I just joined this forum today to ask for help. Re-posting from another forum for more help:

My mother is in a sexually/emotionally/psychologically abusive relationship which she put up with for ~20 years but has gotten worse lately (2 years now). For 6 months she's been sleeping in a separate room from my dad. They've been to a psychiatrist because he is manipulating, childish, has anger management, and claims to suffer depression. Apparently he only needs counseling. But they've been going to marriage counseling (~5 months) and it's proving pointless. In all this time he hasn't changed much, he's only gotten weaker (he's not as aggressive, he's much more immature/childish, he's lazier). We feel like if my mom did move back into his room, he would get back to how he used to be.

So now we feel almost hopeless. I have always wanted her to leave but my sister read online that the most dangerous time for a victim of abuse is leaving. My dad has no social/work life outside of the home. He has no family other than us either. He has said to me that he wishes he could rebuild a new life with a new family but he loves us too much. I am pretty sure that if we left he would kill himself or come after us and kill us first. How can we get rid of him? I have talked to my mom about leaving quietly but he holds more than half of the family income and almost everything is under his name (despite the fact that he's always been a stay-at-home parent and his business was bought with my mom's savings). She would be supporting 3 kids and me with a modest income. Also take into account that the safest thing to do would be to move to a different part of the country and change our names (and buy a new house and car and find employment). And I'm in the middle of a university program that I might not be able to finish if we run away. I feel so trapped... I wish it were as easy as calling the police and having him put behind bars, as silly as I may sound, I really wish so.