On reading your response you need to leave, with your kids. He will damage them. You will be poorer but your kids and yourself will be healthier. They stand a chance of a normal life with you. He sounds horrendous, completely lacking in normal empathy. You have to pull your big girl pants on and do what is right for you and your dc. It’ll be hard but they will thank you when they are adults.

On reading your update, the similarities between your H and mine are uncanny. My H describes himself as a sociopath. I think he has some form of personality disorder - possibly narcissistic. Are you an empathic person? Finances aside, how difficult would it be to bring your children back to the UK? Would he try to stop you? Is he a national of the country in which you are living?

You have to sneak away.

This man sounds like my x.
I went round in circles in a court case trying to win the right to leave him. I hadnt made a decision in 7 years. He was damned if he would allow me to decide i was leaving him.

A virtual court case that is.

IsSpring, yes, outsiders would think things are great. DH can talk the talk. Partly because he believes it. He thinks he is a good husband and good man. And he can say the right things in public. But I'm still nothing to him and he would, and he has, take everything from me to suit himself. Dh would be be happy in a make believe world too. IF I was 'being nice' and pretending all is ok, as he tells me I need too, he would be perfectly happy. He doesn't care if I actually am happy. I was thinking about this. He genuinely can't see how extreme and controlling his behaviour is. I guess he has never ever in his life thought about things from other people's perspectives. I think trying to explain to him what it is like to think about other people and their thoughts and feelings it like trying to explain to a blind-from-birth person what sight is. He has no conception of what that is, what considering other people as people in their own right is. And I can't stand it anymore, the lack of compassion and kindness, the complete intransigence that he is right and I just need to be happy, the throwing of blame and accusations at me, the fact that my feelings or thoughts never matter and there is always a reason why he doesn't need to listen to them. I hate him. Sometimes I feel so angry at him I want to smash the house up ( I don't though), other times I feel so overwhelmed and depressed I just want to curl up somewhere and never come out again. And its so lonely. Hurting so much and having the person who tells me he loves me just dismissing that and attacking me for feeling like this.
And yes, Ispring, I am an empathetic person.
I think I have confused you by saying I moved country, I have but to another country within the UK. We are still in the UK. IsSPring, I still fear he would try to stop me leaving. I mean, I am not allowed even to spend a saturday just me and the kids. He's been absolutely explicit that he won't even discuss us separating. He can't bear it, but he's not been selfish as the kids need a father. What I can't bear is irrelevant, as I am a miserable, hyperbolic, spiteful bitch who just needs to be get happy and be nice.
Ispring - are you still with your DH? Is it bearable as he has self-insight. Mine has none, he thinks he is great and what I say about him is unfair as I am expecting perfection from him. Which is just such utter bollocks as all I want are normal levels of involvement and respect and being regarded as an equal with views and opinions of my own and the ability to jointly make decisions that affect us both.

Sorry, I'm rambling I know.

OK - you need to stop trying to understand him, diagnose him, seek his acceptance that the relationship is bad/over.

You are wasting your breath and wearing yourself out. You will end up with a MH burnout that you may not recover from and then you and your children are trapped.

Step back and use your finite emotional energy and head space on plottng your way out.

Decide you are leaving.
Don’t tell him.
Make a long list.
Do one thing each day.
One day you will be mentally, physically, logistically all ready to walk out the door and not look back.
Get some confidencial counselling or RL support.
Your kids need to be away from this man and they need a mother present to nurture them as they will not have this from their DF not a subjugated and diminished shadow of a DM.

Thank goodness you are in the UK (although I know little about NI) and your DC are young.

Please please please leave him via Woman's Aid and a refuge - they will help you, it will give you breathing space and a chance to recover yourself

OP if you want to vent, that's OK.

But you understand that you have to actually make changes in order to make things change.

If you are in the UK still you are in a fairly good position. You will have access to a lot of benefits women in other countries will not have. You will not be on the streets. You have had advice to ring women's aid, and you could contact the council about housing.

But it's up to you really.