Sorry about re-animating this old thread. How the hell was it ten years ago?! I was going through my watched threads and deleting them, and hadn’t realised there was more than one page. Hidden away was this thread that I couldn’t help opening and reading.
Bloody hell, me! I remember that pain and exhaustion almost as though it happened to someone else now. Thread after thread of lovely people offering their time and support to me when I felt utterly broken and so very alone.
Who knew a bunch of strangers could do so much. I don’t want to tag everyone who helped me, I don’t even know if everyone is still around, but my God you gave me strength and permission to do what I needed to do.
I doubt anyone remembers, but I do, and I always will.
Ten years have passed, ds1 is fully grown now and that baby is ten. It took me two more years before I finally left him. It took that long for me to feel absolutely certain I was doing the right thing.
And it was definitely the right thing. Of course I wish I had left earlier, but that’s not the path I needed to take, and I am grateful to the incredible women who didn’t hurry me.
Obviously after I left XH revealed his true colours and became the nightmare he always was. I had so clearly separated him into two people in my head; there was good dh and ill dh, but with the benefit of hindsight ill dh didn’t really exist, he had just given himself permission to be selfish. Bad dh was there from day one, but as long as I agreed with him and he was my main focus, it was fine (which is no way to live).
So the story doesn’t have a happy ending, but that’s only because it hasn’t ended yet! I’m still going! The dcs see xh once a month and have a positive, superficial relationship with him, I never see him at all, which is good because if I’m honest, I am scared of him despite knowing that he cannot hurt me anymore. The emotional abuse was tortuous, and I don’t know how I found the strength to withstand it for so long.
As for me, I have moved on. I have a lovely husband now - why didn’t anyone tell me relationships were supposed to be like this?!
On one of the threads I re-read, someone said to me, “I don’t think you are an unhappy person, I think this situation has made you that” (sorry I can’t remember who) and they were so right. I am happy now, not in an unrealistic Disney-way, but in a genuine, contented way. My dh has encouraged me to do the things that I love, and I’m slowly building a career in my passions.
Reading these threads made me feel sad, but I hope adding this bit might offer some hope to someone who is stuck where I was.
XH knew my MN name, so I had to leave crunch behind with the divorce, but I’m still around sometimes.
The most powerful thing anyone can do is give a person permission to leave. Often no one in RL will give you that. Since leaving many people have told me how glad they are that I did it - including the people who encouraged me to stay!
I just wanted to say a huge thank you. I cannot ever express how much you all meant to me, and how I couldn’t have done it without you - even though it must have felt like bashing your head against a wall at times 
sorry about that, but I promise your time was not wasted.
Thank you. Thank you for making my children happy (because they really are happy now, and they weren’t back then), and thank you for helping me find my happiness. It’s not in Dh - as much as I adore him, I have boundaries now, and the ability to not put up with shit for the sake of love - it’s in me.
I had to do a lot of rebuilding after things ended, a lot of damage had been done, but my God a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I was lighter than I had ever been.
Much love to everyone who has ever gently suggested leaving the bastard, you have no idea how empowering it is to be on the receiving end of it. It might have taken me 4 years from the first LTB to the last, but that was just the path I had to take 
