Last night my partner and I decided to separate. He intends to contact an estate agent today to engage them to sell the house we own 50/50. We have an 8 month old DD. I'm the higher earner and my back to work plan would leave us on even salaries. We've never pooled our money, have own savings and split bills.
Background, we have been together 6 years. The relationship was difficult for the first 2 years due to his 'recreational' drug use and my mental health issues. I have had anxiety, depression and at times OCD from childhood due to trauma in my early years. At the time I did behave quite unreasonably and was difficult to be around, my partner wasn't very supportive which I put down to his inability to express or deal with emotions. He blamed me for all our problems and I was so low that I took that all on despite his drug use having a huge impact on our relationship too. We then moved to a new area, I sought help for my issues and he stopped taking drugs, things were good, we got along, we both matured and we had DD. Whilst I was pregnant old issues came creeping back in. I had a difficult pregnancy, was very emotional, and my partner wasn't supportive. Example being he refused to support me emotionally or physically on the day I had a mid pregnancy procedure because I had snapped at him the previous day. He will not tolerate any sort of snappiness under any circumstances and will then sulk indefinitely. He doesn't understand that sometimes people get stressed and snap, he takes it very personally despite me always apologising after. We had good and bad bits when baby was born, but as time has worn on his behaviour has got worse and worse. He has no respect for me, if we disagree he will shout at me that I'm a fucking cunt, useless piece of shit etc. He recently has just stopped doing anything around the house or with DD unless I ask him, then he won't do it straight away or will forget because he's playing on his phone (this is almost a permanent feature in his hand). When I ask again or show frustration with him, or try to talk to him about how he's making me feel he shouts at me, tells me I'm a fucking boring nag then uses the row to conveniently not do what I need. He doesnt know where anything is in the house, he will ask me where, say, the kitchen roll is when it's right in front of him, then when I tell him I'm sick of having to tell him where things are, he will have a go at me and say its easy enough for me to just tell him. He refuses to recognise the mental load he puts on me. He frequently tells me I'm too needy if I bring up the lack of interest or affection in our relationship. He rejects my feelings if I express them, and will instantly deflect by attacking me with some issue he has with me. Anything he perceives as a criticism of him he will shout at me. I try really hard to phrase things so it doesn't come across like criticism but obviously that doesn't work because the issue is him. He will never apologise for anything. If we have a row I will try to make up and apologise for my part, he will refuse to apologise and tell me he behaved like that because of me. He takes no responsibility for his own behaviour. I don't know if he genuinely believes I'm somehow in charge of his behaviour or if he just wants to deflect because he can't bear to confront how he's being. He doesn't shout in front of DD but will call me names and swear and I know its only a matter of time before she's taking this in.
I'm not sure what I'm asking here. Its taken me a long time to recognise this is abuse and because he's so insistent he wouldn't be like that if I didn't do the things I do, I still feel guilty and responsible for us breaking up, but on the other hand I feel so relieved at the prospect of not having to live like this anymore. My quality of life in the evening and weekends is crap-if we argue he will put the football on and tell me to fuck off upstairs and I don't really have an option. I'm starting to feel really sick and shaky when I know I need to ask him something because of the possibility it'll end in being shouted at. I do stand up for myself because I know whats going on isn't right but its literally impossible to reason with him, he just responds with verbal abuse. I feel like this is why it always ends in an argument and if I just did what he wanted/left him alone then we wouldn't argue. Part of me wants to convince him to stay together because I'm scared of the upheaval, and we have had really good periods where he's seemed to acknowledge he needs to change, but I know its not good for DD, or either of us. I know I sound really weak, and I suppose I'm just hoping for some kind posters to bolster me up a bit to actually go through with the split. I'm scared you're all going to tell me I'm the issue as well, I feel so downtrodden and awful but I really need some support. I've got good friends IRL who will always support me but they think leaving is just easy to do and my mum whilst lovely and caring tends to encourage me not to 'wind him up' which makes me question if its me even more.