This will end up being a time of realizing WHAT YOU believe, learning that YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, defining YOUR VALUES. A time of really finding out who you really are & getting your career going. For me, I found it to be scary at times & exciting at others as it's really a time of complete discovery, a time of sorting out the TRUTH about what was really going on in that relationship without your husband telling you what you are thinking or doing in the relationship

I know when I left my husband (initially it wasn't planned on it being permanent), but after I left, I realized that I never had any feelings for him. He had done & said things before we got married that caused me not to respect him & he never did anything during our marriage to change those feelings. I realized after I left that I couldn't love someone that I never respected & it was quite an eye opener to realize that I never did care about him. It was nothing but work to return any affections because in reality, they didn't exist. I used my career to keep me away from that. I had values that I believed in before I got married such as save your money up before buying what you want & pay cash for it.....that was the farthest thing from his belief. Sadly, I allowed myself to be manipulated into acting in that same way....it was easy & when we both had our aerospace engineering jobs, we had the money to make those monthly payments on a few things.....even though I knew that it was the wrong way to run our finances, I handed the finances over to him so that I wouldn't fight & get angry about what he was doing & there were things that I wanted to buy too, things that I really didn't need. But even with that, I ended up finding that I was constantly fighting with him about his values. When I finally was away from that tension, it was obvious how bad it was for those 33 years.

The best thing after I left him & ended up having NO MONEY, I was able to go back to the beliefs that I held before I ever got married. It was like finding myself again & then the fact that I had never lived alone & never had to take care of myself, was a scary situation I put myself into also along with moving to a place 2400 miles away where I didn't know anyone. I had never lived alone before so I needed to build up the confidence that I could take care of myself. I got to the point after I lost my career that I never cooked for myself & I never cleaned the house. I went on strike because I felt that he was taking advantage of my not working when he would come home from work & throw his mess down & never pick up after himself. I wasn't about to become his slave when I never liked him in the first place. I can't even remember the number of sui attempts I ended up going through because of the feeling of not belonging anywhere & my feeling of fighting where I was where I didn't want to be along with feeling no purpose as being a wife & mother were never a purpose that never held a value of where I wanted to be in my life. My career was the only thing that defined my value. I separated from my husband in our own home during those 13 years until I was finally able to be free.

Your children may be worse off with their relationship with you if they do stay with your husband. Seems that he may try to turn them against you considering everything he's saying even now. That's a high price for you to pay......just means that you will have to work harder at keeping those relationships open & the communications going freely.

Take the time slowly & be aware of your emotions so you can acknowledge the feelings & lack of feelings you have been experiencing all these years. I know I have learned so much about myself & that has been the best part to really get to know myself & fix the things that aren't working because it's a lot easier to focus when you don't have a husband mouthing off at you constantly.