(I've name changed just to not link to many previous posts as I'd like people's recommendation on what I'm saying now and not my previous threads)
I'm 2 years out of a marriage and still waiting for divorce to come through, we have young children together.
We had a tumultuous relationship that was very much love/hate, extremes of love and happiness and extremes of shouting and anger and frustration. He was emotionally abusive and controlling but not in the sense you'd first think of, he gaslighted me and I never knew if I was coming or going, convinced me he was in the right and I was wrong when it obviously wasn't the case, for example things like he had multiple emotional affairs (and a possible physical one which I'm fairly certain of but wouldn't admit to) but it always got turned around on me, I shouldn't have gone through his things to find out, I wasn't there emotionally for him. If I cried or was upset about something I'd generally be made me feel stupid and ridiculous for showing my emotions that way. I in the end became a shell of myself (I was 16 when we started dating, mid 30s now) and I feel slowly I'm regaining what I was.
After we separated (I left him) things got bad, he was very controlling, stalking, doing things to scare me pretending it was others so I'd have to turn to him for help, spying on me, many things. But I try to have a good relationship for the sake of our children, but I'm struggling to get over and see past a lot of the emotional abuse that happened and gaslighting and find myself still falling for stuff he does or getting pulled into arguments, and then sometimes making excuses for him and his behaviour in my head.
Are there any good books people know of that I could buy that help you understand and move forward and be made aware of emotional abuse, gaslighting etc? I still often feel in a fog many years of being confused. I can't afford counselling and feel desperate at the moment with all this time to think during these lockdowns.