Your story sounds familar to me, but, as the daughter of someone like your husband, I have a different view.

My parents were married for thirty-five years, and my father was an alcoholic who alternated between being cold and distant and verbally abusive. Mom didn't have the money to leave him and move somewhere else, and the marriage only ended when my father died.

I wish Mom had been able to leave her husband, and I hope that you can find the strength to go through with leaving yours and spare yourself further pain. You deserve to really live.