Thanks unaluna. Yes, you may be right about all that. The bit you have given to me as a possible revelation is about whether my husband sees niceness as a weakness. That is possible but I need to process & come to understand that. I hadn't thought of it. I think he has learned a sort of fake niceness but that is not the same thing. He certainly isn't transparent & open. I have wondered whether he can be genuinely nice as I have wondered for good reason whether he has no empathy. I also wondered how much autism was in that but maybe that is not the issue as he is too calculating and can be extremely nasty.

After working on understanding many aspects of my situation in the decades since I met my husband, I'd say you are absolutely right about my husband not having the goal of being nice to me unless he is after something. As my understanding of the matter has progressed, I have tried to keep that in mind when my husband behaves without niceness towards me. He certainly doesn't seem to hold To many of the standards I hold about good behaviour and the need to try to be true to that. And he often seem to act self-centerdly and without sensitivity, good principles and the sort of logic I aspire to. In fact, a great insight (via a dream I had many years ago) I had was that my husband and his brothers are like highway robbers with guns and & who hide away in the dark. They play a lot of power over games. I try to live true to my own values and I don't hope anymore to be able to change him. My challenge is to work out how to stay calm & detached despite his bad behaviour. I am sure I don't know everything about that. And I think it is still very possible I am making some mental errors that enable him to get to me. These would be to do with the personal areas I need to work on, my "weaknesses" that it seems he can home in on though he may mistake where I am at and talk down to me or manipulate me in ways I know are nonsense. I know I could do better.

Mindfulness; trying to live more healthily; and becoming wiser and more advanced spirititually have helped a lot. A lot was involved in that. I am still trying to progress and I am waiting on my bouts of inflammatory arthritis to settle and then I plan to work belatedly on exercise. Right now I am very stiff & in a lot of pain & do not have enough energy (my doctor says I am sick).

We humans are blind to many things, including what goes on in our subconsciousnesses. I am still trying to understand my subconscious better. I stated working on that as a teenager.

Without going into the details, I have only recently become enabled to have a greater range of choices with regard whether I stay or go. I am taking that "breakthrough" slowly and there are various good reasons for that. I am taking one step at a time, taking the time to reflect & deal with what I need to deal with. There is no need for great speed; rather there is great need for careful decision making, one of these reasons you wisely pointed out.

Interestingly, I have started to wonder more (intuitively) about my safety with him and I should trust that more.

Your reply has helped me think more. Thanks.