I'm sorry it took me so long to come back here and respond to you. I've not really been in a good place mentally lately and I was feeling really triggered by your story.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of abuse.

Before things escalated in the last month or two before he started the fire, my husband did things that are considered physical abuse, but he only hit me one time. He was drunk and I had dozed off on a friends sofa after a night out when he came behind me and hit me in the side of the head. He once shoved me into a corner because I refused to kiss him. He would prevent me from leaving rooms. He would touch me against my will. He would intentionally disrupt my sleep. He would slam and throw or kick things around. Sometimes he would use his physical presence in ways that seemed meant to intimidate me. Sometimes he would use objects in ways that seemed meant to intimidate me: a baseball bat, a metal pipe. He threatened to blow our house up by holding a torch to a propane bottle. He "accidentally" set a quilt my mother had made for me on fire in the garage. He threatened to set our house on fire dozens of times over the years (turns out I should have paid more attention to that threat). Before getting educated on abuse, I probably wouldn't have considered most of the stuff above abusive. I would have just chalked it up to bad behavior by a mean, angry drunk.

Before the fire, things had been escalating. He started verbally threatening to kill me. He accused me of turning him into the main character from The Shining and told me he was going to go buy an axe. He would say things like "if you don't start talking to me, in about 5 minutes you're going to really wish you had". The day he said that he had me so unnerved after several hours of this that I left and slept in my car in a parking garage. One night he came into the room where I was sleeping, I said something that made him angry and he told me that he "should shove this sock down your throat and kill you". Then he held my head down and held a sock over my nose and mouth. When he left the room he told me "I have just enough energy to kill you right now". Another time I said something else that made him angry and he said "I ought to kill you". I was frustrated by that point and told him to come do it then. His response was "no, really, I ought to kill you".

When all this was happening, I didn't have a clue what to make of it because I was too caught up in the middle of it. I didn't believe that he would actually hurt me. I'd been with this man for 27 years. He said he loved me. How could someone who loves you hurt you? But the people in my life that knew what was going on seemed concerned. At my therapist's urging, I went to the local domestic violence agency and made a safety plan. A few days later, my husband was threatening to kill himself so I called his psychiatrist at 1 am. This made him really angry. He came in the room where I was sleeping on a sofa and after berating me for a few minutes, started kicking me. He hit me with the box of wine he was carrying. He threatened to put his cigarette out in my eye. He told me I "was this close" to, what I assume, is getting the crap beat out of me. This incident really shocked me. I remember pulling my blanket up tight around me and just shaking. He went in the other room and started apologizing for hitting me. Then he verbally abused me for a couple of hours. I have no idea why I didn't get up and walk out that night.

A few days after that incident, he started a fire in our living room floor and barricaded himself in the house for six hours. Two days after the fire I asked to speak with the crisis negotiator that spent those six hours on the phone with my husband. I was still in shock and was trying to figure out what happened and why it happened. She was nice enough to sit with me for two hours that day and talk to me. I told her a lot about our relationship over the last 27 years and how things had been escalating and about the threats to kill me. She told me that based on her 20 years of police experience that it was highly likely that eventually he would have followed through on those threats. I honestly don't know if he was trying to cause me harm with the fire. Maybe he just had a break with reality and didn't realize you shouldn't set your own house on fire. Or maybe he just thought he could get some attention from me by doing this but didn't think through all the consequences. I doubt I'll ever know.

The reason I am telling you all of this is because you should pay attention if he's threatening you. It's very easy when you're in the middle of it to ignore it and rationalize that he would never hurt you, but that may not be the case. I hope you can find a safe way out. Leaving isn't easy, but staying isn't easy either. Take advantage of whatever resources you have available to you. Someone else mentioned the Patricia Evans book. Another book that I found useful was "Why Does He Do That" by Lundy Bancroft. Find a way to tell your therapist what's going on. You could say "there's something I need to tell you about but I'm worried what you'll think if I tell you". Write him a letter if you can't figure out a way to say it out loud. Could you send him an email before your session? I'm sure he will be glad you shared with him. I think you will feel a great sense of relief in sharing.