And you are allowed to leave him; he is not the boss of you.
What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here from you two?. Do you want to further do your bit here to teach them that yes this is how men treat women and that a loveless marriage is your norm too?. No you do not. Its not good enough for them and it certainly is not good enough for you either.
When marriages are angry, conflicted, or terribly mediocre, parents often default to staying together for the purported sake of the children. As our children grow older, they tend to replicate relationships similar to what their parents modeled. As parents we’d never say we want our children to suffer or struggle in their relationships. Yet that’s the greater likelihood. It’s not what we say, but what we do that matters. Telling our children they deserve healthy, respectful, and loving partnerships isn’t taken to heart if we don’t have the courage to live up to our own words. What we model for them is very much what we might expect for them in their future relationships. From this perspective we might question the sincerity of the expression “for the sake of the children.”
If we want our offspring to have joyful and successful relationships, we need to provide them with the best example we possibly can. Living in mediocrity or worse burdens children with very confusing messages about relationships and happiness. It certainly instructs them that loving marriages and partnerships are not their birthright.
Not infrequently, people are simply afraid to move on with their lives and take their own responsibility for happiness. Financial concerns, fear of him or the fear of being alone often motivate such paralysis hidden beneath the mask of staying together for the children. At other times, it’s easier to blame your partner for your discontent than to come out of your sense of victimhood. Unloving or conflicted marriages often follow a lineage as they are passed down from generation to generation. And so the cycle continues. Is this what we really wish for our children? It is much more challenging to come to terms with our own circumstances and face our fears than it is to hide behind them as we stay together “for the kids.”