I think this is going to be lengthy so if you manage to read to the end, thank you.
I’ve been with my partner for 6 yrs. we have a 1 year old and he has another teenage child who lives with us 75% of the time.
He is controlling and emotionally abusive and I need to leave before I completely break down. Examples are pressuring me into sex, telling me I need to lose weight then sulking when I start dieting/exercising accusing me of doing it for someone else. Telling me I’m a useless mum and can’t cope with our son (this is completely untrue). Stopping me from going out and more recently he’s started arguments about me going to work and wants me to work from home so he doesn’t have to help with nursery drop offs. There’s loads more.
He is capable of looking after the children but he does anything he can to avoid having our son on his own. He complains about doing nursery drop offs, won’t put him to bed, doesn’t change nappies, give him meals etc. He can and will do it if for any reason I’m not there but never willingly, if that makes sense. Apart from this there are no concerns over his parenting.
When he split with his previous wife he asked for their child to stay with him 4 nights a week, which they agreed on. They live very close to each other and the arrangement has worked for them. I have told him I want to leave him and he’s saying he wants the same arrangement for our child. My son is used to seeing me every day and night. We co sleep most nights and he was bf until very recently. I feel I can’t possibly be without him for any nights but understand I am going to have to be reasonable and expect overnight stays. It’s just not in his best interests though for him to be with him 4 nights. The thought of it makes me physically sick to a point where I’m desperately trying to pretend to want to save the relationship to avoid it but I don’t think I can take any more.
If I left I would need to live with my parents for a while until I could afford to rent somewhere, and they live 20 miles away, so logistically it would be difficult, however he’s not interested and wants 3 to 4 overnight stays and will not consider anything else. As we have joint PR I do not have a leg to stand on and I’m terrified.
I don’t know what to do. I just want to run away and hide from him forever but I know that’s not the answer. I genuinely think he is only doing it for control and I think he did this to his previous wife too (I’ve tried to subtly speak to her about it but wasn’t very successful so this is just a guess). I would really appreciate some advice from experience. Am I just going to have to suck it up and cope with his requests (or stay till my son is old enough to decide for himself?).