How do you decide whether to leave a long term relationship, especially when you are married with children?

[Katnissx]

I keep circling around feeling unhappy with my partner and our relationship and keep having thoughts about leaving him. I am not in a great place with my mental health and have been struggling with PND since my youngest was born, I am getting support for this and am on medication, but I keep feeling like I can’t really trust what I’m feeling as sometimes I still do feel really happy with my husband and feel like I do love him, but then it circles round again and I feel like I want to leave him and I just don’t know how to decide what the right thing is to do? How have other people made this decision? It wouldn’t be so hard if we weren’t married with two children, I hate the idea of splitting up our little family and my children growing us with divorced parents like I did. But then I also don’t want them to grow up in an unhappy environment or be constantly around my husband when he is in a low mood and stressed out and angry towards them. I also feel like I will have nothing left if I leave my husband, I’ve grown apart from my close friends and my mother makes my mental health worse (my dad is not around). I also haven’t been working for the last few years so I really don’t know where I would go or what I would do if I left...
Any support or advice would be appreciated.

As someone who have been where you are - I had a severe PND after my 2nd child and am divorced now - I’ll say this.
One step at a time.

First you need to focus on getting your MH under control. This is important for yourself and your children.
And once you are better - then you you can see if you still want a divorce or if it’s part of your symptoms. Also - trust me - divorce is hard enough when you are stable. Dealing with it while battling PND would be extremely hard and may hurt you even more.

Sorry you are where you are right now. But it will get better. I hope your medical support is there to get you through this.

@Jsku Thank you for your reply, that was really helpful. I think that sounds like the right thing to do, to get my mental health sorted first. I think one of the reasons I keep thinking about it is because I feel like he negatively effects my mental health and makes me feel low, so sometimes I wonder if leaving would be a good thing for my mental health. But yes when I really start to think about it there are so many factors to it and it does make me feel very overwhelmed and I think I would really struggle, so it does seem sensible to wait.
Do you mind if I ask how you made a decision once you had sorted out your MH? And do you have any advice on housing? We currently rent, and don’t live close to family and I wouldn’t really want to move in with my mum but would want to move back to that area to have support from her and friends (so wouldn’t want to stay in our current rental), but have no money to rent by myself or to buy a flat/house.

OP - you can’t figure things out now. Really - just focus on you MN first.
And then, if I were you - I’d try to rebuild my life a bit. Reconnect with friends. Figure out work situation. Etc.
So that if/when you decide to divorce you will have a life of your own to fall back to.

There's a book I read called "too good to leave too bad to stay"
It really helped me

Thank you for the replies. I found that e book online and have started reading @HornbeamLane.
Is it still best to wait and focus on my MH first if he is negatively affecting my MH? Like I’m upstairs now reading, feeling calm, and then I just hear my husband angrily shouting at my son and I just feel like a weights dropped in my stomach and I instantly feel low and tearful...

I knew if I didn't get out, I would end up killing myself.

Divorce seemed like the less traumatic options for my kids.

Ita been a long road and I have always had to out the kids first, because their father won't. It's meant some sacrifices and it's not easy.

But better than coping with their mothers suicide.