I remember once I started modifying my reactions and not replying or replying in a disengaged manner, I also noticed how he would verbally up the ante and add in more things to try and get a reaction. I taught myself to focus on my breathing so as to keep calm and not respond, just observe.
There is another good book by Evan Stark on coercive control (it is called How men entrap women in personal life). He makes a lot of excellent points but the one which came to mind on your point about burying it is this (I might not explain this very well) - he argues that there is a perception in society that women have equality and that relationships and marriages are built on romantic love and partnership, and these are the ideals we are surrounded with, therefore it is very hard for women in abusive relationships to recognise it (because some of the control, jealousy and possessive behaviour can be dressed up as caring and loving, and because we are not brought up to recognise it) but also because then there is the problem of also feeling that your relationship and marriage falls short of this ideal. So you have the problem of how do you begin to articulate what is going on and process this, much less act upon it? Because first you have to understand in your mind that the societal expectations of equality and partnership are not being met in your relationship, far from it, and this is not something you alone can change in a dynamic of abuse (and I would argue you should not try), and you have something quite different on your hands. Second, there are very real practical and financial problems - Stark gives US figures I think for the disparity between men’s earnings and women’s earnings but it is also concern about children, societal expectations of an intact parental home, the way children can be used which mean it is easier to bury it and hold on to hope with the nice bits (but the nice bits are part of the cycle).
But also as I said before, burying is dissociation, it is how your brain copes. You hope it will get better because you want it to be better because the alternative is unthinkable. So the question is how to make the alternative (that your marriage is abusive, that it won’t get better if it has not already done so in 20 years) more thinkable. What do you have and can you do to improve your situation, to work towards getting financial independence for example (no need to post that on here but really have a clear plan in your mind)? What real life support do you have? Those are the questions to be asking.
A postscript about my xH and the recent situation - he then decided that he needed to speak to me about matters (which I was not willing to do as it always brings me down, plus more opportunity to get inside my head) so I said no by text, what did he want to know? He tried to call me three times after I clearly said no, and then we finally had the conversation by text. Ignoring a phone goes against social convention. But then so does calling repeatedly when someone has said no. So even now, I feel like I have to keep re-learning this situation and how to respond without feeling I am in the wrong (I am not!).