I'm a boiled frog. I just had a look at my MN posting history, and for 7 years I've intermittently posted in Relationships about my husband. I'm so annoyed with myself. Seven years ago, I wasn't going through perimenopause, I didn't have long covid: I would have been mentally and physically strong enough to leave him. Now, well it's taken me about a month just to post this, just because I couldn't raise the energy to type it out. I can barely get through a day's work, I'm that exhausted.
For the fist several years of our relationship, I was totally love bombed. He thought I was amazing, he agreed with all my values, and he loved my positivity and bubbly personality. Then drip, drip, drip over the years, he very gradually turned negative, irritable, a terrible communicator, fussy, a perpetual victim, blames everyone and anyone apart from himself for all of his life's ills, a gaslighter, a stonewaller, a deflector, defensive, passive aggressive, and he trusts no one: he assumes everyone is a liar. He firmly believes he is superior to everyone. He has no friends, is no contact with his family, rarely leaves the house.
A couple of months ago, I had surgery and I had a tough recovery. Instead of treating me with compassion and kindness, he chose that period to fall out with me. He looked after me, but it was all done with irritability and much tutting and sighing. And then a few days after my surgery, he verbally attacked me with this huge list of 20 years worth of things I'd done wrong - honestly he was raking things up from 20 years ago that I couldn't even remember - and how I was responsible for him having no hobbies or friends. (I'm not.) The bile and contempt and hate for me all came out: most of it lies and twisted and manipulated to suit this narrative he had convinced himself of. I was appalled, and far too ill and exhausted to respond or deal with it. He then gave me the silent treatment for several days, then suddenly he was all 'I love you; I can't imagine life without you'.
He has form for having to be right about everything, even the most ridiculous and innocuous things: he has to come out on top. He's the most defensive person I've ever met - ever - and he can't stand being asked to do anything, e.g. if I ask him to take my coat upstairs when he's going upstairs anyway with his hands empty, he irritably refuses because, well I don't know why actually, I think he feels like he's deferring to me if he agrees to a small favour?? He will go massively out of his way to prove someone else wrong. He takes notes on the neighbours and on his colleagues, in order that he can use them as 'evidence' when they do something 'wrong' so he can then demonstrate his superiority. He even did it when a neighbour accidentally took our wheelie bin. He will not accept that people are human and make mistakes: he expects absolute perfection, and that perfection has to match his own values.
And this is exactly why I know he would move heaven and earth to destroy me if I did the ultimate betrayal and told him I wanted a divorce. He would make my life as hellish as he possibly could. He would block me every step of the way, dispute every little thing, tie us up in legal knots. He absolutely would have to come out top, knowing that he's destroyed me and he's won. If he could, he'd leave us with no money at all: he'd happily lose out on £thousands: it would be worth it as long as he knows that he's won and I've lost.
So I've spent the last 7 years coming up with excuses for myself not to leave. Obviously he's not a twat all the time. He's lovely more than he's horrible: supportive, loyal, funny, great company, blah blah blah. I'm not a total idiot: I haven't stayed this long with someone who's awful 100% of the time. And it's all been reeeallly gradual onset, so I almost haven't noticed it. And of course a lot of the time, he has very successfully made me think I've got things wrong: he's exceptionally talented at denial and twisting things. So I can persuade myself, well he's so lovely most of the time. Or, make myriad excuses to myself that I wouldn't get a mortgage on my own (I'm newly self employed), or that it's too difficult to work out care for our dogs who have separation anxiety, and so on and so on.
I know I need to leave. But it seems momentous. Not just knowing that he'll probably send me over the edge mentally (I still feel emotionally battered from how awful he was after my surgery), but also the sheer amount of untangling of our lives that's needed. Mortgage, house, accounts, shared subscriptions, belongings, cars, dogs. (No children, thankfully, makes things a bit less daunting). Knowing that there will be a period where I've told him I want to leave and having to stay in the house with him while we work out how to separate: he'll make my left hell.
Please, has anyone else left someone like this? How did you do it??