Married 13 years together 15.
Parent to an only child who is 2.
TLDR:
I need to leave and know I do but I've failed three times in the past and now have a child who I worry will be badly damaged by my leaving. Tell me you did this and co-parenting was okay? 🙏
Longer version:
I have left my husband 3 times during our marriage. He shouts at me and others, shuts down any conversation where I try to get us on the same page if there is a conflict, he stopped having sex with me about a month before we got married and it never really started again. Maybe like 4 times a year and crapper and crapper until I didn't want it.
I've moved to other cities for work and tried to leave, I had another relationship that started great but was just a rebound and ultimately made me sadder and I should have just had the self confidence to be alone and work out what I wanted, I've listened to other people tell me its abusive and they don't like him. And yet when I leave he becomes a different person and shows me so much attention that I get suckered in again. I'm such an idiot.
I started gestalt therapy this year and it was like having bags of sand lifted from my shoulders. I can see it all now and I've been so stupid to think I was as unloved and unlovable as I let him make me feel. I'm a big girl though and it's not all him, I came in a victim and I've just let that play out instead of having a bit of self respect and telling him to eff off. So it goes, you live, you learn.
So, I know I need to leave. I've checked my options and I can get a mortgage. I've found a huge maisonette on an estate near most of my family and friends, so I'd be around support but still in the same city as my husband so childcare could be shared. I've not made an offer yet but with the market the way it is it's safe to assume I could get it or something similar and that's something I never did before, I always left after a big fight rather than thinking my options through and setting myself up to succeed.
My worry though is that being separated from my child half the week will kill me. That what is a bearably unbearable situation will blow up and destroy his childhood and that now we have him perhaps I just have to suck it up.
My husband is a terrible husband but now that I grey rock him for the most part he's lost his power and we just sort of co-exist. I know kids know it's not quite right but I wonder if I should stay like this a while longer and leave when he's older and it will be too obvious it's not right.
Please, has anyone done this and come out the other side with a kid that feels happy? And how do you handle an ex who wasn't a kind or communicative partner, presumably that is unlikely to improve?